Makings of a Pocket Park

Well, here we are on this beautiful Sunday afternoon in July.  It's been over a year since the Olive Street neighborhood partners formed an official group and began looking into ways to spend a small amount of grant money awarded to Scott Severns and this band of motley, south side residents.

For the record, they are (in no particular order and if I've left anyone off, let me know and I will add you to the list!):  Jason Burk, Scott Severns, Jimmy Pringle, Jack Graves, Sue Amyx , Matt & Jessica Yoder and SEND.

In the past year and a half the pocket park has been slowly inching along (in somewhat chronological order):

• The house that used to occupy 1401 Olive was condemned and torn down (sorry, no pics!  You'll have to trust us that it was a dump!)
• Scott, Matt and I built the street front decorative cedar picket fencing and the rear "shadow box" style protective fencing:

• The lot was smoothed over by some friends with a Bobcat (Gardens of Growth in Indy) and seeded by yours truly and Jack.
• We tried to install a four-sprinkler watering system connected to Sue's house, but there wasn't enough pressure to make it work.  Plus, the Summer of 2012 was too dang hot to bother trying to water anyway, so we gave up.
• Grass started growing when the temperatures cooled back down later in the year (late 2012).
• Sue, Jimmy and Jack provided much needed maintenance to weed growth and grass mowing as the season progressed.
• Matt stored the various tools and materials needed in his garage.
• Finally, a year after we started the fence project, Scott and Jason built the gate components and installed them:

• Someone left us a small pile of mulch in the middle of the inadvertent "drive lane."  Not that we wanted a drive lane, but without a gate the lot was someone's parking area for a short amount of time.  I'm sure the mulch will come in handy, I just wish whoever delivered it would have put it off to the side or actually IN the spot that was most likely to be mulched!

• So now we have a mostly grassy lot, with a protected alley side, and a long narrow open sunny area, ripe for raised planting beds.  Next step:  Find some funding and / or materials and start making the dream come alive.  More to come on the future plans for the lot...

That's it for the first installment of the 1401 Pocket Park Blog.  It's taken a year for us to get here and grant funding from local neighborhood sources to bring together this small but effective group of residents.  We hope to bring together a desire to beautify this small piece of SoPro (South of Prospect) and to create something which all participants can be proud to use and call a little piece of their own neighborhood!

Sincerely,

Jason Burk

Past Resident and Current Supporter of Fountain Square