Is it Time for a 'Friends of Lang-Carson Park?'

by Jeffrey Landers

In living here as long as I have, I have seen the neighborhood change slowly from mainly older folks 13 years ago — when I moved here — to single homeowners to young couples to young families with small children. It has been a very pleasant development to see this gradual shift back to a much more family cohesive community than the one I moved into more than a decade ago.

In noticing this demographic shift, I have also realized that the park at the center of our neighborhood has fallen behind in it's ability to be used efficiently and effectively by my Reynoldstown neighbors and friends...It seems a little functionally obsolete and unloved these days as compared to the awesome Cabbagetown Park and what will be a more awesome and newly improved Esther Peachy Lefevre Park (currently under re-construction), both located next door in Cabbagetown.

It is with some of this thinking that I would like to get a "Friends of Lang-Carson Park" group started to champion the cause of our community park.

In the fall of 2011, Reynoldstown adopted a park master plan drawn up and paid for by Atlanta Beltline Inc. While the planning process wasn't the best example of the Beltline Inc. cooperating with the members of the Reynoldstown community and the plan leaves a little to be desired, it is a blueprint we can use as a springboard to work toward the goal of a better functioning park for us all.

The first two steps of implementing this master plan have already been achieved, namely the acquisitions of the house at 94 Flat Shoals Ave. and the lot that serves as the newly landscaped entrance of Lang Carson Park on Weatherby Street. The next immediate step will be the demolition of the house at 94 Flat Shoals which, as I have been told, should be this spring.

The Reynoldstown Civic Improvement League has asked the office of our City of Atlanta Councilwoman Natalyn Archibong to look into the condition of the railroad tie/earthen bleachers surrounding the basketball court as they seem to be degrading quite quickly and seem rather hazardous to anyone who wants to sit on the makeshift plywood panels that serve as seating surfaces. We have also requested that the city properly maintain Webster Street. You say you don't know what Webster Street is? It's that glorified path that leads from Wylie Street to the basketball court in the rear of Lang Carson Park. Believe it or not, it is an actual street.

Now, the next step in this process is that RCIL would like to take this advocacy one step further by establishing a committee made of people whose sole interest is making Lang Carson Park the best park in the city.

In plain English, we need you... and you....and you.

I wanted to measure the interest of forming a group of neighbors to begin this process. I already have a few attentive folks who have volunteered including a community member who has some experience writing grants.

This is an opportunity for us to leave a legacy for the RTowners of the future by improving the current conditions and functionality of our community park.

I say, now is the time.

Mr. Landers is president of the Reynoldstown Civic Improvement League.