Inquirer Editorial: Park reborn

Where there was trash, now there are peaches, sweet corn, and homemade lemonade at a farmers market that opened this summer in the Hunting Park community.

The remarkable, ongoing transformation of the 87-acre park, as reported Monday by Inquirer architecture critic Inga Saffron, is a testament to the persistence and vision of the city's neighborhood activists and institutions.

Leroy Fisher, Catalina Hunter, and neighbors spent years trying to improve the park.

With the help of the Fairmount Park Conservancy, which raised $3.3 million from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and others, the park is finally on the mend.

The city culled 178 dead and dying trees and is planting 300. It is clearing brush from the park's winding paths.

A baseball field has been rebuilt, thanks, in part, to Phillies first baseman Ryan Howard. Neighbors planted flowers and are working a community garden in the park, east of Old York Road and south of the Roosevelt Expressway.

Of course, the work isn't done. But Hunting Park's residents are gaining ground in the battle to turn a park known for violent assaults and drug dealing into a place of their own.

Here's hoping Hunting Park's recipe for rock soup, with a touch of tenacity, is an inspiration to other communities in Philadelphia where neighborhood activists have long fought to improve the quality of life.