A neighborhood park fit for man's best friend

When Nora Doyle injured her leg and had to wear a castfor a month, she needed help performing the most mundane daily tasks. Fortunately for Doyle, concerned neighbors came by to make sure that she was all right. They cleaned her house and offered to do her grocery shopping. Perhaps most importantly to Doyle, who lives on the 4400 block of Locust Street, they walked her full-sized and miniature Doberman pinschers, making sure that Dragon and Opie wouldn't miss out on their playtime. After all, it was her dogs that put her in touch with the community that rallied to help her. At the mulch-covered dog park tucked behind the University City New School and the Divinity School on 43rd Street between Spruce and Locust streets, being a good neighbor comes easy, residents say -- if you know who everybody's "best friend" is. It's a neighborly attitude fostered over the smell of wet fur and fresh mulch on days when it would be easy for the windchill factor to raise doubts about keeping Fido around. But now, residents fear they will lose the community gathering ground when the University hands the land over to the city for construction of a planned pre-K-8 public school. "It really erases the differences between town and gown because there's one thing that everyone has in common: It's the dogs," Doyle said. "I'm very sad that [Penn doesn't] realize how much they've contributed to the community simply by permitting its use." Together with Wharton doctoral student Dan Mingelgrin, Doyle is leading a petition drive to persuade Penn to establish a dog park in an alternative location. Otherwise, in about four months dog-loving neighbors will be left without territory they can mark as their own. Flanked by empty green space, the park lies amidst a residential area on real estate that all agree is ideal for children and parents in the neighborhood. But local residents say that ever since the space was turned over by the University to dog owners over 20 years ago, it has become a valuable place not only for their canine companions, but for themselves. "One of the reasons I moved here [and pay] rents that are exorbitant was because this was here," History and Sociology of Science doctoral candidate Chuck Hammond said. "If this is going to go, that kills my incentive for living in West Philadelphia." The park is abuzz every evening with the conversation of an eclectic mix of people, from students to lab technicians, punctuated by the high-pitched yelp of a beagle and the growl of a Yukon huskie. "I think it's obvious that [the park] pulls together a lot of the residents of the West Philadelphia area and the dogs are obviously happy," first-year Veterinary student Krista Vernaleken said. "Probably 50 percent of the residents of this area have dogs and I'm sure they all bring them here." But Glenn Bryan, Penn's director of community relations, said there is no possibility that the University will use its land for a new dog park. "The University isn't responsible for a dog park, period," Bryan said, though he added that the University can "see the positive advantages of having a dog park" and hopes the issue can be resolved to everyone's satisfaction. And though Tom Lussenhop, Penn's top real estate official, said the University City District is the best available tool for dog owners to lobby their case, UCD Executive Director Paul Steinke said his organization has no concrete plans to help local dog owners find a new location. Thus, possible alternatives lie with private individuals or, as in the case of the Taney dog park on the Schuylkill River, with Philadelphia municipal authorities. Community members are distraught with the helpless situation in which they currently find themselves. "Penn owns a lot of property around here," Hammond said. "I think that if they are going to use this for the K-8 school, they might find some other property to swap us." Many current residents, especially Veterinary students, made it clear that the park was the major incentive for living in West Philadelphia as opposed to Center City, which has a citizen-founded dog park. Though Penn-led initiatives like UC Green and UC Brite have helped make the area safer and more attractive, it's obvious -- painfully so to the dogs -- that the concrete jungle of West Philadelphia isn't the countryside. "My dog is used to having a place to run around and play and the city doesn't really provide that type of environment for a dog," first-year Veterinary student Danielle Springer said. "If there's enough people who feel strongly about keeping a dog park here they should take that seriously. It's part of the community."