This past weekend the HPCC hosted two events to mark the “opening” of the new community greenspace on the corner of Bryant Street and N. Euclid Ave. This new parklet is the result of a unique agreement between the HPCC and the property owner, the Highland Park Community Development Corporation (HPCDC). On Saturday, approximately 30 volunteers came out for a Neighborhood Cleanup to beautify the space – amazing considering the cool, damp weather!
Over the course of 2.5 hours, we disassembled and removed the old picnic tables; built four new picnic tables; dug out and pruned enough plant material to fill three dozen leaf and lawn bags (weeds, saplings, shrubs, stumps); dug out many large chunks of broken cement foundation; and pulled out other miscellaneous trash and debris. This hard work really transformed this underutilized space into a lovely resource for the neighborhood.
Special thanks to LaScola’s for providing coffee and cider for our volunteers, and to Grounded Strategies for providing the tools. Grounded is a community non-profit that works to improve the social, economic, and environmental health of communities by helping residents reclaim vacant and underutilized land; you can learn more about them here: (link: https://groundedpgh.org/) And of course, thank you so much to all of the volunteers who showed-up and pitched-in!
Check out photos from the clean-up and before and after photos of the space.
On Sunday, the parklet was transformed into a Pumpkins Patch!
Upwards of 200 visitors came by and explored the parklet, chose pumpkins, enjoyed the decorations, and visited Shelob’s den (or was it Aragog’s?). The HPCC also distributed children’s Halloween craft packs and worksheets for drawing Super Playground redesign ideas. Pumpkins were free, but we did accept non-perishables for the Vintage Senior Center and donations for the HPCC. Pumpkins that remained at the end of the event were given to our Bryant Street (and adjacent) businesses. Check out Pumpkin Patch photos here. Please note that everyone was great about wearing masks at both events; for the Pumpkin Patch photos, we allowed people to briefly remove their masks and share their beautiful smiles.
Special thanks to Bryant Street Market for co-sponsoring the event. And thank you to all the folks who generously gave to the Vintage Senior Center and the HPCC. Contributions are the HPCC’s primary source of revenue to support endeavors such as the new parklet, and programming such as the Halloween craft packs. If you would like to join or provide a donation to the HPCC, you can use the links on our website.