So the first half of the doubleheader of neighborhood meetings last night was about the yet unbuilt Montrose Street Park. I’d like to summarize and editorialize a little since the meeting was pretty poorly attended, and is one of the biggest issues/opportunities in the neighborhood right now.

There were about 15 people in attendance, at least 5 of those were SOSNA board members, at least 5 were college students there for a class assignment, and beyond that there was a small handful of other neighbors and employees of Philadelphia Horticultural Society.

The two major bombs dropped were that the park has been completely redesigned since the last presentation to the community, and the park has been (re)named, Julian Abele Park, after a famous African American architect who lived at 1515 Christian St. While I have no objection to the namesake of the park, the fact that these two major decisions have been made by such a small group really bothers me.

When asked who was making these important decisions, the presenter, Darlene, answered was that it was a small group because they hadn’t been able to get much interest. She identified herself, and three other members in attendance. Two of those spoke up to say that they were not aware of what has been going on with the park since last summer. It is clear to me that either by design or by accident, two people are making decisions on the neighborhood’s only open space.

When SOSNA hosted a park meeting over a year ago, there were probably a hundred people in the room, a design was presented and enthusiastically endorsed, people wanted to start fundraising and volunteering. Since then someone has decided that the original design was too ambitious and/or expensive, and it has been scrapped for what I would describe as a field with trees around the perimeter, a few benches, a few trash receptacles, and two (that’s right) lights. Also envisioned is some sort of focal point in front of a mural. All this without even attempting a fundraising campaign.

The park has gone from a creatively designed park that would actually draw people to the area, to an empty lot you might find on abandoned property in anyone of the many blighted neighborhoods in this city. The “park” as currently conceived will be a testament to low expectations and a monument to old South Philly politics. I’m not sure what the solution is, but clearly more community involvement in the process is necessary to insure something appropriate is built. I think the formation of a non-profit group with an elected board that can actually fundraise for the park is long overdue.

I believe the current park "group's" next meeting is May 7th. If there are people interested in seeing a worthwhile park built on this valuable property I encourage you to attend, or even consider meeting sooner to form a transparent Friends of the Park group.

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"I been a prisoner to a white Mr. Coffee
Down here on Christian Street" - Marah

I was there and echo Dr. G's sentiments. For whatever reason, the great design put together by the Community Design Collaborative has been completely scrapped in favor of a boring and utterly uninspiring design.

Instead of forming a non profit, the new plan is to place the park under the control of the city's recreation department. I think that just about guarantees that the park will be poorly maintained.

All of these decisions appear to have been made with no real community input.

This is the only true public green space in the neighborhood and this appears to be our one and only opportunity to try to influence the form it takes.

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Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur

And for clarification, the current boring design is intended as Phase I of the park, but there doesn't appear to be a phase II yet. I think this is really short sighted, and the likelihood of raising funds for phase II after phase I is completed are significantly less than if we started now.

As for maintenance, we only need to look to 17th and Catharine to see how poorly rec facilities are maintained. The per miter or Marian Anderson Recreation Center was mowed twice all last year, once by a volunteer, and once after I called about 8 people at the Rec department demanding it get mowed.

Rec might be fine, so long as we know what involvement they will have, and what expectations there will be of a Friends of the Park Group in terms of maintenance and upkeep.

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"I been a prisoner to a white Mr. Coffee
Down here on Christian Street" - Marah

I'll add that from a liability standpoint, rec involvement makes sense.

But there absolutely needs to be a "friends of" type non-profit entity to fund raise, to maintain, and to excerpt some influence over design aspects going forward.

__________________

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur

See what happens when I go away to work on my report on last night's two meetings? DrG and MrB give you reportage and opinion all together.

Full disclosure: I am perhaps the only member of the community who didn't care for the original design. Intellectually I appreciated the concept of replicating the rhythms of the rowhouse-lined sidewalks, but it didn't speak to me emotionally. Plus, the paving-to-plant ratio was disappointing to me. But I'm happy to support whatever kind of park the community wants.

