Fowler Park, Perry South: 2435 Wilson Avenue
Have you ever walked through an empty playground and thought you caught a glimpse of long-ago children in your peripheral view? In places that are deep and wide with human emotions, the past shares space with the present, and if we’re lucky, we can come close to the connection. For nearly 100 years, Fowler Park has been where residents come together to win and lose at baseball, football, and soccer, learn to swim or show off a new bathing suit, swing high and low, make new friends and keep the old, share joyful secrets and bitter tears, cry, yell, and pound fists in sadness and anger, fall in and out of love, and celebrate and commiserate all the events, both big and small, memorable and forgettable, that create a life.
While it might not be apparent to the casual observer, Fowler Park has undergone improvement in almost every decade between 1927 and 2010. Thanks to city planners and community groups, the recently published Fowler Park Master Plan outlines and visualizes what’s coming in the years ahead. From traffic calming to increased parking, an updated swimming pool, a repaired gymnasium, and refreshed equipment and walking paths, it’s a plan that’s hopeful, ambitious, and beautiful—qualities everyone wants in their neighborhood park.
Walking along the weedy and broken paths, I intentionally blur the current condition. Instead, I imagine playing here as a child when each feature was new and exciting. Traveling up and down the decades, so much playful energy found a home here. And in the next few years, there may be even more.
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