Where else to kick off a spring cleanup campaign but "Needle Park?"

Mayor Nutter and a small army of city officials and community leaders gathered at McPherson Square today - commonly known as "Needle Park," for obvious reasons - to announce the kickoff of the Annual Philly Spring Cleanup.

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Where else to kick off a spring cleanup campaign but "Needle Park?"

POSTED: Tuesday, March 6, 2012, 5:27 PM
Filed Under: News

Mayor Nutter and a small army of city officials and community leaders gathered at McPherson Square today — commonly known as "Needle Park," for obvious reasons — to announce the kickoff of the Annual Philly Spring Cleanup.

The choice of locale was symbolic: McPherson represents, on the one hand, just how bad things get in Philly — a major neighborhood park filled with drug activity and discarded needles — but has also been the focus of renewed attention.

Representatives of the Free Library, the Friends of the Free Library, the Department of Parks and Recreation, the office of Maria Quinones-Sanchez, the local CDC Impact Services, and a small but dedicated group of community residents have been meeting for months to try and improve the park. It's soon to see new lighting, a summer day program for kids, and, according to new 24th District Captain Charles Vogt, an increased police presence.

The mood was, as it tends to be at these sorts of events, jolly — but not without its subtle dark undercurrent.

As community activist Jonathan Centeno put it in a closing prayer, "This park is a place for children to play, a place to be safe, a place for community to come together — and for a long time, the environment has been different than that, Lord."

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