In fairness to the organizers, I will say that others were invited to participate as part of a core team to work with Philadelphia Green. I was one of those, but because of illness in my family I was unable to participate. DavidZ was another, but he had to bow out. There is a Yahoo Group set up for dissemination of park information. Its archives are publicly accessible. Go to

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MontrosePark/

Has the park's decision-making process been flawed? Yes and no -- I think that a process has been followed and decisions have been made by whatever groups attended meetings, but I also think that because of the uneven dissemination of meeting information not all interested community residents have participated in those decisions. We can do better, and a re-energized SOSNA can help to get the word out about meetings and help to engage a broad cross-section of the community in the planning of this park (phases I - III or whaever, develop a formal Friends group, raise funds, etc.).

For what they're worth, here are my meeting notes, without editorialization:

Park Meeting 4/9/08

*Darlene Smith called the meeting to order and announced guests. She explained that we are moving toward a transfer from RDA to the Recreation Department. Among the advantages: the recreation department will assume the insurance liability, mow, shovel snow, and handle trash removal. She expressed thanks to Anna Verna's office. The transfer paperwork is now in “the law office”, will go to City Council, resolution will be made to the public commissioner. The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society has done a plan for the park, something that can be adapted to a more ambitious design when funding permits. The current plan calls for a fence with openings north and south, shrubbery on the perimeter, lighting, and refuse containers. At one of the summer meetings, attendees voted on the plan, on a new name for the park, "Julian Abele Park," and for a mural. [For more on Julian Abele, see

http://www.philadelphiabuildings.org...play.cfm/21458
Fascinating Julian Abele fact: he designed and built his own furniture and did the needlepoint for the chairs! My hero!]


Darlene Smith reported that they anticipate transfer of ownership in May/June, grading of the lot in May, and building in August. There will be no April 26 "spring into your park" event because of the imminence of the grading.

Matt Corcoran asked for an explanation of the process, including the composition of the decision-making group. Darlene Smith mentioned Sterling Johnson, Laura Blanchard, and Loretta Tague, and indicated that there had been monthly meetings during the growing season in 2007. Laura Blanchard and Loretta Tague both explained that their involvement over the past year had been peripheral. Matt Corcoran asked if the group would be formalized, and also asked when.

Sterling Johnson and Laura Blanchard explained that the Yahoo! group had been formed and information disseminated there. The e-mails to that group were then echoed to the southwest_center_city Yahoo group and to Phillyblog's southwest center city forum, both of which have public archives.

Soledad Gillespie expressed concern that the group was relying too strongly on electronic communication, to the disenfranchisement of the elderly and the poor. Sterling Johnson explained the efforts the group has made to leaflet the immediate blocks. All agreed we needed more effective communication and broad-based buy-in.

Paul Fontaine: PHS has raised $100K for a Phase I Park. 4 benches, 2 trash cans, 2 lighting fixtures. Q: we might like a middle arm. Lighting is biggest expense, pathways the second. There's a plan for a mural featuring portraits of Julian Abele.


Voting on Bench Type and Trash Can Color: bench –everyone wants the one with the arms and we want center arms. Trash receptacles: forest green okay. Black is second choice. Arms of bench will match the trashcan.

Trash: volunteers who pick up trash at the site should bring their own bag and, if possible, take it home. If there's too much trash, leave the bag at the southeast corner of the park.

Phase I event (dedication? groundbreaking) brainstorming ideas

• Hot air balloon
• Band
• 17th District dancers if the group has been established yet (turfed to Laura to check with Capt. Bethel)
• Carnival – booths – opening ceremony --
• Food: consider Sidecar, Divan, South Square
• fundraising idea -- for this time or next? buy a brick -hammer in a brick
• Notify churches in advance so members of congregation can participate in a homecoming (many have moved out of the area) Soledad Gillespie and Laura Blanchard will work together on it.
• Next meeting: May 7, 6:30 p.m., probably at Shiloh Baptist Church

At the end of the meeting, Darlene Smith recognized former 30th Ward Democratic chair Terry Gillen. Gillen explained she talked with the public property commissioner and the property should move from the RDA to the Department of Recreation in May.

