By Nick Casey

The “Big Red Shoe” during its final days as a play structure.

It looks like a giant wooden shoe and it has sunflowers outside and carpeting inside. There’s a flight of stairs, a tunnel, several windows and dozens of children.

The “Big Red Shoe” has remained a landmark on the grounds of Mountain View Parent Nursery School since shortly after the daycare cooperative opened in 1969. When the school moved, so did the shoe: first from El Monte Avenue to Miramonte Avenue, then to its present location on Bryant Street. It has endured as staff and children came and went.

But this year will be the last for the Big Red Shoe. Soon it will walk away for good.

The shoe is suffering the same fate as many pieces of vintage playground equipment in recent decades: demolition in the wake of stricter California safety codes. “It’s very sad news for the shoe, but this is the legislation,” said Betsy Nikolchev, director of nursery schools.

In January 2000, the state approved new safety standards for licensed child care centers and all public playgrounds, including schools. The standards fell under the Health and Safety Code of California, requiring all child care centers licensed before 1999 to be inspected for safety by a certified playground inspector.

Alas, the Big Red Shoe did not pass the inspection.

“But we were able to retrofit,” Nikolchev said.

Panes of plastic were installed to cover windows, and the structure itself was reinforced. Kids continued to roam within the shoe.

But Nikolchev said that as the laws evolved, it became increasingly unlikely that the shoe could pass another inspection. While there has not been a safety issue in 26 years, the structure is slated to be demolished this month.

“I like racing toys down the shoe,” said 4-year-old Simon Burdick, a student at the nursery school.

On the slide, which forms the tongue of the shoe, Simon demonstrated, first using two skateboard figurines, then sliding down himself.

Simon said he was sad that the shoe had to be taken down because he plays on it with friends at least two or three times a day.

And it isn’t only children who will be sad to see it go.

“It was where I met my best friend Evan,” recalled Mark Evit, an alumnus of the nursery school. Evit, who is now 23 and works at a law firm in San Francisco, remembered the Big Red Shoe as a “unique place, not the same type of playground equipment that you see in elementary schools.”

“When I was a child it seemed really big,” he said. “I came back years later and realized it was built for children who were 4-feet tall - it’s actually kind of small.”

Plans for replacing the shoe are still under discussion, but Nikolchev sees a possibility of a water-play area.

“But nothing can replace it,” she said. “It was a wonderful adventure and a great memory for the children.”