By Elizabeth Stieber
Times Staff Writer
Wissinoming Park is in a state of change.
On one hand, crews are hard at work paving its shaded walkways for the many people who stroll through the park.
On the other, the recreation building in the heart of the park could be abandoned by the Department of Recreation to ease the city’s budgetary blues.
“I don’t want to see it go downhill,” said Peter Tweed, president of the Wissinoming Park Advisory Board. “We still have a lot to do.”
Tweed and the members of the advisory board have decided to go ahead with capital improvement plans despite discussion during last week’s City Council budget hearings that the Department of Recreation could cut its ties with 40 playgrounds and recreation centers across Philadelphia to help close the city’s $227 million deficit.
The Department of Recreation has not presented any official list of recreation center closings to City Council, Councilwoman Joan Krajewski (D- 6th dist.) said.
“We just don’t know,” she said during a phone interview on Monday.
She is willing, however, to fight for the recreation centers in her district. “We use them constantly,” she said.
Wissinoming Park currently is undergoing $150,000 in capital improvements, thanks to a grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. The grant money is being used to repair the walkways in and along the perimeter of the park and to erect fencing and barriers at certain areas of the park.
“The place needed repair,” Tweed said.
The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society has been helping the advisory board file for additional grants, and the city’s Community Life Improvement Program has been out pruning trees.
If there were any signs that the park is in peril, it wasn’t apparent last weekend.
“The park was mobbed,” Tweed said. “There were picnickers, people playing ball. I don’t want to see that change.”
With 42 acres, Wissinoming Park maintains five baseball fields, a football field, soccer field, tennis court, two playground sets and a roller hockey rink, as well as a butterfly garden, walkways, benches and plenty of trees.
As the weather gets nicer, the park hosts a number of community events, including concerts, summer day camp and Fourth of July and Halloween celebrations. These events are also made possible through grant funds.
Tweed is waiting on an additional $5,000 grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources and a $6,500 city activities grant that the advisory board will use to purchase a utility vehicle.
In December, Citizens Bank donated $10,000 in trees to the park, the equivalent of about two dozen trees, Tweed said. Residents also donate trees.
During a warm, sunny morning last week at the park, two men were playing one-on-one on the basketball courts, while a dog owner took her pets off their leashes so they could catch a tossed Frisbee. Others strolled along the walkways.
Tom Rivers and his dog are regulars at the park. It gives them a chance to socialize with other residents and their dogs.
“Everybody knows everybody here,” he said.
Sue Tymowczak walks every day through the park. She said it’s not only a place to get exercise, but also a haven for neighborhood kids who just want to play on the playground sets or toss a ball around.
“Many kids come here who (otherwise) wouldn’t have anything to do,” Tymowczak said.
And the folks who frequent the park aren’t just from Wissinoming. Tweed said he regularly sees residents from Lower Mayfair, Tacony and Frankford come to the park.
If the park is cut from the Department of Recreation’s budget, the recreation center building, located in the heart of the park, would be sold, leased or knocked down, Tweed said.
The maintenance of the park, however, would still be handled by the Department of Recreation, Krajewski said.
Tweed fears for the future of the park if the recreation department leaves the building.
“If you let it go, it’s going to go bad,” he said.
Despite that fear, Tweed is going to continue with the renovations, and he still plans to hold the concerts and events this summer.
“We’ve got too much to lose,” he said. ••
Reporter Elizabeth Stieber can be reached at 215-354-3036 or estieber@phillynews.com