Two bridges connect downtown Monterey with the Oak Grove residential neighborhood and the Naval Postgraduate School.

The 24.7-acre (100,000 m2) El Estero park complex has dedicated spaces for recreation with a baseball field, skatepark, and the Dennis the Menace Playground.

In 1770 the first map of Lake El Estero was made by Miguel Costanso, a Spanish officer and engineer in the first expedition to California.

[1] In April 1874 the Monterey and Salinas Valley Railroad was built which permanently cut off the stream connecting El Estero to the Bay.

Between 1938 and 1951 vast improvements were done to the park including “drudging and shoreline plantings[2] and “two bridges connecting Pearl with third street.

Lake El Estero is an ecosystem that supports large amounts of life and is home to a countless number of birds, fish, and plants.

It will include a treehouse, a free-floating raft, a maze, a drinking fountain in the form of a lion's head, weird-looking devices to stir a child's imagination."

The Dennis the Menace Playground was designed by cartoon writer Hank Ketcham and with the help of sculptor Arch Garner.

[5] The playground opened on November 17, 1956, with a variety of children's play areas including a 1924 locomotive steam engine, donated by the Southern Pacific Railroad[6] In 1986 a renovation of the park was done, led by landscape architect Richard Murray and cost at least $300,000.

[7] The city worked with Fort Ord, former United States Army post, to move the steam engine to the park in January 1956.

[5] In 2013, due to liability concerns, a fence was placed around the steam train engine and lion's head drinking fountain.

In 1988 Ketcham commissioned Academy Award-winning animator and sculptor Wah Ming Chang to make the original statue.

It was donated by Willis W. and Ethel M. Clark Foundation, founders of the California Test Bureau, now known as CTB McGraw Hill.