Much Ado About Deepdene
Decatur Metro | August 4, 2010As Mr. Wheatley mentions in his Fresh Loaf post, we’ve been chatting about what’s going on with all the construction at Deepdene Park – the eastern end of the Ponce Olmstead parks – for a while now; speculating whether its a bike path or a new park or just utility work.
Obviously if this was a city of Decatur project, lord knows we would have known about it years ago and already talked the thing to death. But since we’re wondering about a construction out in “the County”, the time-tested approach of contacting the proper officials doesn’t always bear much fruit.
But Wheatley’s got the mad journalistic skills of a beat-reporting ninja, so he was able to unearth a few details about this project. Check it…
Is it a PATH trail, perhaps one that will offer Decaturites and Druid Hills and Fernbank residents a connection to Candler Park and the Freedom Park trail? The nonprofit trailbuilder tells CL no. We found a few details on this Olmstead Linear Park Alliance website, but were still left curious.
According to the county, the construction is part of a streetscape improvement that will — ta da! — result in an eight-foot-wide sidewalk similar to those winding through the other greenspaces along Ponce.
And the Olmstead Linear Parks website now has this blurb…
The proposed $4 million rehabilitation of Deepdene will be done in stages. Priorities include remediation of severe erosion and storm water problems, burial of utilities and construction of curbing. To make the park safer and more accessible, appropriate lighting and signage will be installed and a sidewalk and row of trees will be added along Ponce de Leon Avenue. In the interior, the path system will be realigned and expanded, and the proliferation of non-native invasive plants will be controlled.
So, is that the long and short of it? Questions still remain unanswered. Like, what will happen to the soccer field area? Anyone know?
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‘Cause heaven knows, we wouldn’t want to strip some innocent fruit naked by contacting the proper officials…
(Sorry, DM– I needle only because I love!)
Dagnabbit.
My wife was just telling someone that other day that I have trouble with words that sound the same but are spelled differently.
I live on Barton Woods next to Deepdene.
The old soccer field is now going to be an “adult like” park with tables and grass and stuff.
Just kidding….I really have no idea.
How does one pronounce “Deepdene”?
Think: deep + dean. At least that’s how the OLPA folks have pronounced it. It’s not obvious, that’s for sure.
That makes sense. I have a list so thing often sound different in my head than they do in reality
Soccer field is gone and the goals will not return, I have been told by the folks at the Olmsted Linear Park Alliance. That is a major bummer as the Decatur-Dekalb YMCA really needed that field for the older kids to use for practice.
yeah, way to remove the only “active” use at the park…now its all passive…(I consider jogging and walking passive)
Apparently the Olstead group, like the Druid Hill Civic Assoc, are zealots about controlling park land uses that don’t fit the original vision of Mr. Olmstead. During the first phase of the restoration they eliminated the heavily used and popular playground that once was in the park across from the former Howard School (now Springdale APS), and now this decision to eliminate this very popular soccer field. The restoration is looking fantastic and is something to be proud of, but they need to work with families and recognize they community is no longer the sylvan suburb of the early 20th century but is now in the center of a vibrant in-town community.
A similar thing happened in the restoration of Atlanta’s Piedmont Park (also originally designed by Oldmstead) when the Piedmont Park Conservancy eliminated all active recreation areas.
When I was growing up in Druid Hills we used to go to that playground for our birthday parties. I loved that place.
They did a pilot project adding the stone bridges, restoring trails and doing a stream restoration in the interior of Deepdene; they also brought in a specialist contractor to do invasive plant removal (privet, honeysuckle, etc) Looked really good a few years ago when that was completed. The exterior is a GDOT funded Transportation enhancement like the rest of the Olmsted parks. GDOT has been very stingy with the TE funds during the Evans period—everything got held up (I work on TE projects some) for over a year. When Stimulus came a bunch of the TE projects were let loose—perhaps this one was one. I know the main delay was waiting on the utilities to put the power underground. That always takes an eternity. In the end they will have the period streetlights, a walking path, and new granite curb (note currently the old curb is buried under layers of asphalt.)
And note, the Druid Hills parks are the only series of parks in Atlanta that can claim that FLO originally designed them (one of his last projects) his sons were responsible for concept plans at Grant Park and Piedmont Park later in the 1910s.
I’ve always enjoyed the string of Ponce parks, but from just personal observation they seem rather underused by folks NOT in cars. I understand that part of their purpose has the driver in mind – though I’m sure Olmstead imagined more leisurely drives than the ones done today down Ponce – but ultimately the parks always seem a bit vacant.
I agree although there’s a playground area in one part that is well used by families and nannies.