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The city of Oakland has an impressive amount of parkland. In fact, of the nation’s densely populated cities, it has the most parkland per resident. But the land is unequally distributed: the hills are green but the more populous portions of the city are lacking. This fact was the impetus for the formation of the Friends of the Rockridge-Temescal Greenbelt (FROG), which began an effort to build a community park in the Rockridge neighborhood in 1997.  The story of FROG Park is a paragon of community initiative and drive.

The first effort to create a park failed. When a Department of Motor Vehicles licensing facility underwent renovation, green space advocates suggested converting half its parking lot into a park to mitigate the development impact. Other neighbors, however, protested, fearing the loss of parking, and the FROG proposal was rejected. Though unsuccessful, the group remained determined to find a space for a park, and began researching other nearby sites. They soon discovered an area that combined an underused basketball court and dog park with fenced-off land owned by the Alameda County Flood Control District.

The FROG Park playground during construction by community volunteers. Photo credit: Theresa Nelson.

The site was complicated, both in shape – it is long and narrow, and passed over by a major highway – and in ownership. But it also offered tremendous potential, with a creek and an already-existing 120-foot-long mural under the highway. The idea for a park gained additional traction when two FROG volunteers came up with a master plan inspired by the idea of building playgrounds – one for toddlers and one for older kids – to serve as anchors on either end of a linear park.

To secure a lease on the site from the city, FROG was required first to deal with a number of liability issues, negotiating with CalTrans for permission to improve the site below California 24, and assuring unfettered passage for the Alameda County Flood Control District to service the creek and its utility area.

By early 2000, it became clear that FROG would be able to secure the cobbled-together park site, and fundraising began in earnest.  By working with Oakland Vice Mayor Jane Brunner, FROG positioned itself to legally receive funding from city bond measures. (Later, Brunner also provided her entire $125,000 annual discretionary allotment to the park as a challenge grant.) Oakland’s Measure DD (the Trust for Clean Water and Safe Parks) provided $140,000. California Proposition 12 (the Safe Neighborhood Parks, Clean Water, Clean Air and Coastal Protection Bond Act of 2000) supplied $493,000. They also manage to snag $60,000 for a tot lot under Measure I (the Oakland General Obligation Bonds for Parks) — and then, with the help of Friends of Oakland Parks, an amazing additional $400,000 of interest money on unspent Measure I funds.

Private fundraising followed in 2000, consisting of a mail campaign, monthly articles in the local newspaper, direct solicitations of businesses, a reception and a silent auction, generating well over $200,000, along with a critical $350,000 worth of volunteer labor and tools.

The park was built in two phases (with a third and final phase still to come). Phase I consisted of improved access to Temescal Creek (most of which flows below in an underground pipe), the construction of two playgrounds, the restoration of the 1972 mural (by the original artist along with students from a local arts college) and Phase II, completed in 2006, yielded paths, basketball hoops, swings and a water fountain, and the public art element: a series of obelisks equipped with small telescopes aimed at brass castings of animals that inhabit the landscape. (There is also a reproduction of the castings on a table so that the visually impaired can feel the sculptures.). The final addition will be a solar-powered restroom, as the park has only a porta-potty for 10 years, funded by FROG.

Total costs for Phases I and II totaled only $2.87 million, partly because FROG mobilized the entire community to help — 1,300 volunteers showed up over 10 days to construct the playgrounds under the direction of Leathers & Associates of Ithaca, New York. (FROG volunteers also prepared three meals a day for the volunteer workers and offered free child care during the entire period.)

The design of FROG Park incorporates land owned by the Alameda Couny Flood Control District. Photo credit: Theresa Nelson.

FROG now works to sustain community involvement, which remains the backbone of the park. All maintenance besides grass cutting and trash removal (done by the city), such as creek cleaning and refinishing the wooden play structures, is done by neighbors on semiannual work days. A local high school sends its entire freshman class each year to work on replanting the native garden.

The park is a seven-minute walk from the nearest BART station, and park co-founder Theresa Nelson reports that many park visitors arrive on public transit. The weekend farmer’s market, held in the DMV parking lot, brings in “probably a thousand people, from kids splashing in the creek and sailing boats to older couples walking to the market,” according to Nelson. FROG has also worked with the developers of two adjacent infill developments to extend the park into their properties. Realtors have begun to pitch the park in advertisements, and surrounding properties seem to have benefited: while Rockridge property values have generally remained stable since the park was constructed, Nelson estimates an average home near the park has increased in value by about $150,000.

