The locked gate of Squirrel Hill Falls park at 48th and Chester.
Squirrel Hill Falls Park, a pocket park which was built in the 1990’s but has been closed for years, will reopen for several hours this Saturday for a spring cleanup. The organization that owns the lot at 48th and Chester, Friends Rehabilitation Program (FRP), has allowed the Friends of Squirrel Hill Park community group to enter and clean up the park from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday.
Taking into account the park’s deteriorating condition FRP has two requirements though: Anyone wishing to help in the cleanup has to sign a waiver, and because of safety concerns minors will not be permitted to participate in this cleanup. The Friends of Squirrel Hill Park will have copies of the waiver on hand.
Anyone wishing to help with the cleanup is welcome to join the Friends. The tools will be provided, but you can bring your own rake or set of gloves.
Read more about the latest efforts to reopen the park for community use here.
April 10th, 2015 at 9:58 am
Why would the public go and spend time and money on a PRIVATE ELITIST property?
This is their financials I ASK YOU? do they really need to ask the public for money??
https://www.citizenaudit.org/236398764/
TWO of their employees according to their 2012 tax filing make more than $100,000.00
One hundred thousand dollars
One Million in employee salary???
They have 19 million in assets!!!!
This is a not for profit?
April 10th, 2015 at 10:01 am
Nineteen Million dollars in assets. They work in a profit margin. over 1 million in employee salaries We are better off helping a NFP who really needs the help. They can afford to pay to have the park cleaned why pilfer off the community. I’ll be there but on the side walk with a sign asking why a MILLION DOLLAR company needs to pilfer funds from the public.
April 10th, 2015 at 10:06 am
Where are you seeing that they’re asking for money?
April 10th, 2015 at 10:17 am
On the other feed
YouseGotItBackwards Says:
April 10th, 2015 at 9:59 am
@sammonphiladelphia
>>>FRP does not need public funds to maintain a defunct property they should have been maintaining all along. It is PRIVATE why would we pay for that?
The newly reformed neighborhood group is asking for vollunteers to help clean-up the park this Saturday. Eventually they may need to ask for donations to fix things that are broken in Danielle Rousseau Hunter’s design that make it impractical for maintaining cheaply and to maximize community use. Nobody is asking for tax dollars to fix the park.
Basically either you need to decide if you want to be part of the effort of trying to reenvision the park as more functional space for public use or if you would like to encourage FRP to build affordable housing units on that corner. By hating on FRP, you are defacto urging them to build affordable apartments on that site. Is that your preference, sammonphiladelphia?
Again why don’t they hire a “local” maintenance company to fix it. Why pass it on to a possibility of elitism and dishonesty again. I don’t know this “new group” why do they get the park? Was there a public offer? Did a meeting occur? Was a survey done asking the neighborhood what they wanted?
I can not support what is not open to public scrutiny.
April 10th, 2015 at 10:47 am
For someone so full of negative opinions about FRP, you sure didn’t seem to read the article you are venting about.
Friends of Squirrel Hill Park are new group, doing a vollunteer clean-up this Saturday at 9:00 AM if you are interested. I’m sure they are looking for anybody who wants to get involved. Thats why they circulated the questionaire for what sort of uses the neighborhood would like to see happen in the park. They are soliciting.
Again, their contact info from the article at the top of this thread (which you didn’t seem to read).
https://friendsofsquirrelhillpark.wordpress.com/
April 10th, 2015 at 10:48 am
The are soliciting community input that sentence was supposed to read.
April 10th, 2015 at 11:13 am
Not really feeling the “elitist” vibe, BTW.
http://friends-frp.com/?page_id=351
April 10th, 2015 at 12:13 pm
Why would you go help clean a space that will not be open to the public? As I understand from another source, the organization that owns the property does not want to pay the insurance premiums that would be needed if the public were to use the space.
April 10th, 2015 at 5:26 pm
@phil I agree. part of my point.
April 10th, 2015 at 9:14 pm
stupid park!
Designed for basically one purpose, as some type of performance space. So why call it a park.
Considering how much the surrounding area could use a clean up, why spend any energy cleaning up private gated property.
April 11th, 2015 at 10:50 pm
Read the article. Either go there and help or don’t. Shut the hell up. West Philly Local is a haven for big mouthed – no nothings and haters. Some of you that troll this website are some of the worst people in existence. Help clean the beautiful space so it can be used for something nice. Or you can just research the company who owns the property, their tax history, business statement, mission objective.. etc… and talk about how terrible they are because they built a park when you were still in high school and lived in Oklahoma…..
April 12th, 2015 at 11:34 am
@stopcallingUniversityCityWestPhilly, Thank you for your input.
