object to my cheesy intro directs the pocket part and often unsung hero of the city's party system. The small but mighty objections and green space and community help to fill out a mosaic between larger parks but they also what they what they do more than act as a stopgap measure. These parks are community gathering spaces, providing much needed haven of rest and recreation. Or they're providing crucial tree canopy active SEC second degree references at alarming worlds are creating opportunities for play and relaxation. pocket parks are vital components of the community. So we have a great way to come away with an appreciation and understanding these groups of stories. What goes into stewarding and knock apart at the role of pocket press play and the community. So Introduce yourself.
Hi there. My name is Jordan Michela. I am the director of programming. If you're not familiar with it, don't worry. You're not alone. We get that a lot. So we are right by Motown Museum and reform hospital of Western High School. So that's our neighborhood right there south of the boulevard. We have existed since 2017. Our founders are circulating around so if you've seen them with the camera style, but it was founded the organization is born and raised in the neighborhood and formalized a lot of the work that he had done as a child and really again making an effort to stabilize and revitalize his home in his community. So since 2017, I joined in 2018 since 2019. We have built six pocket parks. I'll talk a little bit more about them. We also renovated when we we home so we are almost complete with their second Voc Rehab. We have a handful more in the queue I think something like 10 which is kind of crazy when the same out loud. We have a whole host of programs when our holiday fest sweatshirt, so I'll talk about that later as well. But again, really just looking to improve upon our community to business community and family. We see all three of those things as intersecting and working together. So thank you for having the panel excited to talk about art plus, I can talk about parks all day.
Hello, everyone. My name is Darren data banks. And I'm the president of the Ella Fitzgerald Park Conservancy. I also serve as the activity director for the park and I will get share a little more about us as we talk on the panel.
Good afternoon. My name is Eric doohickey. I'm the president of the Morningside community organization on the northeast side of Detroit in District Four. I'm a 32 year resident of my house in Morningside and a lifetime in Detroit. And the part that I'm gonna be talking about his three mile unit which surprisingly, is the quarter like three mile experience
so I just like to start off by kind of telling the story of your parks or your organization and more about the work that you do.
Yeah, that's a good question. Um, so if you'd have asked me 10 years ago, would I ever have delta Park in my life I would have probably laughed you out of the room. But that being said, we really look at again, holistic development of the neighborhood. When we got started. When Daniel started the organization, it was in front of family board, it was operating budget of around $7,000. To put that in perspective, right now we're just under a million dollars. Which is kind of crazy again, if you think about it, but we really wanted to again, figure out what can we do, we knew that we weren't able to necessarily start with commercial court or or renovating single family homes yet, but we knew that we could build parks. So something that again is very important and intentional to us is that all of the parts and all the public spaces that we build are going to be there forever. Like we're never going to use them as a stopgap for development. We're never going to tear them down in lieu of, you know, the coolest next apartment building or house or even businesses going to come in. The other thing that I want to mention as well is that we have what we call our 20 by 25 initiative. So we are aiming to build 20 open public green spaces in the Northwest over goldwork neighborhood by December 31 2025 which is ambitious and it's something that again, you know, I think we'll talk about maybe some funding and things later, but we're very damp. It started with one part artpark daimyo me and his father did almost all the work ourselves except for Justin's dog department mom's pathway but we made it through that summer we didn't we didn't kill each other which was impressive. And we put a lot of blood sweat and tears into that park as well. Most recently we've managed our mini Park which is actually half of a city lot which is a very little tiny park. We have our Curtis Jones Park which is our biggest part today and I was on a $450,000 investment where we built the NBA size basketball court. We have 63 we have a walking path. We have a playground we have a tuff shed, we just equip the park with electricity and lights where we have the