Oh, Roberto

A Fairmount neighborhood "sore spot" is reborn.

by Brian Howard

Sara Hirschler wanted to live in Spring Garden. "I fell in love with the building I live in and also the street," says Hirschler, a 2007 Drexel graduate. "It was honestly a dream of mine to live on Green Street."

She bought a house in the Spring Garden neighborhood on the 1900 block of Green, despite, she says, the warnings of two different realtors about the park a block away at 19th and Wallace. "Don't look at that," they told her, "or you won't want to live here."

Indeed, Roberto Clemente Park, between 18th and 19th and Wallace and Mount Vernon streets, directly south of the impressive Spring Gardens community garden, has had its problems. With its rundown hoops, ball field, jungle gym and spraygrounds, it's been described by some longtime residents as the "last sore spot" of a neighborhood that had had issues with gangs and drugs going back to the '60s. It sits literally on the dividing line between a more affluent neighborhood to the west and a less affluent one to the east.

It is also, incidentally, the playground seen in the opening credits of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. You can tell by the eagle mural that still adorns a wall in the background. "Born and raised in West Philadelphia," jokes Terrence Smith, the park's rec leader, "but filmed here."

According to Smith, the park was no stranger to drug and gang activity in the past. Back in the day, the Francisville playground just a few blocks away and Clemente were territory for rival groups like the Moroccos and the Two OGs.

Today, thanks in no small part to the work of the active Spring Garden Community Development Corp. (SGCDC), the area's in considerably better shape. Justino Navarro, an SGCDC board member who's been in the neighborhood for upward of 35 years, is one of the citizens who, 14 years ago, helped turn a problem lot into the award-winning Spring Gardens. He's been instrumental in a new wave of activism in the area that may see Clemente Park lose its eyesore status, and residents from both sides of the park work together.

In April 2007, Hirschler started circulating a flier enlisting recruits for kickball games at Clemente.

"It became this fun, weekly thing," says Hirschler, who works in branding and marketing, "and kids from the neighborhood started showing up. And having the kids in the games made it 100 percent more fun."

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But the field was in shambles. The grass was spotty. There were holes in the fence. Benches were knocked over. "I wondered, how can we take kickball to the next level? How can we make the whole park better?" 

She and neighbor Kimberly Neff came up with a nine-point action plan, from improving the grass and signage, to creating a separate dog run, to planting trees and painting the jungle gym, and began circulating it.

"Navarro," says Hirschler, "has been absolutely pivotal." Navarro, a Philadelphia native of Puerto Rican ancestry and a retired GlaxoSmithKline employee who now consults for the SGCDC, had already been in meetings with Councilman Darrell Clarke about park improvements when he was approached by Hirschler. "The timing was most appropriate," says Navarro. "I volunteered my effort to help Sara in gaining community support in all areas of the neighborhood."

It's resulted in the "Celebrate Clemente!" project, which kicks off Friday with a fundraiser at St. Stephen's Green with a $10 suggested donation and a portion of the proceeds going to fund two cleanup days on April 4 and 18, both at 10:30 a.m. The Mural Arts Program, located right next door at 18th and Mount Vernon, is donating the paint and is in discussions about further collaborations (MAP has already painted the park's rec center).

But has it been difficult for a kickball league to plug into the mammoth rec department? "As far as bureaucracy," says Hirschler, "the process has been generally easy because the Parks and Rec Department is extremely receptive to outside help ... especially with the budget cuts."

Which is good to hear.

(bhoward@citypaper.net)