I research NFP’s because too many of them fall short of ethical. ( NOT SAYING FRP IS unethical)
West Philadelphia has become a hot spot for gentrification. When a specific area is targeted for development the neighborhood will suddenly get “special” attention. Sometimes it is by cleaning up other times L&I condemnation. It all depends on the developer who has their sights on the area and the project they have in mind.
When a defunct private park in an area ripe for development after years of mismanagement and misuse suddenly decides to form a “friends of group” who lobbies the public for support with out including the public. I must question the motives of the party at hand.
If we become more aware of the questionable actions of these NFP’s perhaps the neighborhoods wouldn’t loose out on the funds and grants that should be %100 for the community.
I am reminded of the 2.4 million dollars that was awarded to A property developer for the improvement of Mantua through a federal grant years ago. This past year Mantua had a huge eminent domaine sweep. Blocks were taken for a grocery store that was not brought before the public, was not yet approved by the city. 2.4 million what was it used for? One can only assume to buy out the families that have been there for years forcing them out w/ eminent domaine. Given a pittance for the price of their home.
So I ask you @stopcallingUniversityCityWestPhilly Why shut the hell up? When the city I love is being pieced out to special groups and renamed UCity, Powelton Village, West View dismantling history, neighborhoods, families. I am proud of West Philadelphia It should be preserved and cherished not sighted for quick cash and shady business deals.
It is our civic duty to be aware be active and speak up. If we do not then we have only ourselves to blame when our homes are stolen and demolished.
Peace sammonphiladelphia
April 12th, 2015 at 11:49 pm
Oh, for godssakes. I’ve lived here for 25 years. Here’s the story as I see it.
FRP owned the lot. Danielle Rousseau Hunter lived across the street and was bothered by the vacant lot across the street when she looked out her window. She persuaded Squirrel Hill Civic Association to undertake to turn the lot into a park. Squirrel Hill/DRH went to FRP and said “We want a park!” And FRP said, “Well, OK.” SH/DRH went out and persuaded lots of funding sources to fund a “grassroots” neighborhood effort – funds that could have need far more productively used. Maybe some SH folks initially meant well, but DRH’s ego got out of control, and the park became a monument to DRH. It was entirely impractical, lots of people were alienated in the process, no one maintained it, and it fell into disuse.
Over the years, people have periodically asked, “Hey, why doesn’t someone do something with that park?” So, it seems some people have gotten together to try to do something useful there. And FRP seems to have said, “Well, OK, but we’re really not happy with how this went down the last time around, and we have reason to believe there are safety issues there, so we want to make sure we’re not going to get sued if we let ‘the community’ use the space again.” I’m skeptical, I’m not sure what real use it can be put to, aside from ripping everything out and making it into a community garden. But, I have no reason to believe that FRP is the driving force behind this, or has some dastardly designs on the park or the neighborhood. It looks to me like a “no good deed goes unpunished” situation.
The “public” seems to have decided to try to clean up the park, not FRP.
Maybe you should get your history straight before you go making wild accusations. The “shady business deals” happened when the park was created. You are many years too late.
April 13th, 2015 at 9:01 am
Powelton Village as a neighborhood name has been in use since 1955, if not earlier. I understand the strength of a neighborhood name can wax and wane over the years but it’s ridiculous for people to declare a neighborhood name like Powelton Village which has been around for decades and decades is somehow invalid or only recently coined. I am proud to be a resident West Philadelphia, a rather large swath of our city. I am also proud to orient myself as part of my smaller neighborhood within West Philadelphia. The two are not mutually exclusive.
April 13th, 2015 at 10:43 am
We must govern our own lest those who prey upon the weak feast upon ignorant bones.
April 13th, 2015 at 1:21 pm
OH WTF…I stumbled across this park over the weekend and though what a beautiful space I wonder if it can be rented out for events. I’m sure the hipsters would love to use it and that’s not diss to them I could see weddings, etc. Why not clean it up, open it up to the public for rental and call it a day? I somehow don’t think it would be THAT hard. Get over whatever stupid issues people have because of something in the past none of us had anything to do with and let the space be used by the community.
April 13th, 2015 at 3:49 pm
Why, if only they made tools that could cut locks so that people could enjoy the park…
April 13th, 2015 at 11:36 pm
Sounds like the park is a cash cow for a few in its present operational state.
April 14th, 2015 at 10:03 am
maybe they got A USE IT OR LOSE IT notice
April 21st, 2015 at 3:06 pm
Venturing off topic, but the name Powelton, to my understanding predates West Philadelphia being incorporated into the city of Philadelphia at all. It was a small neighborhood or “village” outside the city when most of what is now West Philly was still farmland, which is why the grid there is different. The name goes back to the 1800s.