scoreboard hopefully installed soon and I don't know it might be too close on my way to the spring. We had our Halloween literacy Park, which we actually was the first major grant that we ever got from Detroit future city in the working with last program. We implemented their colonies lock design so every May April, late April, early May. We have over 1000 tools that pop up, it's beautiful. Many photos, we can look it up on our website or our social media. We have approximately I forgetting 1.0 Spotlight Park, which we built in 23 days, which was the craziest thing we've probably ever done. But essentially, Janelle Riley came to us and said that there was an investment that someone wanted to make and we had to sign an NDA because that person wouldn't tell us who the founder was. It ended up being Fox entertainment. They wanted to make an investment in Detroit based on their show, The Big Leap which came out so we built a stage. We built a accessible so ADA accessible pathway and there's about four pathways that go up to the stage. There's a brick wall, it's a screening wall, and then of course our resting heart, which we built built during the pandemic. At the time we had zero covered bus shelters in our neighborhood. We are home to the Lynwood 29 bus which is a major major we utilize bus line in the DDOT system. And we had no bus shelters so we built a whole park around having a covered bus shelter and having a safe and comfortable place for people to wait. And then we were able to use some funding through the cocoa and the rasa Wilson built to play initiative. So you're also able to add some play equipment to that park as well. One thing again, as I mentioned earlier, I am the director of programming so I'd be remiss if I did not talk about our programs because that's something that is extremely important. My co panelists here and I'm excited to hear about what activities you have as the activity director. But something else that again, we're extremely passionate about is making sure that within each department that we build, we have a program or activities or events that fill community gaps. So with that being said, again, going back to our economy's literacy Park, we have a 15 week reading program for pre K through second graders in the summertime where they come out. They're part of this program we work with to book mazing amazing early childhood educators that have built an entire curriculum. They get a new book every week that they get to keep that book so by the end of the summer, they'll have 15 new books added to their own libraries. There's activities that go along with the books, we have guest speakers. We've had the Motown museum come out and read books about Motown, we have had the Detroit Michigan Humane Society come out and service dogs. We had a bunch of other again guest readers that come out. But again, it's really making sure that we have programs that are filling those needs and filling those gaps within our community. Of course, I don't need to, you know, speak to this group of people about literacy rates in the city of Detroit. We all know that we're all working on that collectively. But again, making sure that we have those programs so for instance, spotlight Park, which is kind of our performance Park, we partner with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra for a program called music in the park, where it's a six week summer program. They bring out DSL musicians, we work with a bunch of other partner organizations that serve zero to 10 year olds, so we have a pretty wide range of kids. But they get to actually experience DSL music right here in our neighborhood, which, you know, you think about it. It's like, oh, verbose Colbert is only seven minutes from downtown or from orchestra Hall. That's great. There's a majority of kids in our neighborhood will never be able to actually get physically to that location, whether it's transportation whether it is a financial burden of going and being able to hear the orchestra but we are able to bring that to the table. So that's an overview. Again, I could talk about it all day long, but I want to hear more about my co panelists, parks and activities.
Okay. I should have gone first, followed follow. Now. As I've stated, I'm the president of the Ella Fitzgerald Park Conservancy. You're in Ella Fitzgerald community right now. This is district two. And our park is actually maybe four or five blocks east of this location located on Prairie Street, when the middle of the street from the middle of the neighborhood. The completion of the park took place in 2017. But prior to that, we had come together as a community to implement a place where our families can come together. Our motto that's on our letterhead document that we're getting ready to publish is we are ambassadors of the space where families and children are coming together safely. So we love that. So when we ever fished your park, it was birthed out