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The little playground at Denby Park was a wonderful idea in theory. The project was backed by car dealers and the Chrysler Foundation and built by 400 volunteers three years ago. All of them hoped it would change the face of the place, do something for the kids living nearby, even help lift Wards Corner.
The city was proud enough of the project that it spent months bragging on it as a sign of its commitment to a section of the city that often gets too little attention.
Now, as The Pilot's Harry Minium has reported, Norfolk wants to take it away. The city said the playground has become a magnet for crime, one reported almost every other day in the surrounding quarter mile.
City Hall quietly started planning to move the playground to a park nearby, but the plan became public, and City Manager Marcus Jones put it on hold. The administration didn't do itself any favors by not informing the neighbors or the City Council about the plans.
The flaw in the idea, however, goes well beyond communication. Moving the playground from Denby Park does nothing for the people left living by an empty lot.
The city's long-term plan for Denby Park, as Minium reported, involves tearing down many of the apartments, which were built in the 1950s and 1960s. It involves an attempt to recapture some of the neighborhood character lost when apartments took over open spaces.
Residents just want the playground moved, like a patient who wants a tumor excised.
"We should not expect the citizens of Norfolk to have to raise their families in a neighborhood infected with a criminal cancer," said Martin Thomas Jr., vice president of the Wards Corner Civic League and a member of the Planning Commission.
Thomas is right.
As it has been for years, though, the solution to Denby Park's problems is not a playground. Or removing a playground. The solution is in a relentless attention to the problems of Wards Corner: a concentration of poverty, crime.
And that will take much more effort than moving a playground from one lot to another.
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How very sad.
I grew up in the Wards Corner area and it is tragic how this area has been allowed to develop into one of the most dangerous and underprivileged areas of the city. I see no reason to remove the playground. There is no reason to believe that the crime that infests it is going to disappear by replacing a playground with a vacant lot. Unfortunately, a real improvement to this area is not possible without a very substantial investment of money and time. It is doubtful the City or the community can afford either.