[Elfsea] Observations made

Marsh, Vicki MarsV at chisd.com
Mon Nov 26 09:04:00 PST 2001


Xene here:

While park-hunting this weekend, Donnel and I made some observations and
comparisons of Arlington parks versus Fort Worth parks.

The Arlington Parks and Recreation Department has a nice web page that lists
all the amenities and features of every park in town. It is at
http://www.ci.arlington.tx.us/park/parks.html.

Fort Worth PARD doesn't have an equivalent website, but the closest thing
that I found is http://dfw.citysearch.com/E/V/DALTX/0214/24/48/cs1.html for
Trinity Park.  It has links to some other parks.  This page says there are
restrooms at Trinity Park - but I didn't see them. Just porta-potties.

Fort Worth parks have almost no *real* bathrooms.  They mostly have just
porta-potties.  The water fountains are usually old and are not turned on.
Perhaps that is only due to the anticipation of winter freezes, but the ones
that we saw looked old and rusted. Even if the water had been turned on, we
wouldn't have wanted to drink out of them. Many of the playgrounds are old
and in need of replacement.  It looked like the distribution of the wealth
was entirely dependent upon the wealth of the surrounding neighborhoods.

We did find a really nice little park on E. Berry called Capps Park.  It had
a bandstand and playground with lit tennis courts, but no bathroom or
porta-potty.  It is close to TCU.

Donnel and I found ourselves wondering if either the Fort Worth PARD or the
Arlington PARD would respond to requests for porta-potties at small parks
like this.  While we realize that the Barony voted to move away from Randoll
Mill, we wondered if anyone had asked the Arlington PARD to place a
handicapped porta-potty next to the pavilion, where we could have used it
without having to walk so far.  They *might* say yes.

Another feature that we came across was the possibility of Equestrian
activity - a great crowd pleaser and a boon to our Equestrian community.
The Arlington PARD lists Veteran's Park as having Equestrian facilities, but
we did not check out Veteran's Park ourselves.  It did not list wheelchair
facilities, so we didn't include it in our search.  I wonder if they would
put a Wheelchair porta-potty there....

Cobb Park in Fort Worth also had what looked like an equestrian ring -
across from the National Guard Armoury and a driving range (poss. archery?).
This was on Cobb Park Drive, and either just north or just south of E.
Maddox Ave.  We found it after we went through Sycamore Park. It is just
North of Hwy 287.    Again, there was no porta-potty or visible source of
water, which could be a problem with horses.  It was a very secluded part of
the park, and no visible sign of riff-raff or traffic.

Donnel and I believe that there are other possibilities out there, but we
just haven't found them, yet.

We didn't make it to the North end of Trinity. Not being familiar with the
park, we didn't realize that we could get to that area or how.  (We were
also pretty darn tired after 5 hours of trekking across Tarrant County).
However, on the other side of the levee/hill next to the duck pond, we found
a small building that some teenagers were coming out from carrying musical
equipment.  They had rented the building for a benefit concert.  We stopped
and asked if there were restrooms in the building.  They said "Yes, but they
were locked, even though they paid a lot of money to rent the building."

What I wonder, is how are we going to be sure that the bathrooms will be
unlocked on the North end of Trinity every Sunday?  Has anyone called and
verified that this can be done?  If so, then, great!

Oh, well, whatever decision is made, at least we were able to give more data
and possibilities.

Xene



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