Mosaic sculpture at entrance to Marvin Gaye Park. Credit: Phaesia2011(Flickr Feed).

Originally named Watts Branch Park, for the nearby stream of the same name, Marvin Gaye Park was created in the 1870s as part of the subdivision of the northeast section of Washington, D.C. Falling into disrepair in the early 1970s as maintenance funding shifted from federal responsibility to city management, the park became a haven for drug users, referred to as “Needle Park” by local residents.

In 1997, through the leadership efforts of the nonprofit Washington Parks & People, the community decided to restore Marvin Gaye Park to its once famed beauty. Throughout the next decade, volunteers participated in the largest community park revitalization in D.C. history, removing an unbelievable 3.5 million pounds of trash, 14,000 hypodermic needles, and 89 abandoned cars. The community also planted more than 1,000 native trees and renamed the park after local music legend Marvin Gaye in 2006.

“Parks are not just an agency of the government, they are the center of public life,” says Washington Parks & People President Steve Coleman. “A park can be the center of helping to move the concerns of a community forward, such as crime, health, obesity, and illiteracy,” he added.

There are many exciting amenities and activities in the park including a permanent mosaic featuring 200 community heroes, a youth-run farmer’s market, an amphitheater, and 1.6 miles of hiking and biking trails.

The park’s revitalization continued in 2009, as a collaborative effort of the National Recreation and Park Association and its Parks Build Community partners, with the installation of a brand new playground that has quickly become the park’s focal point. Funding for the neighborhood’s first playground in thirty years came from donations by Playworld Systems, Kompan, Playcore, and Surface America, altogether raising $400,000.

After the installation of the playground, usage by children and older community residents increased dramatically. Studies have noted that 85 percent of the activity in the park has taken place in the playground area.  According to The Washington Post, “preliminary review shows that 50 to 70 children play for about 25 minutes daily when the weather is nice and that most live within a 10-minute walk.” The new playground has also increased the presence of local law enforcement, which helps to make the surrounding neighborhood safer.

Even more recently, the area around the park has begun to attract investment by both public and private partners – and signs are emerging that the vitality of the park and the health of the surrounding community are closely linked. Though there are still public concerns about safety in the park, recent and continuing efforts have shown that revitalized green space in urban areas can improve more than just aesthetics of a neighborhood.

One such effort is the D.C. New Communities Initiative, which undertook four projects in different wards of D.C. In the ward that includes Marvin Gaye Park, the city is investing in a $100 million, 235,000 square foot high school, $50 million in residential development, and $10 million in improvements to the park itself.

The Washington Post also reports that the transformation of Marvin Gaye Park should help to enliven other city facilities in the area, like the nearby community center:

“Autumn Saxton-Ross works at the Riverside community center across the street from the playground. Since she started there last May as an assistant director in charge of health programs, the number of children going to the community center has grown from 15 to about 50 each month. The increase is partly due to the playground, whose users often drift over to get a drink of water. They stay, said Saxton-Ross, 33, for such things as bike repairs, beat poetry sessions, tree planting, cooking classes and a farmers market.”

There has also been action on the private philanthropy front. Kraft-owned Planters recently announced that it is building four neighborhood parks in San Francisco, New York, New Orleans, and Washington, D.C. In this novel twist on private partnerships in urban parks, Planters will embellish the parks with homages to America’s favorite legume, including plazas in the shape of peanut shells and occasional visits from the Planters Nutmobile, a biodiesel-powered, peanut-shaped bus that will promote youth volunteerism. Though some questions were initially raised about whether the interweaving of corporate advertising and public outdoor space was a positive development, the neighborhood’s character was carefully incorporated into the park. The path that cuts through it is lined with white posts that echo the front porches that have traditionally lined neighboring homes.

This new investment may be a sign of things to come: the District of Columbia Department of Parks and Recreation has just been granted the authority to allow corporate advertising in parks. Fortunately, as the city moves forward fleshing out the details of this new arrangement, they have a positive example of how corporate involvement can enable much-needed improvements without overwhelming the park’s appearance or character.

Some of the case studies included are the schoolyard-to-park initiative in Denver called Learning Landscapes; the ParkScan project of San Francisco’s Neighborhood Parks Council (that tracks maintenance through an innovative web tool); and how the High Point housing redevelopment in Seattle incorporated play by adding parks, playgrounds and trails. All of these are great case studies and are worth a read through.

