Hunting Park: Views from the Porch

Cornelius Braxton and Gregory Parks have no problem sharing their opinions on life.
From women: “The one thing you don’t buy a woman is shoes,” says Braxton with a smile. “Because she’ll walk all over you.”
To cable television service: “If you tell them (the cable company) that you’re going to cancel your contract they’ll give you what you want,” says Parks.
While the two close friends enjoy joking with one another outside of Parks’ West Hunting Park Avenue row home there is one subject that flattens the grins and quells the laughs.
The community.
Especially Hunting Park, the park from which the neighborhood gets its namesake.
Braxton and Parks have been in the community longer than they can remember. They remember the days when the area was middle class. They remember the “good days” when the park was full of baseball fields and musical events.
“There used to be boxes in the park with different games like badminton, softballs, stuff like that,” says Parks.
And while a recreation center has replaced boxes of play equipment, the resources are stretched to accommodate the neighborhoods on both sides of the park.
“The park is in the middle of a political district,” says Parks. “Everything needs to get split down the middle.”
Recreation is not the only problem according to Braxton and Parks. The two men also say that the community has developed problems with prostitution and drugs over the years, with much of the activity taking place in the park itself. The park has also been known, in the past, to be a dumping ground for bodies.
“Hunting Park and Old York Road is notorious throughout the city,” says Parks. “The reputation is that you can get whatever you want whenever you want.”
Braxton believes that much of the drug problem comes from the other side of the park.
“All the happiness (drugs) are on the other side (of the park),” he says.
For Parks the solution boils down to police presence. In the past the Philadelphia Police Department has stationed extra cars and officers around the area in an attempt to quell the drug problem. Parks says that the patrol increases helped, but the situation deteriorated as the patrols became less frequent
Braxton would like to see officers familiarize themselves with the community.
“Police don’t know the community anymore,” he says. “Cops used to know the community and the community used to be able to go to the police and tell them when something was happening. You don’t see that anymore because they’re (the police) never here. We need police patrolling in twos and in cars at night.”
Even though Parks considers Hunting Park to be in a “lull” in terms of criminal activity, he believes with more police protection the area would be a step forward to reclaiming the Hunting Park he and Braxton remember.

By Brittany Miller and Kenneth Marone
Team 14: Hunting Park