of work for funding the city. of Detroit came in to revitalize the Fitzgerald community. When my family moved into the Fisher community in 1966. It was a very vibrant community. And since that time, you know, blight, predatory lending a lot of different things have come into effect that affected the community. So the mayor had an idea he brainstormed on revitalizing the area but something they condensed the area you know, whereas VISTA community spans from six miles to the large, then West, all the way to Jake's cousin miles. But the vitamin revitalization project is only or encompasses what do you aim for pirton to six miles down to stoke fear to the citizen. So it's just a small section of what is actually the fixture community. So now learning we considered a pocket park, which it is, as I stated we had activities there prior to the park ever been built. We were operating in the middle of homes that were slated for demolition, but we're still there. And it's a group of individuals or community people who love our community and would love to see the actual rebirth coming together of the families building up our children. And the best part about it is we've collaborated for organizations such as brewery Detroit brewery in Detroit is also for the Fitzgerald club is located on Prairie Street. I was one of the individuals instrumental in bringing the brewery in Detroit to our area, selected the home and opening the first manager opening that house. So we collaborate. We collaborate with the park which is a wonderful thing because we to host activities there and our activities for the most part starts in April. So once a month, I put together programs. multiple programs for April is normally our Easter program but throughout the year we have a Jim teeth event. Everybody's a senior day, a jazz festival, back to school. So once a month all the way leading up until December because next week, excuse me next week, we're hosting our community. holiday dinner and giveaway. So we're concentrating for we're concentrating with the families within the 411 zip code and 48238 which is the festival last year we opened it up to a lot of people in our families were not able to take advantage of it. So this year, we're consolidating that just to those two I have the same to see what else. One of the things although we've been in existence let's like I said prior to the official part opening I think one thing that would be very instrumental if you're trying to put together a park or pocket park is that those schools the powers that be because Rob has been very instrumental in assisting me as a part store. But if what we're talking about here will be put into some form of a booklet or something a pamphlet is just that much less work. You have to do because you have reference that book or if someone will put up a web page or something to that effect, but to not lose sight of because the young lady here she had some very important part. points that I'd be interested in and I'm not going to retain them not just because of my age. But it would be a wonderful thing to reference them, you know, another way so that would be my recommendation and those of you who are interested would be some of the wants to push to make that happen. Stay on those that know. farmer told me, Robert, if he can make a way for that to happen, that'd be a wonderful thing. And the success of the Park is we'll continue with the love of the individuals residing the more of our families and the more individuals come from positively participating and what we have to do. It makes it just that much better in the city plays a big role in that I've been this summer but I was able to share some of our concerns with individuals and we're currently and that makes a world of a difference as well. Because they can't collect all of the garbage cans out of our park. You know, right? Because they stay in the park is closed for the season.
So we are already cleaning up trash from everywhere.
You know, when the garbage cans are there. Some individuals don't necessarily utilize them now. What do you think they're gonna do? Since all of these characters have been taken away? And the bad part about it is when it happened, I looked it up. And nowhere is it written that garbage cans remove the individuals to whom I spoke today. didn't know anything about it. So we made that decision. You know, so those are some of the things that we have to tackle and know what's going on. What are the city rules, what are the ordinances? What can we do? What can we do that needs to be written for optimal success? of any organization because we want all those be in place. One of the wonderful things that I've been able to take place in immediate individuals, I've attended different groups, you know, succession plans, you won't always be need but it certainly needs to be in place for those who are going to take over where we're leaving. So that's another very important part.
