A recent consultants' report details the many things desperately needed in Druid Hill Park. It also urges that the managers of this 740-acre oasis should capitalize on the park's relationship with the Baltimore Zoo, which occupies 180-acres of the land. Now it is up to city officials to implement the recommendations.
Since the consultants' report is largely silent on the costs of all the recommendations, it is illustrative to consider how Druid Hill Park came about, 137 years ago. Although Baltimore was a rapidly growing city in those days, it had no readily available cash to buy a park. The City Council resolved that problem through an ordinance that required all the passenger railway companies to pay one-fifth of their gross revenues to the city. That money was then used to purchase land for Druid Hill Park.
Perhaps a similar approach can be used to find money for the long-overdue renovations. Among them are such costly items as reconstructing the park's drainage system, which has never been overhauled since its original construction.
Other specific proposals include:
* Rebuilding pedestrian walkways and creating multi-use systems for jogging and bicycling.
* Closing the motor-vehicle entrances to the park at Greenspring and Liberty Heights avenues to discourage high-speed commuter traffic.
* Construction of a 861-space parking lot for the Baltimore Zoo.
* Building gates at the park's four main auto-vehicle entry points to deter illegal dumping and vandalism. (Such gates used to exist, and the park was closed at night because neighbors complained that their sleep was disturbed by people racing horses and buggies).
While many old-time Baltimoreans recall a flock of some 300 sheep that once roamed around Druid Hill Park until 1945 -- or the huge Easter egg hunts conducted there -- the park contains bitter-sweet memories for African-Americans. Thus, among the consultants' recommendations is the upgrading of the old Negro Tennis Courts to tournament condition and renaming them in honor of tennis giants Arthur Ashe and Althea Gibson.
Another recommendation calls for turning the park's historic Mansion House into a museum or education center.
Several other recommendations are made, including a systematic replanting of trees. A Japanese cherry tree garden overlooking the Druid Hill reservoir and donated by Baltimoreans while William Donald Schaefer was mayor, shows that these projects can successfully attract private sponsors.