A park worth keeping
The best downtowns have more than just concrete and steel going for them. A slice of greenery to offer respite to weary workers and penned-in apartment dwellers enhances the look and feel of a city’s center. Marshall Park in Uniontown is just such a place. But the oasis of nature in the midst of concrete is in jeopardy as Uniontown City Council has placed it in a Keystone of Opportunity Zone. That designation signals that the city could be easily convinced to sell the parcel to a developer to erect yet another building in the interest of bringing development and jobs downtown.
While jobs are sorely needed, chewing up the only downtown park to do so is a tradeoff that Uniontown should not be willing to make. There are far too many empty buildings and storefronts falling within the historic district that could be converted to new uses. The mayor and council must revisit the decision to place the park in a KOZ, especially following last week’s meeting in which area garden club members converged on city hall to plea on the park’s behalf.
Valerie Sesler, president of the Green Gardeners, shared a little bit of information with us about the park’s genesis that she culled from reading through old minutes and querying club members’ memories. In early 1962, five area garden clubs joined gloved hands to form the Garden Club Council and work together on beautifying the city. In March, the club invited Mr. John Simonds, a very prominent landscape architect from Pittsburgh, to speak at an open forum about beautification. His group, the Allegheny Conference on Community Development, worked on many projects in Pittsburgh, and he was later commissioned to design the park.
The community was four-square behind the project; the garden club kicked in $18,000; the Jaycee’s another $10,000; the redevelopment council took care of demolition and the Army Reserves came in to do the heavy grading and machinery work.
Together, the community in 1965 built the park, planting the first memorial trees in November and hosting a lavish dedication ceremony the following year. For nearly four decades the park has offered as a place to stop, rest a spell in quiet and shade and reflect on the day.
It’s location, tucked away a few blocks from downtown’s core, has served surrounding apartment buildings well. It’s not what one would ever term an active or overused park, but it is used and quietly enjoyed by those who take its existence for granted.
The mayor and council probably never anticipated such reaction when they designated it as a parcel ripe for development. Now that the community is speaking, council would be wise to follow the mayor’s lead and vow not to sell Marshall Park.