We got so much done in Virginia Park this weekend and had a great time as well. We had a cook-out on Saturday, got the entire Bond Ave. fence painted as well as half the backstop, powerwashed and started painting the picnic table, planted flowers, varnished the wooden park signs and removed garffiti from playground equipment.
I think it was 1957 when we finally moved into the house that my father, George Criggler, and his cousins, Riley Owens(and sons), built on 35th Street. George decided that the address would be 325 So. 35th. It was on the southwest corner of 35th and Converse.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first visited Virginia Park I was in the third grade. Our house faced the park to the east. I remember the tennis court and the wading pool specifically. Actually, I don't ever recall water in the wading pool. But it was there, and had worked in previous years.
Half the park was fenced. Converse to the north and McCasland to the south. 35th Street to the west and 37th Street to the east. The was no fence along Bond Avenue.
Let's see, in the fenced part, there was the tennis court, swings, sliding board, merry -go-round, picnic tables, water fountain, and the wading pool. There were four entrances, one from every direction.
The unfenced part, to the south, had mostly grass and trees and a bifurcating path with benches to the water fountain mid-way on the Bond Avenue end.
When I was back home for my 35th high school reunion in 2002, I went over to the old house and took some pictures. The fence was gone. Even the tennis court fence. The surface was there, but no fence and no net. Much of the grass was gone. The apparatus, gone. Very sad.
Hooray to those who are putting in work to revive and refurbish the park.
Thanks Errol for bringing this project to my attention.
(The house is clearly visible in pictures #4 and #5.)
Thurston Criggler