Thank you for joining me, just to be clear your parks, you guys, right, they're not city parks. So you know, the city doesn't help maintain it. They don't, but they don't tell you what to do or not what you want. So that's a pretty important distinction, I think between Darren Evans Park and Fitzgerald and our park a three mile unit which is City of Detroit. Parks and Recreation GSD heart, but I think it might be helpful to tell the story of how we got this car. So the I was hoping somebody from this yo leader today because our park at Three Mile Munich is unique in that it's on four corners. And so there are two streets that bisects the park and a Fitzgerald there was one street that goes through and it's on two sides of the street middle of the park, but our RS came into existence just the year after Fitzgerald so the city was actually open to our idea that we have in the neighborhood of making it all four corners, which presents some challenges, but it allowed us to have a bigger park and I wouldn't even call our park frankly a pocket park because basically all of the locks on which the three mount is built were originally residential houses. So there's 18 residential lots on the on the four corners, all of which had houses at one time. When my friends I didn't grow up in the neighborhood but my friends did and when I went over there to visit all of these were houses. But because of the foreclosure crisis and you know as we all know what happened with housing in Detroit in the early 2000s, a lot of the houses became vacant and became torn down. So in 20, June of 2016 another nonprofit that I won't name, came in, went to the land and Park neighborhoods and said we'd like to build a playground for the kids in Morningside and they said, Sure, but they didn't ask the neighborhood so guess what? We found out like two weeks before the construction was going to start this park for young kids that was built by an outside organization essentially. But the land banks always desperate to get rid of lots. Maybe not so much anymore, but they used to be. So essentially, I said, Well, could we if they were the playscape for the kids is built on to two, two lines. Yeah, two blocks that are in the middle of the block, but they're not according. So think about. Do you know of any parks that are out of court? No. So they built the park in June of 2016. And their their intent was to turn it over to the neighborhood and for us to maintain it. And we were like, You didn't ask us. Let's go and they wanted to have gardens raised bed gardens in the park, and we said nobody wants to maintain the raised bed because there's no neighbors around. We want to do that. And we don't want to take care of the product. You know, it wasn't really a park it was like a top and you can so the neighborhood association board and Morningside community organization has been in place since 1978. It's an all volunteer group of neighbors who basically work to get resources for the community and help prevent bad things and encourage good things, I guess for lack of a better term. So luckily I new grad tech for many of you know, from the GSD, who was at that time, in charge of the parks before he got promoted, and he happens to live about a mile away from my house and from this park. I live three blocks down from the mark by the way on the same street. And so I said which is very important to park stewards, I think you should ask people when they apply to be stewards, what's your address and how close to the park do you live? I think that's really important. But anyway, so I call it brand and I said you know about this place gate that's being built on three mile drive. People are gonna think the city built it and you're not building it. And he said, I don't know anything about it. I don't know anything about it. He didn't know the mandate department neighborhoods. And I said well, it's in the middle of the block. It's a terrible place for and you're gonna You guys are going to get blamed for the bad designer. And he said he thought I was exaggerating. He said I'll drive by my way. He called me at seven o'clock at night and said, it's even worse than who said. So, basically, long story short. A year later, or the following spring, it turned out that the city was updating their parks plan and as you heard this morning closed a whole bunch of parks including the one at the western end of Morningside a very small playfield comfy place that was never utilized because it was right up against the service drive, etc, etc, etc. It's terrible location. I mean, it was before the freeway was even there. But anyway, so they were proposing that product. And so they had this program called gap gap. You have a park, get a park. In other words, you give us a park back from the neighborhood and we'll get you a new one. So they were looking to do that in our community with GAP gap. And they had drawn the planners have drawn some very scientific circles about where the park was needed so that it was you know, we weren't quite aways from any city park from Fall dark chamber not walking this we needed a park within walking distance in the Morningside neighborhood. They had already realized that so I said okay, we have this playground. Let's make lemonade out of this year lemon. And so there were four vacant houses at the time. These 18 Lots, three of which were already on the demo list. And within a year the four houses were in the process of being demoed or had already been demoed. And we were having this big park planning charrette that was run by a great guide to no longer works. For city Detroit landscape architect named Omar Davis. And they involve the community in the design of the park. We had a competition. They designed the park and in 2018 The park was starting to build so sorry for the long story, but it just shows that the neighborhood came together and said, We want a park here city. You already know that we need one. Here's where it should be. Let us out design what's in there. It will take care of it. And that's exactly what's happened from 2018 to now so I could go on but I will.