I do not know anything which will contribute more to the strength and morality of that generation of boys and girls compelled to remain part of urban populations in this country than the institution in their cities of playgrounds where their hours of leisure can be occupied by rational and healthful exercise. The advantage is twofold:

In the first place, idleness and confinement in a narrow space in the city, in houses and cellars and unventilated dark rooms is certain to suggest and bring about pernicious occupation and create bad habits. Gambling, drinking, and other forms of vice are promoted in such a restricted mode of life.

In the second place, an opportunity for hard, earnest, and joyous play improves the health, develops the muscles, expands the lungs, and teaches the moral lessons of attention, self-restraint, courage, and patient effort.

I think every city is under the strongest obligation to its people to furnish to the children, from the time they begin to walk until they reach manhood, places within the city walls large enough and laid out in proper form for the playing of all sorts of games which are known to our boys and girls and are like by them.

I sincerely hope that your present convention may be a success, and that the work which you have begun may go on until no city in this country is without suitable playgrounds for the children of those who but for such city assistance in this regard would be without them.

Source: New York Times, original pdf from newspaper here.

Well-designed parks and playgrounds can mimic opportunities for exploration and risk-taking in nature, says landscape architect Jennifer Worth of TPL’s Parks for People-Bay Area initiative. Playground designers are moving away from the old, prescriptive, post-and-platform structures that implicitly tell kids what to do on them: climb here, slide there. And despite their small size, many new playgrounds contain a natural component, such as a grassy field, trees, or a landscaped border.

For example, a ring of boulders is included in the design of a newly refurbished playground in San Francisco’s Potrero Hill neighborhood, and every time Worth visits, she sees at least one kid jumping from boulder to boulder.

The new playground at P.S. 242 in Harlem is one of 30 new play spaces created by TPL’s New York City Playgrounds Program in recent years. Photo: Yola Monakhov

“Often a natural feature will be the kids’ favorite place in a playground,” she says, “because it’s different from the standard play equipment they see at every other park.” A good playground offers lots of choices for kids, Worth explains. “It has different colors, textures, surfaces, and encourages a variety of activities,” she says. “Just like nature, a good playground presents many opportunities for kids to engage physically, socially, and cognitively.”

Playground designers are seeking various ways to incorporate natural features into playgrounds, says Tom Norquist, senior vice president of marketing for GameTime/PlayCore, a leading manufacturer of play systems and an important supporter of TPL’s effort to help transform New York City schoolyards into beneficial playgrounds. “Each site has its own natural amenities that you want to build around,” Norquist notes. “We’ve recently installed several playgrounds around large trees. A beautiful, natural tree is a feature in the environment, a place for shade, a place for all the birds and squirrels and things that live in it—and we’ve incorporated playing in the tree as part of the playground.”

Mt. Vernon Playground (click image for more pictures)

An excellent example of renewing cities through parks and playgrounds and private-public collaboration to do so was highlighted in Newark, N.J. last week, where The Trust for Public Land dedicated the Mount Vernon School Playground, completing the transformation of a site where the tragic shooting of four young people occurred just over a year ago.

From a cracked asphalt lot to a vibrant community playground, TPL created a safe haven for the nearly 900 students enrolled in Mount Vernon School as well as the 2,200 children who live within walking distance of the new park. Along with a coalition of community, civic, philanthropic, and nonprofit partners, TPL dedicated $1.3 million and countless hours of work to creating the park, which now features a multi-use field, track, playground equipment, a performance space, basketball courts, and a learning garden.

An in-depth participatory design process was used to help establish community investment, and TPL worked with the Greater Newark Conservancy and landscape architects to meet with students and local residents to create the design. “The transformation of this park is an incredible benefit for our students,” said Dr. Clifford B. Janey, superintendent of Newark’s schools.

NY Parks Dept. playground designer Alexander Hart using his creation.

A new playground opened recently in New York City’s Morningside Park that attempts to provide lower play spaces that won’t hurt children when they fall while still providing challenge and fun. Here’s an excerpt from the NY Times article describing it:

The jungle gym itself sprawls over a chunk of a block, with the younger and the older children’s play areas connected by a three-rung ladder toddlers couldn’t climb. The play space has wheels at various heights that children can drive to nowhere, a small climbing wall, and an endless number of stairs to satisfy the urge that small people inevitably have to gain serious height.

The article goes on to describe that the sightlines of the $2 million playground aren’t the greatest — kids can become hidden in its large area — but that parents have seemed to adjust and learned to like it. The spot is popular, as one babysitter noted, “This is one of the more elaborate playgrounds I’ve seen, in a challenging way. But it’s fun — it’s a workout.”