The sun was shining extra-hard on Clark Park on a late-spring Saturday,
jun 14.
That’s when the park inaugurated a spanking-new basketball court, a
$100,000+ capital improvement, while scooping up a promise of $450,000
more to rebuild the beloved but battered North Park (Park A). Those
nearly half a million dollars will be the largest single infusion of
public monies into Clark Park’s infrastructure since the 1960s.
Speaking at the ribbon-cutting, Mayor Michael Nutter hailed the
partnership that has been striving to improve the park ever since a 2001
Revitalization Master Plan was adopted by the Recreation Dept. “This is
the kind of teamwork we need to bring about positive changes for
Philadelphia,” he said.
Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell echoed the Mayor’s thoughts. “The
community must be united,” she admonished a crowd of 100 pumped-up park
users. “If it unites, it can win and it can turn itself around.”
Nutter, who grew up at 54^th & Larchwood, said for him, “the park” was
always Malcolm X Park. But Clark Park has always been important, not
only to University City, but to all West Philadelphia, he went on. Parks
and recreation have emerged as a priority in his administration’s first
big budget moves, compared to the previous 16 years, during which Mayors
Ed Rendell and John Street put green space on the City’s back burner.
That’s terribly important for what may be the 9-acre flagship of Rec’s
75 “community parks”. A study has discovered more than 1,600 persons may
be using Clark Park, on an ordinary day in the peak season. At any given
hour, 200 or more may be relaxing, in a dozen different ways, on its
fields and plazas, and under the shade of its cherished trees. That’s
more citizens than are serviced by most Rec Centers, despite their
buildings and their staffs. Yet the park's maintenance budget is
inadequate and its capital budget is zero.
That will change, if the Clark Park partnership has any say in the matter.
This partnership is chaired by the venerable nonprofit Pennsylvania
Horticultural Society. Clark Park is just one piece of PHS’s Parks
Revitalization Project, which has been showering some Rec parks with
five-digit grant money to learn how to power their transformation. Every
park in West Philadelphia close to us is part of the same neighborhood
PRP campaign. These different parks do talk with each other and work
with each other now.
For Friends of Clark Park, PRP’s main job is to carry out improvements
on the 2001 renewal plan as fast as resources can be found.
Nutter chose our oasis in which to announce a $1 million grant from the
Pennsylvania Dept. of Conservation & Natural Resources to six community
parks in Philadelphia, of which Clark Park is one. Its share – $225,000
– will be matched by the City of Philadelphia.
DCNR Secretary Michael DiBerardinis, a Fishtowner who once ran Clark
Park under Rendell as Rec Commissioner, noted, as he handed Nutter the
check, that teamwork at the State level was delivering for Philadelphia.
He praised the communications between the Governor, the Mayor and the
park’s State legislators Sen. Anthony Williams and Rep. James Roebuck.
“Philadelphia has strong advocates now in Harrisburg,” he said.
Together, they will fund almost one-half the cost of restoring the North
Park (Park A) if we’re lucky. The renewal plan estimated North Park
capital improvements at $1.16 million. Seven years later, an estimate of
$1.5-$3.0 million seems more truthful.
In the Middle Park (Park B) between Chester and Kingsessing Aves.,
$300,000 worth of modernized playgrounds have now been installed side by
side each other since the renewal plan went through. The South Park
(Park C) between Kingsessing and Woodland Aves. has also enjoyed some
improvements.
The North Park hasn’t seen any investment yet, beyond a bench or two.
Its paths lie in ruins, it is filled with swamps and ponds after heavy
rains and snows, its 50-year-old lamps keep blinking out, and one-third
of its turf has been trampled by heavy use and strangled by jealous tree
roots.
University City resident Howard Neukrug, who is director of watersheds
for the Water Dept., introduced the cutting-edge subterranean stormwater
system that underlies the new court. It diverts runoff from 43^rd Street
into the subsoil, away from the Mill Creek storm drain, to restore the
water table instead. It will also help prevent the release of raw sewage
into the Schuylkill R. during storms.
Joan Reilly, a director of PHS’ Philadelphia Green program (and wife of
DeBerardinis), spoke eloquently about its long-term vision of renewed
vitality for urban parks. “When we began this project many years ago,
parks were generally in poor shape and many people were afraid even to
go into them,” she recalled. “We saw what could happen if the City and
State, universities and communities worked together.”
Williams, who grew up in West Philadelphia, played basketball in Clark
Park as a youth. So he well remembers its sorry condition in earlier
years. Today, after seven years of work by the Clark Park partnership,
he commented, “The transformation is just amazing!” He vowed there would
be much more to come. As he sits on the Appropriations Committee and the
Environmental Resources & Energy Committee, there is reason to hope.
In addition to PHS, the partnership consists of Councilwoman Jannie
Blackwell’s Office, Friends of Clark Park, the Recreation Dept.,
University City District, UC Green, University of the Sciences in
Philadelphia and the Water Dept.
-- Tony West
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