Okay, I just want to say one quick thing to piggyback off because I think it's really important. First of all, is there anyone in this room right now that works for the city of Detroit? I'm just curious. I like to know. Okay, so one thing, okay, so it's very interesting that you say that the city did not come to anybody about relying on the land bank I think you said sofa last to build the earth to build a play structure this organization you showered me so one thing I want to just know is that I think that there could be some stronger communication definitely between the city and between community development organization clubs. That being said, they just saw a playground in Northwest Kohlberg at Crockett Park did not mention it to anybody who did not engage with the community. Built it, quite frankly, to be polite about it next to a motel are a lot of things that I wouldn't necessarily want children to be next to in I guess, I can say I'm trying to be PC. But that being said, so I think that that's still something that is actively happening. I think that as we have more city of Detroit people in the room and as we can have some it's like this to connect actual residents and block clubs and community development organizations to the city of Detroit and figure out like what are their plans so that we can collaborate and have I guess, a better safe locations where families kids people all
of a sudden folks are over in the study session are
still lacking still significant
work in each department. Back to this, so on the right hand, left URI who's third sent to us because we can't come to get a chance to sit here there just to see what's happening. So I don't know how many of you are interested in getting a park together at this time. But you need to definitely bring the district person to the table, your city council person to the table as well as any community leaders. You can your residence, because that's the only way you're having to say and to make sure you've covered all the entities of the creation. Otherwise, something's going to happen. Knock the whole thing out. And some people were talking about land guilty Jesus
you know, as a community person, and then with the parks with them having private parks you know, I was one of the members of the community who maintain the model with my family, my siblings, but different lots of the community. So when the land bank put out that they were selling them and so on and so forth, I said okay, let me purchase several. And then after I purchased them, you know, we had the wind storms and all of those things. I was also an ambassador with this new cohort they put together with the city. And so we had first hand knowledge of different things that are gonna take place so I'm moving to the tree removal. I have yet to hear anything and I read through those trees, but then the cost fell on me. When I purchased these locks, and the dead branches from the trees began to fall. During the summer, they had to be removed and taken care of, you know, so then how we're getting our tax bills. You know, what used to cost 30 cents data flat cost of 336. You know, none of that was disclosed to members of the community who would be working hard, keeping the city going. And try not to cost the city a lot of money. Now, the tables have turned and I'm sorry, Rob.
are only about 10 minutes left. So I have more questions, but I wanted to open up to the audience questions if anyone has questions
if you so um so for anyone
who's who are looking to create a if you want to adopt the car, right, that's your goal or your organization. In addition to doing those strengths are really meeting planning meetings with stakeholders. Rock City has landscape architectures, right. It's kind of the way the city is. And you may want to figure out who is your LSA because Alright, so she used to make my recommendations that should include that person and the planning of your pocket park or your community park because it has been proven that these individuals they are very knowledgeable and they are there under your first advocate with the city for creating a pocket park or stood in the park. Right. So in addition to the RA also look out for your LSAS for your landscape architect
Yeah, east side.
Frickin contact. I can find out for your landscape architect as
she is leaving the city
I'm complaining about the city but I have zero complaints about GSD they have done a great job of design. When we are looking for new. You're talking about the trash cans so we had a problem with our trash cans be moved around, moving them around. So now I had seen in some of the other parks, they call them these tip rings where the ring is is secured to the ground and the trash can goes in there and I called Ariana and Eddie and I said, we need to tip rate this because our trash cans are getting stolen and moved all around the park. And she said let me see what I could do. And within a month, we got some tip ratings that's solved 80% of the problem. And when people take them out of the temporary which is not easy to do, we can at least go put them back in. And the park you know looks nice. So GSD does an issue initially because our park was new. They didn't even have another payment schedule the first year. So it would give sporadically and finally I said to all even know that there's this new park here and it's in your park and it needs to be put on the schedule. Oh and but then now it gets taken care of every week. They're cutting the grass every you know, you don't empty the trash quite as much as I would like but essentially GSD does a really good job and as somebody who's 72 I've lived in Detroit my whole life. The parks in general, look way better than they have any time in my whole lifetime. And I tell everybody, so yes, there's issues with a lot of city departments but GSPN and
the government
was asleep. What they've done is close the park for the season. And it closed the park they removed all of the Yes, not the trash. Cans. They love to trash they're right there.
District One two. Okay, so I won't have talked to Kim
yet. I talked to a young lady who's over there department here at the site. You know I do I do. Talk to Kim morning, noon and night. Here to the summit, and I wanted to address it with several individuals and out of the several which is at least three. No one knew anything about it. They should have made the decision to close the park because there's no fences you'd like to
have a question what
was the definition? That
was a great question.
