Help Tidy Up Lucas Park Saturday Morning
Lucas Park, located North of the Central Library downtown, has seen better days. One a fancy Victorian pocket park serving private residences in the immediate vicinity. As the houses were raised for factories and warehouses the park’s users changed. With the Gateway Mall and the Arch grounds thiss small park got overlooked. Maintenance is deferred like many city parks.
The day to day trash gets picked up but the less obvious does not. Two playground areas have a small gravel that has spilled out of its areas onto the adjacent sidewalks. Leaves, twigs and dirt have also collected in places such as around the steps to the sunken area. These items all contribute to an unkempt look that discourages many residents from using the park.
The homeless are there too, which is fine by me. I have no problems sitting in the same park as the homeless. By improving the maintenance we hope to encourage more people to use this as what it has been since the start — a charming pocket park serving area residents.
This Saturday morning (9/13/08) at 8am we’ll begin the work. We’ll have tools & brooms. All are welcome to help. We are thinking this will take a few hours but come for the time you can spare. We are planning to BBQ when the work is done. We’ll have stuff for burgers but bring what you like.
i don’t mind sharing a park with the homeless either – as long as they follow the rules! that’s the issue. anyway, if i weren’t 900 miles away i’d be there on saturday. good luck!
Eye, I would love to have come, but I am 1,700 miles away that day. 🙁
Can we reschedule? 🙂
Now that’s the spirit! Most folks think they need some sort of special ability to get things accomplished when truth be told; having some availability will go much further. I have found that opportunities to serve such as these are not only beneficial to the recipients but just as much (and sometimes more so) to the volunteers.
Since others are not available how about putting a broom in the hands of the homeless. Nothing like the pride they will feel having put in a good days work to clean up their home.
Spend my Saturday cleaning up the park so Larry’s homeless buddies can trash it again? No thanks.
It’s so refreshing to read about a citizen doing something positive…I’m a case worker at NLEC and unfortunately it has become fashionable recently to demonize the homeless in this area(at this rate city officials will only allow people who pay rent or a mortgage to access public areas)…Steve, I disagreed with your take on Rev. Rice’s proposal for the Tennessee property, but kudos for getting involved at Lucas Park without being mean-spirited.
Brian Ireland: Not everyone that disagrees with Larry Rice is “demonizing the homeless” or “mean-spirited.”
The East playground was put in when Downtown Day Care was next door. The followed up by putting in the West playground so children of the homeless could use it away from DT Day Care charges. They are both a disgrace and should be removed.
homeless people who crap, litter, and get drunk in the park SHOULD be demonized – as should anyone else who commits such crimes. and larry rice SHOULD be demonized when he lures people downtown who commit these crimes, and then makes no effort to stop them. he instead claims “it’s not my responsibility.” B.S.
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sorry. don’t mean to derail the conversation – just had to vent for a moment.
My point is that Steve should be applauded for working to imrove a park and doing so in a nonjudgmental way…I’m not sure there’s any kind of constructive dialogue that can be had with someone who really believes that NLEC is “luring” the homeless downtown–the poor have traditionally congregated in downtown areas for a variety of reasons…NLEC is downtown because that’s where the homeless are, not vice versa…While some hope for the NLEC to be held responsible for the behavior of all homeless people in the City of St. Louis, we’ll concentrate on doing our best to get people through whatever crisis they may find themselves in.
By warehousing them? By not paying them? Sounds like a good way to get them through a crisis.
Emotional words.
I would say NLEC is “feeding” them, and “providing them a place to sleep”. Both of which are factual and devoid of emotionally-charged rhetoric.
Now watch somebody attempt to demonize NLEC because it feeds starving people bologna sandwiches.
Ok, I’m tuckered out! There was an excellent showing this morning. Perhaps 25 or so? We accomplished a lot of work but still have more to do. Even had some homeless people helping us in the process. Everyone seemed to agree that improving the park is good for all area stakeholders.
The Post-Dispatch came by to interview some folks to include Ben Riley, Gopher, I, and some homeless as well.
We’re going to better organize and keep progress in motion. Afterwards, we met with a group that is focused on improving a larger swath of downtown. A common agreement was formed that quality of life issues such as cleanliness, safety, and community vibrancy need to be more actively addressed.
Brain,
is it not true that Rice brings homeless people to the downtown NLEC from other parts of the metropolitan area, and from other parts of the state? by it’s very existence the NLEC does, indeed, lure homeless people downtown – more than would be there otherwise. i have no problem with a credible, regulated homeless shelter downtown. currently, the NLEC is neither.