Community Garden Dedication

This 87-acre North Philadelphia park is located in one of the city’s most challenged areas. In the 1940s and 50s, the park was a magnet for activity and a destination for tourists, boasting a popular carousel, ball fields, playgrounds, and John Philip Sousa’s music wafting from the bandstand. As the neighborhood lost population and the landscape deteriorated, it became a place that was to be avoided at all costs—and had come to represent the worst of urban decay. Once a space that was the neighborhood’s biggest liability, today Hunting Park is becoming a source of community pride again and it is setting a new standard for Philadelphia’s 10,200 acre urban park system.

The transformation has been made possible through the Hunting Park Revitalization Project, an initiative led by the Fairmount Park Conservancy and Philadelphia Parks & Recreation. The Hunting Park Revitalization Project aims to create a safe and well-maintained park space that will provide a place for healthy recreation for children and families, bring neighbors together and serve as a catalyst for larger neighborhood renewal. To date, the Fairmount Park Conservancy has raised $4 million for capital improvements in the park and Phase One of the project is nearly complete.  Site furnishings in the park were manufactured by DuMor Site Furnishings.

Ryan Howard with the Hunting Park Indians

Through Phase One of the Hunting Park Revitalization Project, the Fairmount Park Conservancy managed the creation of a new community garden, farmers’ market, two playgrounds and a brand new baseball field. Philadelphia Phillies first baseman Ryan Howard and his Family Foundation helped kick off the park’s renovations with a grant to rebuild the baseball field. Currently, the Fairmount Park Conservancy is managing the reconstruction of the park’s football field and the installation of new lighting around the park’s loop road. The success of the Hunting Park Revitalization Project to-date is due to the leadership of the Fairmount Park Conservancy and Philadelphia Parks & Recreation and key partnerships with the park’s civic group Hunting Park United, Philadelphia city officials, national sports figures and community members.

Hunting Park is being featured on CPA’s website, www.cityparksalliance.org, during the month of May.

The “Frontline Parks” program is made possible with generous support from DuMor, Inc. and PlayCore.

Dancing in Franklin Park

The park has hundreds of daily visitors, and thousands who come for cultural festivals and sporting events and is viewed by the city police department as one of the safest parks in the Boston. However, Franklin Park’s reputation as a popular community destination was shaken when, in late fall 2011, a woman walking through Franklin Park with her grandchild on a midweek afternoon was attacked, a victim of random violence. Some golfers in the area heard the woman’s cries for help and ran off her attacker, but the evening news seemed to confirm the worst fears of suburban denizens: urban parks are not safe. Regulars of the park had spent many years convincing their friends, neighbors, and colleagues of the beauty and safety of the area, and with one unlikely event, all that work could have been undone.

Three nights later, 200 people from the surrounding communities gathered with flashlights in hand to traverse a 2.5 mile path around the park in the dark. The statement was clear: people who used the park would not be scared away from their favorite place in Boston. Neighborhood organizations have now taken up park safety in their regular meetings with local police and buddy system walking groups have formed.

Franklin Park will be featured on CPA’s homepage through the end of March.

The “Frontline Parks” program is made possible with generous support from DuMor, Inc. and PlayCore.

Environmental concerns, however, tend to be overshadowed by the fears of community members who think that the darkness will encourage illegal or unsafe activities in parks.

Civic Space Park, Phoenix. By Michael Ruiz.

How can park managers and landscape architects use lighting to increase usability and safety without negatively impacting the environment?  Safer Parks After Dark: New night-lighting methods help provide answers for dark sky advocates, an article originally published in the November 2011 issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine, explores this multifaceted issue and finds that economically feasible solutions can be achieved using new technology and careful planning.

Twelve parks – one each month – will be featured on CPA’s website home page in 2012.  Each “Frontline Park” story will show how parks and their stewards are on the forefront of creating healthier, more sustainable cities.  With each month’s feature, CPA will coordinate with each park partner a joint press release for local, national, and social media to announce their selection as a “Frontline Park.”  Featured parks will also be included in CPA’s quarterly e-newsletter Benchmarks distributed to hundreds of CPA members and on the City Parks blog.

We are looking for the best stories.  Is there a non-traditional leader who has helped to bring about change in your local park?  How has park programming helped to address pressing urban issues, such as public health, job creation or community revitalization?  Have you done something really fun and innovative to increase revenue, cultivate volunteers or educate young people?  How did a crisis create an opportunity to build a new partnership?  Stories should be related to one or more of the following topics:

• Community Capacity Building
• Design
• Economic Development
• Education
• Environment
• Funding
• Health
• Maintenance
• Programming
• Public/Private Partnerships
• Safety
• Transportation
• Workforce Development

For more information about application guidelines, please click here: Frontline Park Nominations

April’s selections highlight the positive changes good parks bring to cities.

Park improvements can be cost-efficient catalysts for urban revitalization.  Small-scale improvements spur greater civic engagement, leading to even more neighborhood improvements outside the park boundary.   At the other end of the spectrum, some cities have converted entire swaths of industrial or commercial lands into park spaces. Once-secluded riverfronts have become urban front yards, and derelict spaces in central business districts have become green community anchors.  These changes have stimulated even greater retail, cultural, and commercial investments while serving as new centerpieces of civic pride.  This month’s featured parks demonstrate how change, both small and large-scale, can create parks that transform communities.

