May 2011 - Parks & Recreation - 46

revitalization of Selena Butler Park. O'Connell looks
forward to seeing the park reopen to serve the 500
new residents who will be living right next door.
Thus the city blocks flanking Selena Butler Park
are now poised, after tornado, demolition, and rebuilding, to come back to life-with a brand new
population of seniors, families, and young singles.

" We Can Decide What Happens There "
" The seniors are there all day long, and they need
a place to socialize and bring their families, " says
Helene Mills. She adds that the close proximity of
the senior community could provide just the sort of
continuously watchful, caring eyes needed to sustain
the park once the rebuilding effort is complete. Patricia Katz, the park department landscape architect
who has attended all planning and community input
meetings, says she has seen firsthand the seniors'
excitement about the prospect of enjoying and caring for the park. " The room was packed each time, "
she says. " Standing room only. "

Trish O'Connell, who says she initially thought seniors would be the primary park users, notes that
when the city conducted a sustainability analysis of
the Selena Butler Park project, she was surprised to
learn " how very attractive the park is to young people in the neighborhood, too. " Younger residents
from the Old Fourth Ward, including the Friends of
Butler Park, faithfully attended meetings, submitted input they had drawn from other successful park
projects, and offered continual reminders that the
park will serve many others besides the new Auburn Pointe residents.
City council member Kwanza Hall shares Katz's
and O'Connell's excitement about the cross-generational cooperation Selena Butler Park is sparking. And
his optimism for the park's sustainability is spurred by
a recent shining success just around the corner: Historic Fourth Ward Park. Noting the broad-scale community engagement that project created, Hall notes, " We
see how great the Fourth Ward Park has been. Everyone from young to old has come out for that park. "

Matt Ruppert

" I've invested so much in this restaurant... "
" It's no secret that Edgewood has been a rough part of town, " says Matt
Ruppert, owner of Noni's Deli, which sits on a corner of Edgewood Avenue
just a block away from Selena Butler Park. " All the foot traffic in the neighborhood was drug dealers and crack addicts-and that park seemed to be
the locus of all that negative energy in the immediate neighborhood. "
Ruppert says that, despite the drug and criminal elements that dominated Butler Park, he would take breaks from work to use the tennis court
or toss a Frisbee there. He admits that those " breaks " felt a little too unsafe
to be enjoyable; but, he says, " I've invested so much in this restaurant that
I wanted to put myself in an uncomfortable situation just to try and bring
about change. "
Once the park was closed, Ruppert continued to push for change-mostly by encouraging concerned citizens to use Noni's as a meeting and planning spot. And by engaging other business owners up and down the street
in discussions about how the park, once rebuilt, might add to the growing
vitality of Edgewood's " Restaurant Row. " He says he and other restaurant
owners would like to see the park serve as a gathering spot for special
events and downtown festivals. One whimsical idea they have come up with
is a neighborhood pub crawl: a late-afternoon event in which visitors to
Edgewood would literally crawl on all fours from one neighborhood establishment to the next, congregating and socializing first at the park.
" Initially, " Ruppert admits, " I wondered, what is going to stop the [drug]
trafficking from coming right back again once the park reopens? But this
street has come a long way in the past couple of years. We weren't quite
winning the fight yet [in 2008/2009]. But new businesses have come in
since then, and I am connected now to others who care as much as I do. "
44 Parks & Recreation

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May 2011 - Parks & Recreation

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