So again, this is not like a dictionary definition. Exactly. But what we have here is considered to be a pocket park is no more than three contiguous city lots. So again, most of our parks are either on one city lot I mentioned our mini Park is actually half of the city lot and I say city I mean like residential because again, to your point, our parks and I think as Ian mentioned, a lot of our parks are on formerly residential Lhasa where the homes have been torn down. That being said, we do have one again, our big our basketball court that is technically one city lot but it's kind of a anomaly for us and that's around 50,000 square feet. It used to be a former bowling alley that had been torn down I believe in the 70s or 80s that is what we considered but I'd love to hear your definition as well. So there's
definitely a reason to have this piece of land across from me that will be turned into a croquet practice. situation. And I'm looking for how
are you familiar with the public spaces community Places program? Okay, so for anybody who wants to build parks, we've funded three, three or four parks through this program. Now it's a partnership between the Michigan Economic Development Corporation and fundraising platform well Patrona city where there are dollars that are available in the state of Michigan you do a fundraising campaign and let's say your goal is you want to raise $20,000 Toba, you can make your goal for your fundraising campaign $10,000 And then assuming that you reach your goal, the state of Michigan will give you a $10,000 grant. So that is again it's such an incredible program they find all around the state of Michigan. We like I said I've been in about four parks. Again. They do like to be your your last bit of funding. So for instance, when we get in for our basketball court, the maximum that you can raise through them is gonna be 1000. And I'll give you a $50,000 grant that is the highest amount. But it's something where I've been that part for us because at the time that it costs around $300,000. So we have to get the rest of our funding in order and then when we knew that we only had about $100,000 left. We were able to use that program. So that is again a really really good program for anybody who has an interest in plumbing. I can give it to rob public spaces, community places
I get really into those topics. So why don't they do that? I really, I love these types of events because I get to meet a bunch of different people. And one thing that Daniel and I are extremely, extremely passionate about is anti gatekeeping. And what I mean by that is if you see one of our parks or if you see one of our partners, are you seeing anything that the Northwest Baltimore cares team is doing. Please ask us about it reach out to us like us the fact that we have failed 500 times to your advantage and we want to share get as much information because we don't want to be the only people in the city of Detroit that are building our little pocket hearts. We want to see them replicated across the city as far as they can reach. So I just again, we're really, really you get really fired up about that. So please, if there's anything you want to ask us about funding or programs or anything, please reach out
right, so every morning you're making a choice right, so
practice that they did. Yesterday
so it didn't work out
back with
the cities like Kansas no need to replace that No, I think are the culprits. Although people do take them
but still we have good news. If you like some of the things
some of the things we work with are with those strategies indicated with will require and that's why we needed to be grid you don't you shouldn't have to start from scratch. With this are really
really on your progress. Because if that's the case where they're not gonna, even if they did my trash that they don't have until April. They're gonna be full waiting for that. And so, you know, if we know or there's some service that we could collectively pay somebody to go around to all the East Side parks, and
we would put in money for that. Or we would try to find some volunteers or something. But that that's new, right there.
It should be standard. It should be standard signage in everything, our size and our lists small but and again, they will be addressed in the standards sign. If the city is outside or anything associated with the park it should be livable every park, East West and those things are not available his job are and you shouldn't be it shouldn't be considered a public park under the city of Detroit with everything we receive everything we do. So therefore, typically
Memorial Day, the labor day like we were there for an hour before you
permitting is different from maintenance and maintenance they even blew up the leaves are late in October. So they're doing some things and some harmless you around. I don't like bullet stuff at all.
So it's also like GSD
season
is not
forbidding you know there's enough people who are new things after Labor Day to make it worth keeping the permitting process going. That's a whole other thing.
So
I only know because airtightness
locks they are having my car
so we're going to transfer these cans because it's not going to get picked up even if we do.
All right, well, we are at time i want to make sure we get to the next session.
