Posted by Barry Carter/Star-Ledger Columnist September 03, 2009 8:00PM
Categories: Must-See
NEWARK -- In the 14 years she has lived at Pilgrim Baptist Village in Newark, Shirley James never had a reason to sit on her balcony.
Tall weeds were the playground for rodents, some so big you could put a saddle on them. The barren land below her window was a dumping ground for residents and commuters to get rid of whatever: Washing machines, tires, all manner of construction debris. It was there for decades, casting what James calls "a bad spirit," over the neighborhood.
What a nice view does for the spirit would seem to be not in dispute. People pay millions for it, along Central Park or the shore, on majestic hills and mountains across the country. What's in a view? Some kind of food for the soul, perhaps. James and her neighbors were lucky. The city and a national agency that crusades for more urban green space. recently built a park near them and what it has done for their sense of peace and calm is worth a million, they say.
The expanse of green is Nat Turner Park, a nine-acre swatch turned into an urban treasure in the Central Ward. It's the kind of space where people congregate and relax. Here's a safe place for children to play, the kind of space you just look at and life feels a little better. One of those intangibles poor people can seldom afford or enjoy
The trees and a combination of annuals and perennials planted near walking paths give the landscape a fiery energy, backed by a grassy hillside rolling up toward Pilgrim Baptist.
"All we do is go out on the porch and enjoy the view," James said, looking toward her 28-year-old autistic son. "I just love it. I just love it."
Smack in the middle of this expanse of environment is a new football field and track, a 200-seat amphitheater embedded into the hillside. On the other side of the field is a children's playground and water sprinklers. You can hear them laughing and the older kids splashing at a city pool and recreation center, a facility that looked vacant when the weeds and debris dominated the landscape. The pool and its center have a home now. It looks like it's a part of something. Finally.
Depending on where you stand, the view continues with a new Central High School and trendy looking townhouses on its backside.
The park anchors the outdoor complex, serving as a focal point for activity. To look at it, you would never think this neighborhood was once the footprint of failed high-rises demolished in the 1990s.
Now, as early as 6 a.m, people are out walking or running laps around the track. Some come in the evening just before park lights cast a tranquil glow over the grounds.
Some residents worry that change will bring gentrification, making the area too pricey for the poor. Pilgrim Baptist is privately owned and residents like John Odom fear it could be sold to developers.
The park is a cooperative venture, spearheaded in part by the Trust for Public Land, a nonprofit park development organization based in San Francisco that works with communities and cities to create green open space in urban areas around the country.
Odom was one of a core of residents who attended the planning meetings the Trust held before the park was built. He says he and his fellow residents are now being vigilant about protecting the beauty that's come into their lives.
"We have to continue to organize with tenants to ward off any potential outside interest," Odom said. "This should be preserved for good tenants."
Annie Smith, a home health aide, normally walks through the park, but this day she sat a few moments to think about her mom, who just had both legs amputated because of diabetes. Smith didn't want to leave the park. It was that comforting, a sort of emotional battery charge helping her consider how to help her mom. On another level, though, one more personal, Smith said the park made her feel proud to live in Newark and not to have left it as she had once been thinking.
"I just feel so relaxed," she said. "I feel so good, like I can tackle anything. I had no idea it was going to be like this. This is beautiful.
The park, in all its infancy, makes Rashidah Jefferson want to cry. Kids are playing again. People are exercising. Pop Warner and high school teams are practicing. Cheerleaders are doing their thing.This is what she sees from her second-floor apartment in a senior citizen building a few blocks away. It looks even better from the ninth floor when she visits a friend.
"This puts some joy inside my tears," Jefferson said.
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