February 25, 2006

There were 2 posts published on February 25, 2006 (this is page 1 of 1).

Horseshoe Farm Park

Today’s weather promised to be mild, so after breakfast we packed up into the car and explored a new park in our neighborhood: Horseshoe Farm Park. Horseshoe Farm Park gets its name from the bend in the Neuse River which surrounds the park on three sides. We’d heard about it in the news lately but decided to see for ourselves what it was all about.

The park has been in the news because of controversy in determining what to do with it. The city is currently working through a master plan for the park, which is where the controversy lies.

Members of the Horseshoe Farm Park Master Plan Committee were tasked with coming up with the best use of the property. They were obstensibly supposed to do this with the public’s best interest at heart. Instead, they got a push in a developer-friendly direction when they were nudged to make it an “active” park: with ballfields, tennis and basketball courts, a dog park and a gynmasium. This put local activists in a snit, who then proceeded to push their vision of the park as a nature preserve . Throughout the planning process, public comment on the park has always strongly favored this natural approach.

Some have questioned why Raleigh first pitched this park as a nature preserve, then changed course and pitched an active park to the planning committee, only acquiescing when the public let its nature park preference be known. I think the answer came this week when Raleigh revealed the gift from Dr. Annie Louis Wilkerson, a wealthy obstetrician who left her 155 acres to the city with the stipulation that it remain a nature park. Most importantly to the Horseshoe Farm park saga, Dr. Wilkerson’s deal hinged on the City of Raleigh keeping it a strict secret. Members of the Parks and Rec advisory board weren’t even aware of the gift.

The city (or at least some in the city) has known about Dr. Wilkerson’s gift for almost a decade. The question they have to grapple with is this: does Raleigh need a 155-acre nature preserve less than five miles from a 140-acre nature preserve?

Not having been to Wilkerson park (because it’s not yet open), I can’t say what it has to offer. On the other hand, Horseshoe Farm with its rolling pasture area, open hay barn, wooded trails near the riverbank, and abundant wildlife, seems perfect just the way it is. Try as I might, I just could not picture gyms, tennis courts, or any other urban-oriented buildings going there. I love playing sports, but there are plenty of places for that stuff. Horseshoe Farm Park isn’t it.

The park’s planning committee meets again at 7 PM Wednesday night, March 1st at Durant Nature Park to continue hammering out the park’s future. Among the audience will be Kelly or me – two happy converts to the “nature park” cause.

Links:
City of Raleigh: Horseshoe Farm Park Planning Committee
Friends of Horseshoe Farm Park
Indy: Battle over Horseshoe Farm Park heats up
Indy Blog: A Big win at Horseshoe Farm Park
N&O: Tennis, gym, dog park nixed
N&O: Two park planning committee members resign, spur email war
Durant Nature Park: site of March 1st committee meeting

Warm-Up Act

I fired up my laptop to show Travis some pictures today. As we’re waiting, I nonchalantly told him “hang on now, we’ve got to wait until it warms up.”

I blinked and realized how that phrase dates me. Few kids remember when you had to wait for your television or stereo to warm up.

So you wet-behind-the-ears, solid-state generations know what I’m talking about, once upon a time electronic switching was done with vacuum tubes instead of today’s transistors. The tubes had to warm up in order to function, and when they were warm, they were really warm. They chewed up electricity and air conditioning and often wore out, inviting a visit from the TV repairman. Remember TV repairmen?

Now its rare to even see transistors. They now live with millions of their tiny friends on integrated-circuit chips, putting a handful of parts into a product that once took a suitcase-sized number of tubes (or transistors, for that matter). Imagine an iPod Nano rendered in vacuum tubes. You couldn’t fit it in your garage!

Hmm, maybe I should add a “geezer” category to my blog!