East Hills Council of Neighbors
Cherry Park has been a hub of community activity for 100 years. The small park building has been home to the East Hills Council of Neighbors for 30 years.
This double anniversary marks important milestones for a historic site and the vital activities that the site supports. The East Hills Council has been a key voice for citizens and preservation, assisting residents in the formation of three Historic Districts that have fueled re-investment and re-vitalization of the neighborhood. Faced with mass disinvestment in the 70s and 80s residents united to fight blight, drug dealers, and city planners whose plans began with bulldozers. Today East Hills stands as a model of preservation and community activism - that same activism that created Cherry Park 100 years ago and fuels our future today.
Cherry Park is within in the borders of the Cherry Hill Historic District and borders the Heritage Hills Historic District, Fairmount Square Historic District, Wealthy Theatre Historic District, and the Paddock Place Historic Site. The park serves as a community gathering space, a place where residents come together and ideas form. The small park building has been home to big ideas that have caused big transformation. From this place new organizations have grown - South East Economic Development Corporation, ArtWorks, Uptown, Wealthy Heights - all working to make this neighborhood better. Projects that embrace historic preservation, walkability, and environmental sustainability grew their roots in this little park - East Hills Tree Project, DEQ Stormwater Mitigation Project, East Hills Center of the Universe, 920 Cherry. Cherry Park is the gathering point where seeds have been planted, taken root, and flourished.
Cherry Park may be a very small patch of green space but it serves our neighborhood well. When faced with budget cuts the City was going to pull the plug on funding our small wading pool. Citizen’s united and raised the funds to run the pool for one summer and made demands of our elected officials not to let it happen again, it has not and the pool has stayed open every summer. It is a small space but a necessary space - a wading pool, a play ground, a tennis court, a basketball court, a few picnic tables and some nice shade trees - it gives us what we need, it gives us a place to gather. Every inch of the park is used and appreciated and necessary - it is about quality of life, it is because this place matters.
The information provided on Community Challenge pages is provided "as is," and the National Trust for Historic Preservation does not make any representations, endorsements, or warranties (either expressed or implied) on any comments, reviews, or suggestions posted. Neither does the National Trust assume responsibility or liability for the same.
