Neighbors: Would Playground Be Safe?

An overgrown Newhallville lot might become a playground, with springing bumblebee seats, a log-shaped tunnel, and mushroom stepping stones.

But when the city presented these plans to the neighbors, parents and grandparents balked. The park looks well-designed, they said, but would their children be safe?

The park would be located at a vacant city-owned lot at 506 Winchester Ave., currently filled with tall grass, spots of litter, and a fallen wire.

At the moment, the lot is bounded by a building on either side, one of which sports a fading mural of various athletes, and a set of concrete barricades beside a do-not-trespass sign.

Cathy Schroeter, deputy director of the city’s anti-blight Livable City Initiative (LCI), packed environment-themed ideas into a presentation about the playground during the most recent virtual monthly meeting of the Newhallville Community Management Team. Her proposal included a playscape with monkey bars, a two to three-bay swing set including infant and Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant swings, tree-stump and mushroom stepping stones, a log-shaped ​“crawlspace,” bumblebee rocking chairs, and a rock wall. She also suggested two sets of benches, a time-locked metal gate at the front of the park, and a fence in the back with a mural painted by a local artist.

Amid a rise in gun violence that has deeply affected Newhallville in the wake of the pandemic, neighbors shared anxiety over how they could prioritize their kids’ safety while providing opportunities for fun.

Both at the management team meeting and in interviews near the park, residents expressed particular concern that the playground would be right next to the Taurus B Cafe, a bar known to neighbors as a site of rowdy activity, along with a nearby liquor store.

At the management team meeting, Newhallville resident and educator Claudine Wilkins-Chambers told Schroeter, ​“I have a little boy, and I wouldn’t bring him to that park. … It is just too close to the bar. It will be a beautiful park, but how many people will be comfortable enough to use it?”

“There’s always a group of people drinking liquor and hanging out there. Hopefully they won’t move into this park where kids should be. I just hope they don’t take over the park,” Wilkins-Chambers added/

Community activist Shirley Lawrence connected safety concerns about the bar to the continuous trauma from violence in the neighborhood. ​“We don’t want our kids going to the park if someone just got murdered in the wee hours of the morning,” she said. ​“You don’t want them playing where there’s a bloodstained sidewalk.”

Elizabeth Knight, the management team’s secretary, agreed: ​“Our kids are already subject to enough in Newhallville. And to put them next to a bar, we don’t have more value on their life than that?”

Schroeter said she had worked with Alders Steve Winter and Kim Edwards to source community input for the project’s early sketches.

Winter, whose ward includes the lot in question, said that families on the streets bordering the park had expressed excitement about the possibility of a playground there: ​“Talking to people who live near what’s supposed to be the park, they’re very excited about it, particularly the ones with kids. They want a place for the kids to play.” He said he spoke to kids themselves to get feedback on the park proposal and design. ​“In talking to kids about it in the neighborhood, they were also really excited and really pushed for the monkey bars.”

Winter suggested that the bar’s owner might be receptive to feedback about how to keep the block safe for children. He noted that the complaints he has received about the bar have mostly involved noise in the middle of the night, whereas the playground would close at sunset.

Kim Harris, the management team’s chair and the co-director of local preschool Harris and Tucker, supported reaching out to the bar’s owner. She said that Harris and Tucker is also located right by a bar. Because of her relationship with the establishment’s owner, the bar doesn’t open until her preschool’s activities are done for the day.

That kind of collaboration should be a prerequisite for having any kind of play space on the lot, Harris stressed, urging the city to take neighbors’ concerns seriously.

“It’s not about what’s in the park — it’s beautiful. This is a beautiful park,” she said. But the safety concerns aren’t minor. ​“It’s not just the bar, it’s the liquor store, it’s the park right next to the liquor store. It’s a day thing, it’s a night thing. We need to … have conversations around how we can make this a safe place for our kids.”

Responding to neighbors’ concerns, Schroeter suggested that Newhallville residents with pre-existing relationships with the bar’s owner initiate a conversation about the block’s safety. She also said she would be in touch with the police department about the issue.

“I can only think we can all live in the same community and do positive things,” Schroeter said. ​“I would hate to not do a positive thing” because of the lot’s location.

Several days after the meeting, Larry Livingston, who owns the Taurus bar and also lives right next to the proposed park, said he hadn’t heard about plans to build a playground at the lot. He said he had tried to purchase the lot years ago, hoping to use it for parking for both customers and community members. He said that parking is sometimes difficult to find in the area, especially on snowy days and during street sweeping hours.

“I’m with the neighbors on this one,” Livingston said. ​“There shouldn’t be no playground here.” He expressed concern that the playground would become a ​“hangout spot” attracting more negative activity to the block.

On Friday afternoon, Newhallville-based parent Christopher Grady and his 4‑year-old, Amariah Moye, strolled by the Winchester Avenue lot on their way to pick up Grady’s other kids from school.

“You definitely gotta move that bar,” Grady said immediately when asked about the park. ​“Other than that, I’d use it,” he said. ​“If you put something positive there, that’s more positive in the area.”

Grady, who lives near Lincoln Bassett School, said his kids usually play at the playground adjacent to the elementary school — although, he added, ​“if anything, it needs to be done over.”

Grady and Amariah both suggested including a seesaw if the park goes through.

“What else do you want in the park?” Grady asked Amariah.

“Everything,” Amariah said with a confident nod.

Later that afternoon, 8‑year-old Raegan Ferrell bubbled with excitement when she learned about the possibility of a playground at the Winchester Avenue lot.

She rattled off a list of ideas for the city to include in the playground. ​“Can I have swings, and slides?” she asked.

Raegan listed other ideas, with the help of her family — monkey bars, rock climbing, a seesaw, a sandbox — before continuing to skip down the rest of the block.