The hulking presence of a bulldozer and the incessant buzz of a power drill did not keep five year-old Daniel Neczypor from sampling the thrills at the nearly completed playground at the Cambridge Common yesterday afternoon.

"I really scared myself. I went down backwards," he yelled as he toppled to the bottom of one of the playground's three brand new slides.

The renovations, started this summer but delayed because of problems with materials, is expected to be finished in two to three weeks, said Robert Sacca, head of the company in charge of production.

But Cambridge children and their parents are already taking advantage of the retooled playground. "It's a lot more fun now that the whole place is all set-up," Daniel said.

Standing next to Daniel in the sandbox, his mother, Ann Neczypor, called the playground "one of the better parks around."

"We used to come here every day, but it was a rather pathetic structure," she said.

Other residents also said that the months of waiting were worthwhile. "Before," said Dorothy Krol, "the park wasn't good for toddlers. There were no good swings or slides and it was kind of boring."

Construction workers, after the old playground was torn down, started working on the new one "far too long ago," said Cambridge resident Laura O'Connell. "It was very frustrating having nothing here for a while," she said.

The new playground sports a wooden car, a still-to-be-completed play house and the sandbox. But the area is dominated by a wooden-planked, multi-tiered fortress, equipped with ladders, ropes, and green and black tubular slides.

"The fad for parks now is with big castles,"said Ann Neczypor. "But with this one, thechildren can use their imaginations a lot more."

Gushed Christopher O'Connell, a two year-oldstudent at the Cambridge Montessori School, "It'sgonna be the best park in the world.