The signs announcing Dartmouth’s Urban Wilderness Park were taken down Friday, evidently in preparation for its bulldozing, which ought start towards the end of next month.
People in the community have varying opinions about the lost of the park. I guess, in the end, I’ve come down in favour of its removal to make room for the expanded Bridge Terminal, but that comes with great ambivalence: it really is too bad that the wilderness park hasn’t been cared for and maintained properly. And even in its degraded state, it has provided a needed green spot in what would otherwise be a sea of concrete.
And yes, the park has been a hang out spot for kids smoking pot. I don’t find that particularly offensive—as a teenager, I also smoked pot in the woods next to my high school, and look how great I turned out. I’ve passed pot-smoking kids in the park many times, and they’ve been nothing but courteous, if a little embarrassed.
But as if to underscore critics’ disdain for the place, I walked through Saturday afternoon and found a sprawling older man passed out on the ground, a bottle of Jim Beam next to him. This was sad, mostly, and certainly not dangerous. Once the woods are cleared, he’ll just go somewhere else.
I hope to soon walk through the woods with a naturalist, who will hopefully give a more nuanced view of the place. Stay tuned.
This article appears in Aug 12-18, 2010.
I think the gentleman also sleeps in the Dillman park across the street.
He has been seen there many time, near the gazebo or in the cemetery (temporarily); as have the bottles.
Tim, your walk with the naturalist will be nothing short of unremarkable. All you’ll find is common birds, rodentia, and hogweed.
There is a real urban forest called Shubie Park there is even real wildlife there
Since, 1: there is already over an acre of asphalt at the Sportsplex/station site and
2: the park ‘n ride function of the sportsplex lot is currently providing the facillity with much needed income – proving the utility of marrying transit with amenity parking – my question is about the highest and best use of the existing parking lot. Is it really better to bulldoze trees before we explore adding value to the existing cleared land? How come when it comes to buildings everyone wants to build up thirty storeys but when it comes to parking no one wants to go up even one. Is the added cost of structured parking really that much more than the loss of more greenspace, especially at that particularly barren location? I would rather see a creative arraingment between the ‘plex and metro transit since both stand to benefit greatly from each other.