Fairmount Park's universally accessible playground

Fairmount Park in Riverside, California is a 250-acre refuge designed in 1911 by the Olmsted Brothers firm.  Like many older parks, Fairmount Park experienced decades of decline and deterioration.  The rise in crime and homeless encampments kept residents away.  Ten years ago, the city and its citizens decided to take back their park.  After a series of physical improvements and new cultural programming, residents returned to the park by the thousands.  Building on that success, the city and partners such as The Arc of Riverside County, created a 25,000 square-foot Universally Accessible Playground.  This change has inspired a new gold standard for inclusion and assures that all its citizens can fully enjoy Fairmont Park.  Site furnishings in the park were manufactured by DuMor Inc.

"Finding Nemo" at Coolidge Park

Coolidge Park in Chattanooga, Tennessee was once a military reserve unit site.  Today, the seven-acre park on the north shore of the Tennessee River serves as the centerpiece for revitalization in that area of downtown Chattanooga.  The park includes attractions such as outdoor stages, an interactive fountain, and a restored antique carousel.  Programming includes the city’s annual Fourth of July Concert and Fireworks and many other outdoor programs and festivals.  The park is connected by pedestrian bridge to the city’s successful south shore green space development that includes Ross’ Landing and the Tennessee Aquarium.  Since Coolidge Park opened in 1998, a cultural district and residential development have blossomed adjacent to it.  By changing the use of the riverfront property to an urban park, Chattanooga has created an economic engine fueled by good, green fun.

Frontline Parks is generously supported by DuMor, Inc. and PlayCore.

Velociraptors in Prospect Park? Credit: Jennifer Small.

While unicorns may not strike fear in the heart of a ne’er-do-well, we’re thinking the other two carnivores just might do the trick, even if one of them is only the size of a large turkey. But if all else fails, maybe the ninjas will keep trespassers out. (There were signs for them too.)

You can view photos of the additional signs here. Hope this post inspired a little April Fool’s Day humor

Independence National Historical Park. Credit: NPS

It is easy to forget the many different types of parkland located in urban areas. Besides municipal parks, there are also state, county, regional and national parks. In the 85 largest cities, 15 cities are home to 48 National Park units, which include monuments, houses, forts, battlefields and preserves. Washington, D.C. has by far the most national park units (21 and counting) but smaller park units in other cities are also recruiting new staff.

With half of the nation’s park rangers slated for retirement in the next five years, the National Park Service has struggled with recruitment of new staff, especially in the urban park units. Enter in the “ProRanger Philadelphia” internship program, a joint effort between Temple University and the National Park Service, that placed 13 college students in urban national parks this summer. This pilot program trains (and pays) interns the beginnings of law enforcement while also exposing them to interpretation and maintenance of the park. While the program is targeted towards Criminal Justice majors, students from any major can apply. After successful completion of the program, interns are guaranteed National Park Service jobs upon graduation from college. The 12-week summer program can begin as early as the summer after freshman year.

One of the exciting aspects of this program is that it is attracting minorities to a career path that is not really diverse within the Park Service. Many of the students participating in the program had never met a park ranger before or even visited a national park. Others had never even considered a career with the Park Service. This program is giving urban minority students an opportunity to work in a national park in their home communities and should be used as a great catalyst to bring visibility as well as new users to city parks.

Recent articles in The Washington Post and Philadelphia Inquirer highlight the program at Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine in Baltimore and Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, respectively. More information about the ProRanger Philadelphia program can be found here.

Rangers patrol in pairs between 7:30 a.m. and 8:30 p.m……They begin their shifts by rousing homeless people. The rangers ask if they need help and remind them that they’re not allowed to camp there, but they don’t chase them out of the parks….

Daily reports filed by the rangers are packed with “positive contact” incidents, such as offering advice about finding shelter, giving directions to tourists or making conversation with regular park visitors. On July 4, a group of young people at Freeway Park taught Hecht an urban jungle-gym stunt, which he “was able to successfully complete to a cheering crowd of youth,” he wrote.

The jury is still out on if the $462,000 effort has been successful. (We’ll be looking for more news here.) In judging its effect, however, one useful tool would be a usership survey to determine if more people are using the parks – looking both at the numbers and the comments from intercept interviews in the parks. Whatever the case, the city is taking an active role to create vibrant public spaces in its core — a challenge that many others face.

There are few cities whose alleys offer more possibility than Los Angeles. The USC Center for Sustainable Cities, which is leading the alley campaign here, found recently that there are 12,309 blocks of alleys in the city — 914 linear miles’ worth, roughly the distance between here and Portland, Ore., even if some are just 10 feet wide.

Particularly in older, poorer neighborhoods, where many of them are located, alleys are often dens of crime and blight. But the researchers see something else. They see, all told, more than three square miles of underused land — about half the size of Griffith Park — a precious resource in a region starving for vacant land and public space.

The problem, at least from the park perspective, with other alley ‘greening’ is that it has involved gating off the areas. But Los Angeles is concentrating on strategies that open them to the public through concepts including Dutch “woonerf” shared streets that feature planters and furniture while allowing slow car movement and even including the “pieces of a typical park — swing sets, barbecues” that “could be transformed into safe, green connectors between homes, schools, churches and parks, encouraging people to go outside.”

There are many challenges to making these spaces successful: crime, graffiti, maintenance, resident buy-in, city regulation hurdles and finding the construction funds. But there has already been some limited success. Cities looking for parkland might find it right behind their residents’ homes.

As the article states, “the communities surrounding the eight parks involved in Summer Night Lights had a 17% drop in violent crime during the summer, compared with the year before. Homicides were down by 86%, and the community surrounding Jim Gilliam Park had no killings, compared with six during the same period last year.”

Two important points. First, the city is gearing programs in its parks towards at-risk youth. And second, it is measuring crime data against the provision of these recreational services. (This matches the practices outlined in the Center for City Park Excellence publication, The Excellent City Park System.)