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Addressing the reality of appearances, American poet Gertrude Stein famously stated “A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.” Taking up her logic, 30 Dickinson Narrows and Pennsport community members have wondered when a park is not a park, to which the City has said when it is a lot.
The locals hope their eight-month mission to salvage Manton Street Park, 405-11 Manton St., bears figurative fruit, as they plan to have its adjacent garden produce the literal kind.
“This situation illustrates some of the communication issues in getting information from City agencies to neighborhoods,” Jessica Calter, a nearly two-year resident of the 400 block of Manton Street, said at Monday’s gathering of group members.
Her referenced matter centers on the classification of the area she and her fellow members of Friends of Manton Street Park and Community Garden want to be a beacon of beauty and camaraderie. They suffered a setback Nov. 23, learning that the City had sold their beloved turf as part of a bundle of empty lots.
Parks Coordinator Barbara McCabe told them in June that the Philadelphia Parks and Recreation Department had the expanse listed in its inventory, Parks and Recreation Commissioner Michael DiBerardinis said, so Calter and Mark Berman, a 15-year inhabitant of the 300 block of Manton Street, made the month their outreach time for rectifying its aesthetics. More than 50 years old, it had become a victim of illegality, neglect and trash. A razed house on its adjoining lot complicated the scenery, with broken brick retaining walls, dirt mounds, ivy and litter abounding, Berman, the two-month-old friends’ president, said.
“We were just trying to find a solution,” he said.
He and Calter met with volunteers June 18 to commence beautifying the space that received help from the hands of 15 children, too. That meeting came, they claim, one month after 1st District Councilman Frank DiCicco staffer Nick Schmanek gave verbal approval to rehabilitate the park and build a community garden. Attempts to contact DiCicco’s office were unsuccessful.
Eager to show civic pride, the enthused dwellers participated in Sept. 10’s inaugural South Philly Garden Tour. Unbeknownst to them, the City began to sell the disputed area, though not the garden, which the Redevelopment Authority owns, after Mayor Michael Nutter signed an ordinance July 19, which DiCicco introduced May 12 and City Council passed June 16, with their haven joining a nearby lot on an auction blotter Oct. 7.
“For the tour, we were a work in progress but were proud enough to show the improvements,” Calter said.
Their pride led her to invite DiCicco to see their labors’ results. His office vowed he would make an October stop, Calter said but it was not the case. The group instead welcomed his soon-to-be successor, Mark Squilla, a resident of Front Street and Snyder Avenue, who commended the progress.
“I am a supporter of their work,” Squilla said Wednesday. “The area is a neat community builder, and the sweat equity they have put in has been second to none.”
The Manton crew weeded and constructed 10 garden beds on the adjoining lot Nov. 5 for LOVE Your Park Day, a combined ventured by the Parks and Recreation Department, the Fairmount Park Conservancy and the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. Five days later, some space tenders saw surveyors canvassing the stretch.With letters to DiCicco and Nutter earning no responses, Berman contacted the Office of Housing and Community Development Nov. 14, discovering the entity was not the owner of the property, which property records dubbed it was, along with calling it an “amusement city park.” Additional surveyor sightings spurred more letters and calls, with the chain of correspondences leading him to the Office of Public Property.
A representative told him Nov. 23 that the space was under contract; that the City owned the land, never intending it as a park and that property records contained outdated, unreliable information, DiBerardinis said. Post-Thanksgiving, McCabe confirmed the use of a 1998 database in granting permission to tackle the renovation.
“We were definitely frustrated to learn that,” Calter said of the mix-up. “Our understanding had been that it was a City park.”
As quickly as they rallied supporters to clean the space, she and Berman rounded up helpers for a letter writing campaign, delivering messages to City Hall Nov. 29, with Holly Ford, a resident of the 1200 block of South Fourth Street, obtaining a copy of the ordinance. That day, the friends group also met with Parks and Recreation Commissioner Michael DiBerardinis, who notified them of the Land Protection Ordinance that spares properties owned by the City prior to 2009 from alteration. Hope sank again when Berman learned the measure did not apply to Manton Street Park because of a decade of sales.
City Council-at-Large Jim Kenney’s office divulged the same day that the City sold the lot to the Redevelopment Authority June 10, 2001 for $1, removing it from Parks & Rec’s inventory, Richard Lazer, Kenney’s special project coordinator, said. On June 20, it became the property of the Jefferson Square Community Development Corp., active in the upkeep of Jefferson Square Park, 300 Washington Ave., for $1, too, but development did not occur, and another $1 sale occurred Oct. 15 of last year, with the City making the purchase. Considering an injunction to block the sale, the Friends submitted an Open Public Records Act request to the aforementioned agencies and Licenses & Inspections last month.
They discovered that KJO Design & Planning’s Kevin O’Neill applied for a zoning permit to build a trio a single-family homes on 409-13 Manton St. Oct. 21, Maura Kennedy, Licenses & Inspections Director of Strategic Initiatives said, yet Calter said that a final agreement of sale has not occurred.
While many of the friends’ members had been strangers to Calter prior to June, she said they do not oppose overall development in Dickinson Narrows as they want construction to occur nearby.
“We think it would be wonderful to have full rows of homes and a pocket park,” she said.
A desired holiday fundraiser became a rally to halt the sale Dec. 4. Two days later, a meeting with DiCicco furthered their goal of being property protectors. They have begun to try to acquire the garden area from the Redevelopment Authority and have decorated its nearby fencing with a forthright sign declaring “Reclaimed & maintained by the Friends of Manton Street Park and Community Garden.” The Friends have freedom to pass through the debated zone, which they did Monday evening for a briefing on the latest news.
DiCicco’s office promised them a resolution by the end of the year, Calter said, with her hearing that something in everybody’s best interest would result. The night’s chills seemed to give way to a wave of warm sentiment, as the group pondered hearing a beneficial announcement.
“We would like to do more landscaping and upgrade the fencing,” Fritz Dietel, of the 1200 block of South Second Street, whose daughters, Emma, 12, and Anna, 9, have assisted with maintenance, said.
The evening attendees stressed the communal joy the reparations have rendered, with Michael Oscapinski eager to treat the Manton Street spot like an artist’s canvas.
“We could do so much, possibly making it a multi-functioning room,” the resident of the 300 block of Manton Street said.
He and Berman are Pennsporters, yet geography, they said, should never matter when aiming to improve a city’s green space.
“It makes us feel great to know we could soon have fantastic news,” Berman said.
If it comes, Calter will enjoy another chance to perform her unofficial speaking duties.
“When I moved here, I did not enjoy looking across the street,” she said. “Now I know and believe in its potential.”
Contact Staff Writer Joseph Myers at jmyers@southphillyreview.com or ext. 124.
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