Kevin Roden – 07.28.10

This story begins nearly 100 years ago.  If you have not yet heard about the tragic history of Quakertown, please take the time to brush up on it now – go here for an account written by Michele Powers Glaze.  It is befitting every citizen of Denton to know the history of its injustices, precisely because the lack of such knowledge inevitably leads to more injustice.

THE VERY SHORT STORY: The area now known as Quakertown Park, where the Jazz and Arts Fest is located, was once home to a vibrant working class community of early Denton African Americans.  In the early 1900s, TWU (then known as College of Industrial Arts) was seeking additional recognition from the state and became concerned with having a black community so close to their all-girl school.  At the same time, women’s groups in town began lobbying for the creation of a city park.  These interests merged in the development of a city-led initiative to claim the land of this black neighborhood in order to create the city park and supposedly “better” the environment around the college campus.  Despite protests from the residents of Quakertown (needless to say, blacks didn’t have much of a voice in civic affairs back then), the city bought up the properties and the community was forced to relocate.  Many of Denton’s early black leaders – those who owned businesses and had an education – left Denton at that point in search of more welcoming communities.  For those who stayed, one of the only spots in town that would take them was a piece of old mosquito infested, cow-patty covered ranch land near the railroad tracks South of the square.  Solomon’s Hill, as it was called, is still home to many of these Quakertown descendents in the area we now know as Southeast Denton.  By the mid-1920s, Quakertown, once a vibrant community with homes and yards and local businesses, was reduced to an empty lot of land.  Its inhabitants, now scattered and lacking many of their key civic leaders, no longer had a geographical connection to the heart of Denton.  Needless to say, the distrust of the city that began with that episode continues to this day.

Below is a copy of a 1921 map of the Quakertown area – it shows the streets, the houses, the businesses, and the names of their occupants:

Fast forward to today… Out of respect for the plight of Quakertown, the park there now bears its name.  The city’s first racially integrated pool sits in that park.  Anyone who visits that pool and then drives about 5 miles Northwest to the newer and flashier city-run Water Works park will see a stark socio-economic and ethnic contrast between the frequenters of those two options.  The pool in Quakertown Park remains accessible and affordable to many disadvantaged children and families who live in Central and SE Denton.  What costs only $2.25 to get into the Civic Center Pool will cost a kid $11 up at Water Works – and that is assuming he has a way to get there.

So when a group of flashy consultants rolled into town with a flashy plan to tear out that pool and replace it with an Amphitheater, it provided a great example of why we shouldn’t entrust the envisioning of our city to outsiders.  The plan, seemingly a minor issue from the consultant’s perspective, nearly derailed approval of the entire Downtown Implementation Plan last night at the Planning and Zoning Commission.  Commissioners Patrice Like and Jean Schaake led off the questioning of the consultants and city planners about this issue.  A week prior to this meeting thinkdenton.com raised this same issue with the city council and city Parks staff – that yielded this response from Emerson Vorel of Denton’s Parks and Rec department:

The suggestion of removing the pool from Quakertown Park was a topic of much discussion during our design review. I made sure the consultant  was fully aware of the history of the park and all the perceptions that would go with any suggestion of the pool’s removal. I stated in those meetings that the ONLY way we could consider converting that pool to an amphitheater would be to fund the construction of a new pool, close to the existing site or in the southeast section of town, as part of the amphitheater construction. I would NEVER consider permanently closing the Civic Center Pool without first constructing a suitable replacement that would serve as a more affordable aquatic option to Water Works Park.

A comforting statement, but the question remains: why didn’t the city staff or citizen-led Downtown Task Force working with the DTIP team catch this issue before now?  And if the consultants were so aware of the history of this area, why no mention of it in their written recommendations?  After raising the issue, the consultants and staff were savvy enough to include qualifying statements to this effect at Wednesday’s meeting before the Planning and Zoning Commission (in fact, the statements on the powerpoint slide were nearly identical to the wording in this email).  But after a few questions from Schaake and Lyke, it was clear that there is no real plan on how to replace that pool or where to put it or how it is going to be funded.  It is as if all of this was an after thought…

The Planning and Zoning Commission ultimately voted to approve the Downtown Implementation Plan with the exception of the planned recommendations for Quakertown Park, arguing that they needed more work.  The Commission was very wise not to go on record approving a plan that removed the Civic Center Pool.  An entire community was unjustly displaced in order to make room for that park.  To take away an important amenity that many in that same community rely on in order to update that same park is simply unimaginable.  Let’s hope the Council does the same thing when they hear the plan at their August 17 city council meeting.