Neighbors Celebrate New Park
This past weekend was a large family event for the Alabama Hill neighborhood. The grand reopening celebration of Highland Heights Park, on Vining Street, took place on a warm Saturday and many were in attendance.
The neighborhood council had proposed the renovation of Highland Heights three years ago. After two months of recent construction, children are able to enjoy the new playground equipment. Brian Walker, a neighbor and father who "got the ball rolling" on the park project, began the ceremony by thanking the neighbors and acknowledging that the park's completion was a team effort.
Walker's speech was cut short and muted by the 20 children lined up behind him, anxiously waiting to cut the golden ribbon along the front side of the playground. Another project leader for the neighborhood, Isabel Farquhar, led the children in the ribbon cutting.
“Remember, these scissors are not for cutting your t-shirts or your friends' hair!” she reminded them. And at Farquhar's count of three, the children snipped. The piece that fell into their hands, they were told, was their personal souvenir to remember the day.
Based on popular vote, the favorite new toy is the ‘Loopy Whoop,’ a dizzying playground addition where children continually spun each other. The new swing set took a close second and the other major addition is the colorful, new play structure.
There was a springy horse that was left as a “relic” from the old Highland Heights. In addition to safer playground equipment, renovation also included a larger and more level grass field.
“Before, this area was just a swampy hill. It could be fun if what you wanted to do was roll down a hill, but that's not the point of a park! And plus, you’d be all muddy afterward anyway,” noted Anna Malpica, a mother to two children in the neighborhood.
According to Malpica and the other adults in attendance, the leveled out field is one of the greatest renovations. Molly Maguire, a landscape architect for The Philbin Group, helped in the park's new design and said that the entire playground is more level because it is sitting 2-feet higher in elevation.
Neighbor Rob Poole lives up the street from Vining and doesn't have any young children, yet he was still excited about the reopening. To him, the park was one of those things that “you don't notice or appreciate until it's gone.” Poole called the park a “little gym” where he can play basketball or do yoga.
Throughout the two-hour ceremony, which began at noon, there was a turnout of nearly 75 people—a majority of which were children. Steve Amos and his two children live up one street from the park.
“My daughter asked me earlier in the week if we could go to this park celebration and I was like, 'Wait, what park?’” he laughed. Amos admitted that he didn’t even know the park existed until his daughter shared this information with him, which she heard from a classmate at school.
Highland Heights is a smaller area and is surrounded by trees and houses, making neighbors even more exclusively proud of getting it renovated. Donna-Marie Cahill and her husband, David Cahill, have been residents along the park's perimeter since 1987.
“This is not a neighborhood, it's a family,” she said. David Cahill agreed that the efforts to pull the park together have brought the neighbors closer. He believes it is the people that make his neighborhood great.
The celebration included hula hooping by both adults and kids, an inflatable Moon Bounce, barbecuing, and chairs set up on the re-painted basketball court for the adults to sit and mingle.
“I think today is more about what this park has already done for the community, rather than about what it will do,” Malpica said. “The city was getting rid of the broken equipment, with no thought of replacement and it was our neighbors who really stood up and rejected that. This really reminds us why we have neighborhood associations.”
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