October 2011 - Parks & Recreation - 73

SK RESIDENTS OF ATLANTA'S
OLD FOURTH WARD ABOUT
SELENA S. BUTLER PARK

over the past two decades,
and you're likely to hear stories of the drug
dealing and crime, the prostitution, and the
high population of vagrants-all of which lead
back to two main points of agreement: Selena Butler Park was a scary, unsafe place, and
it was definitely not a community destination.
" At one time, the park was really nice, " says Lois Dunn, who
lived for nearly three decades in the Grady Homes apartments
adjacent to the park, and who resides now in the new Auburn
Pointe senior complex constructed after Grady Homes was demolished. " There were a lot of children and families, and a lot of
events. But it became infested with drugs, and I stopped going,
and I didn't allow my children to go. "
Reverend John Sherman Pelt of Liberty Baptist Church also
remembers the park before and after its decline. He mentions
a community space where young people played and the
church engaged in sports leagues and neighborhood activities, until a large homeless population moved in and safety became an issue.
But the past is the past-and as preparations for the park's
reopening culminate through a $2.3 million dollar revitalization effort by the City of Atlanta, the Atlanta Housing Authority,
and NRPA's Parks Build Community initiative (introduced in the
May 2011 issue of Parks & Recreation), it is not the past but the future that Dunn, Pelt, and many others have chosen to embrace.

out of the rubble...a historic identity remains

children and pre-teens who
participated in the focus group
conducted for the selena
butler Park research project
were asked to draw some
things they would like to
see in their ideal park.

When the city announced its plans to revitalize and reopen
the 3.3-acre park-closed in 2008 after suffering tornado damage-it did so with a larger goal: to revitalize a neighborhood
long-neglected but rich in history. Within the Sweet Auburn District are the birth and burial sites of Martin Luther King Jr., as
well as Ebenezer Baptist Church, where King preached. It is the
neighborhood where former slave Alonzo Herndon founded Atlanta Life Insurance, now one of the largest African-Americanowned companies in the nation. A few blocks away from Selena
Butler Park is historic Oakland Cemetery, the resting place of the
park's namesake Selena Sloan Butler, co-founder of the National
Parent Teacher Association.
City Councilman Kwanza Hall remembers hanging out in the
Sweet Auburn district as a child and working for various civil
rights organizations. But the area declined, and when Hall came
back after college and started a family in the late eighties, he
says, the lack of investment was evident. " During that time, the
neighborhood wasn't always there, " affirms Hall. " You had to see
the light at the end of the tunnel. "

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