I have lived here for over 40 years and we had ample space in which to walk our dogs and ourselves, but now there is not one park within my walking distance where we can go which is not under construction or being revamped or where the gates are not permanently closed.
The park between 12th and 13th streets has now been closed for about six months. A fence has been put up around the entire block, paved pathways abound, and a large amount of playground equipment has been installed and also some dangerous-looking stumps of wood standing six to 10 inches out of the ground – which would be hazardous to children running (and not looking) and partially-sighted people. What is the point of them?
Seeing the proliferation of litter which is already inside the fence and on the surrounding pavements, one can only imagine what the park will look like in the future.
The park at the bottom of 12th Street in which the Scout Hall stood, has been closed and locked for years, as has Paterson Park at the bottom of 12th and 13th streets. The open area and stream that were near the Huddle Park Golf course, where my children watched freshwater crabs and tiny fish, were bulldozed and destroyed to build the Linksfield Clinic. Now even Cheltondale, the Maria Mariotti Park, is a mess of bulldozers and workmen, and as a result, the children who played there, not to mention the dog walkers who met there, are nowhere to be seen and yet another park is lost to the area.
Have the Parks and Recreation Department lost all sense of what the purpose of parks are, or is it just somewhere to employ their many workers? This is such a waste of effort, time and materials, and all we want is somewhere to walk, the best exercise for elderly people, and for our dogs to play and walk in our parks.
