Health & Fitness
Barnum Park Can Only Improve
Would tennis and basketball courts be out of the question?
Every time I go by , I scratch my head. Now that I'm bleeding up there, you'd think I'd either change my route to work or just accept that some things can't be explained.
My logical mind tries and fails to make sense of the $1 million design of a $5.8 million land purchase that brought us a monument reminiscent of Auschwitz, too many pathways (some to nowhere), little empty circles, big empty circles and lots of weeds ... er, native plantings. Did you know that it costs taxpayers something like $25,000 a year to water the park? That's about $1 per resident, and around $2.50 per household.
It brings small joy when I see a softball or soccer game going on. Those sorts of activities went on before the big and expensive renovation. Thus the small size of my joy. At least the neighbors, who asked for and received virtual carte blanche in executing the project, didn't impose an outright ban on children. They just made sure there were as few things as possible to attract the pesky little noisemakers.
Did you know there were once tennis courts at Barnum? Squeezed into that tiny space of eight acres along with the school?
Not to forget the school, we also have its entryway bizarrely preserved, lit and properly drained with an industrial strength downspout. Not to forget it was Beaumont Hospital, that good corporate neighbor, that occupied the school till the end, and would have happily given up some of the building to demolition and helped develop a respectable park — had it been offered the opportunity. Instead, we gave up two valuable assets — the building and the tenant.
The city promises that the park's beauty will "intensify over time." Let's hope so. Let's also hope that its use will intensify with the addition of some real recreational attractions: tennis courts, maybe, a basketball court, maybe an artificial turf hill that kids can slide down, or a half-pipe for the kids with skateboards. The umpteenth Ad Hoc Barnum Park Committee has been convened to assess the situation and recommend improvements. I hate to be negative (not really; it's what I do best), but I don't have a lot of faith in anything called an Ad Hoc Barnum Park Committee, no matter what iteration, or any design of almost anything by a committee of amateurs.
