Center City Kids And Stevens Park

Over the last decade, a large portion of my effort on this blog has been focused on maintaining what I refer to as the traditional park system. To me, that would include the WPA structures and both access to, and view of the streams. I rallied against the riparian buffers, and what I consider the excessive emphasis on recreation. In the park department, although there is no less than six supervisors for recreation, there is not one person assigned to the parks per se.

While the designation playground at Cedar Beach cost $1 million dollars, only $25,000 has been spend on the WPA structures in the last decade, and that was a grant from the Trexler Trust. However, this post isn't about my opinion of current park priorities, but rather the implementation of the current policy.

 The designation playground at Cedar Park was almost, if not criminal in design and implementation. A former park director as the time purchased every item in the Playworld Catalog, from a company he had a prior relationship with from his previous job. So we ended up with an oversized playground, in a location inaccessible to center city kids. Regarding these kids, and our current emphasis on recreation, perhaps no park is more important than humble Stevens Park, at 6th and Tilghman Streets in center city. Although the playground equipment and infrastructure are well up to snuff, community groups found it necessary to reclaim the park this past Saturday. This park should be a sanctuary for the children of center city, and the police department should do whatever is necessary to make it that way. In 2019, that might well require a 24 hour presence.

Stevens Park sits on the site of the former Stevens Elementary School, as shown above in 1918.