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LBphilly
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This isn't my favorite place to discuss these sorts of issues. But since its been raised, I'll say that my impression from last night is in line with Mark's.

Since the last meeting that I was informed of, decsisions have been made to scrap the Design Collaborative's plans (which were rolled out to well over 100 people over ayear ago) and to rename the park. As far as I can tell, these decisions were made by just two people. I don't think that is acceptable and I think it needs to be explained and probably corrected.

Many many people have involved themselves in the efforts to secure the land, work on the design interface with potential funders and sponsoring government offices and agencies. To walk away from all that effort would be wrong on many levels.

That said, I don't think the intentions of the folks who took up the work on behalf of the park (Darleen and Sterling) are anything other than admirable. I assume and would hope that they would continue to play a sigfnificant role going forward. But the path forward needs to be charted because what we are looking at now is not a park with a design and oversight structure worthy of this neighborhgood or the substantial resources which have been invested.

The more important question is what is the path forward that offers the best chance at the great park which we deserve. I don't have all the answers here, but I am confident that the first step is to formalize the friends of the park group. That is something I think we need to move forward with and which can be accomplished with a couple of weeks. From there, the design and related desisions can be made made as part of a process that I would expect would re-engage the dozens of people who have already committed time and effort to the process.

This is simply a matter of not selling out the end game to low expectations. Whether we negotiate with Recreation department for a workable site or work with another group is simply a detail. the Department of Parks and Recreation alone controling the site, design and buildout could be a disaster, but Fitler Square is a great example of how Rec can be involved in a top notch park.

The first step forward is putting the wheels in motion for a FOTP group and then handing that group off to the nieghborhood.

I probably should have pointed that out as well, I am didn’t intend to blame Darleen or Sterling who have obviously put significantly more time and effort into the process then I have, or that I intend to. I hope it didn’t come across that way.

__________________
"I been a prisoner to a white Mr. Coffee
Down here on Christian Street" - Marah

Though I really, really like the original design plans (especially the use of the recycled marble steps), I'm still optimistic that the current plan is a good start, albeit much less ambitious. But I do hope that it can & will evolve into something more substantial at a later stage. Meanwhile, I'm very excited that a ground-breaking will be occurring very soon.

As far as the process, I agree with some of the sentiments already expressed here & do wish some of the more recent decisions were more inclusive. However I still think some very good decisions were made & I very much appreciate the hard work of those who have seen things through to this point. For example, it seems the decision to transfer ownership of the Park to the Recreation Department was a very prudent one, for some of the same reasons already stated.

And now, I hope from this point forward SOSNA can work with the existing Friends of the Park group and help take things to a new level.

PS LB, Thanks once again for your very thorough minute-taking. I hope you don't mind that I've taken the liberty of re-posting your meeting notes to www.MontrosePark.org

I want to add that, as a member of the Yahoo group, I was kept informed of meeting dates and of what was going on last year. I just wasn't focused on it for personal reasons.

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LBphilly
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To a certain extent, this has been true for me too. However, though I have followed the discussion on the Yahoo Group all along, and I believe I only missed one (published) meeting -- on which a neighbor reported back to the Yahoo Group -- I still somehow missed how the park naming came about, and also was unaware of the reworked design until discussions & plans already happened. Having said that, I'm not opposed to the new name, and I'm happy that others have taken the lead in meeting with the Philadelphia Horticultural Society (et. al.) to keep plans moving forward. But I think the problem has been a certain level of non-communication with the whole of the "Friends" group, and the community at large, about various happenings. Going forward, I'd like to see this communication gap narrowed, and I hope to do my small part to see that does happen.