Groups to approach city council to improve Portia Hines Park

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) – There’s a petition and a push to improve one park on Wilmington’s northside.

Some call it the 10th Street park; others Portia Hines. Whichever name you use, neighbors want to see a change to it. They say it will better safety, hygiene and bring a stronger sense of community.

“There is a need for those bathrooms and that water,” said neighbor Anita Richardson.

Richardson sits along her porch at her 10th Street home often watching and talking about the park she grew up around. The day Anthony Hardwrich came up to her door with a petition to city council, she was all too happy to sign it.

“Everybody wants to know where their children are and without lighting you really don’t get to see where the children are running to,” said Hardwrich, who is a part of the Northside Connection.

The Connection as well as the Blue Ribbon Commission’s Voyage Youth Leadership Council launched this effort to petition the city council to build bathrooms, water fountains, as well as lights at the park.

“It’s really needed, I mean it’s really needed,” said Hardwrich as he looks through the Magnolia tree seeing kids of all ages dancing on the basketball courts baking in the mid-evening sun.

Neighbors like Richardson know just how busy the park can get. The doors to her home  often sit open for the kids that use the park.

“Nine times out of 10 that’s going to be my house, because they know I’m not going to say no. ‘Go ahead and use the bathroom, see if you got something to drink.’ I catch myself buying extra water and extra juices, because I live across from the park,” Richardson said.

Richardson said growing up the park had a different image to her and the neighborhood. There was a gazebo, bathrooms, water fountains as well as various playground items and tennis courts. Time and crime, she says, took its toll and eventually all of those things were demolished.

Knowing the neighborhoods past, WWAY took the question to city leaders if Portia Hines Park would be restored to its former facade.

“I’d like to see them get exactly what they want if it is within our budget of course and if it is within the parameters of what we do to all parks,” said councilman Clifford Barnett, who is a newcomer to the council, but pastors a congregation a couple of streets north on Nixon Street from Portia Hines.

It sits now as one of the few parks in the inner city without electricity and running water. Robert Strange Park has two centers, a gym and fitness center as well as multiple water fountains and power. Alfred Blue Park in the Love Grove area garners not all but more utilities.

“I don’t think you should charge today’s children for yesterday’s happenings,” Hardwrich said.

The two groups plan to speak before City Council Tuesday to push the petition and request the improvements come to the park.