October 25–November 1, 2001

news

Battle of the Bowl

It’s neighbor versus neighbor in a dispute over how to use Clark Park.

by Daniel Brook

Kicking grass: Residents can’t agree on how to use Clark Park. photo: Rachel Gagnon

Many Philadelphia parks are supported by a "friends of the park" group. The neighbors organizations typically plant flowers in the spring and rake leaves in the fall. West Philadelphia’s Clark Park has the distinction of having spawned two rival community groups, the Friends of Clark Park and the Clark Park Music and Arts Community. Rather than joining together to care for the park, the two groups spend much of their time fighting with each other. The organizations have repeatedly sparred over the Music and Arts Community’s semiannual festivals.

This year, the Music and Arts Community renamed its rock-concert-cum-flea-market event the "Freedom Festival." In the program handed out to revelers at the most recent event, festival organizers explained that "the theme of our second Freedom Festival is once again devoted to the preservation of public land, and the freedom of citizens to use public lands." The Clark Park Music and Arts Community, it claimed, was under attack from the Friends of Clark Park. The rival neighbors organization hoped to limit the length and format of the festival "in the name of revitalization," the program said.

Located on 43rd Street between Baltimore and Woodland avenues, Clark Park sits in the heart of one of Philadelphia’s most diverse neighborhoods. UPenn grad students mix with upper-middle-class professionals; long-term African-American residents live side by side with recent immigrants to the U.S. While many of the locals were attracted to the neighborhood because of its diversity, occasional friction occurs. The dispute between the Clark Park Music and Arts Community and the Friends of Clark Park pits the young student crowd against the older, more established homeowners. The two groups have very different visions for the park. The Music and Arts Community wants to see the park used as a concert venue and a space for large public gatherings; the Friends prefer more demure activities like its youth soccer league and "Bark in the Park," an annual event for dogs and owners.

Cynthia Roberts, the president of the Friends of Clark Park, says her group merely attempts to represent the interests of those who live around the park before the Philadelphia Recreation Department, which issues permits for park events and enforces park regulations. "We have no policy about how the park should be used," Roberts said. The Friends claim that, for the most part, residents who live near the park’s perimeter would like shorter park events and limits on the use of amplified sound.

Glenn Moyer, a leader of the Clark Park Music and Arts Community, says that the Friends of Clark Park have, over the years, gone beyond simply representing local residents, alerting the police and Recreation Department to any infraction real or imagined committed by other groups, while breaking those same regulations at their own events. Instead of encouraging diverse uses of the park, Moyer says the group has tried "limiting, restricting or banning use of the park by those outside of Friends of Clark Park."

From his experiences serving as a dissenting member of the Friends’ executive board, Moyer claims that the group is run by an elite group of long-term board members who manipulate parliamentary procedure to stifle debate. "It’s a club, not a legitimate neighborhood ‘friends’ organization," says Moyer, who recently resigned from the board "in disgust."

Cynthia Roberts denies that the group is undemocratic, suggesting that Moyer didn’t get his way because he was in the minority, not because of any dirty tricks. "We take votes. Things get voted up, things get voted down. It’s as simple as that," she said.

When the Friends circulated a questionnaire in February asking how long a park event should last, Moyer claims he never saw a copy, even though he was on the board subcommittee committee responsible for creating it. Moyer was also upset when the survey, which attained only a 13 percent response rate, was presented to the Recreation Department as proof that the community wanted park events limited to six hours. (70 percent of respondents who completed the survey said they thought park events should last less than six hours.)

Roberts says that while the Friends favor a six-hour limit on park events, the group no longer uses that survey since she concedes it was "not scientific."

Beyond time limits, the Friends are also concerned about the use of amplified sound. Friends of Clark Park board member Paul Brooks complained, "As someone who lives on the park and hears the events whether I want to or not, six hours is too long."

Despite the continued disagreements, Barbara McCabe, who oversees Clark Park at the Recreation Department, thought the most recent festival went pretty well. McCabe said that both the Friends’ youth soccer games and the Music and Arts Community’s festival took place without getting in each other’s way.

But the disputes go on. At the Friends’ general meeting on Monday night, Music and Arts Community members showed up en masse hoping to elect insurgent presidential candidate Scott Maits. Maits ran on a platform of mending bridges with the Music and Arts Community. "The Friends needs to better represent both the diversity of users and residents that use and live near Clark Park," the challenger wrote in his printed candidate’s statement. Susan Scanlin, the board’s hand-picked candidate, beat Maits 56-48.

As for the future of the Freedom Festivals, Moyer feels all is not well. Having to spend so much effort dealing with the Friends of Clark Park leaves him with very little motivation to actually plan the events. Moyer claims the next festival, scheduled for June, is in jeopardy. "It used to be fun," he laments.