The Peace Garden
By Sarah
View of the Peace Garden
Photo credit: Sarah
Photo credit: Sarah
If you were to drive down Dale towards Frogtown, you’d pass by Capitol Hill Gifted and Talented School and its baseball and soccer fields. However, you’ll also pass by the “Peace Garden,” or as the students refer to it, the Hobo Garden. We visited this site to see why it was called the Hobo Garden, and the answer soon became obvious. Four years ago, when I went to Capitol Hill, the garden wasn’t as bad is it is today. During recess we would go and play hide-and-seek or tag, but we would always keep an eye out for the occasional used condom or old sock, and maybe a few couples trying to find a secluded place to make out. We would also find lots of old cigarettes and one time we even found a pile of rolling paper and old joints.
Now there are worse things. My friends who recently attended the school talked about the shopping carts they would find there, and how they would have to be careful not to step on old and broken syringes. When we visited they said it was one of the better days at the garden, but we were still able to find old firecrackers, condom wrappers, trash and even old and dirty socks and sweaters. It certainly didn’t look like the kind of place you want your 1st through 6th graders running around. The “garden” is mostly weeds and rocks, and there are cigarette butts lying everywhere. There is graffiti on the concrete walls that separate the school grounds from the houses on the other side and broken glass is everywhere — making the place even more dangerous.
How can we allow kids to play here when we have evidence that people smoke, do drugs and even live here? It’s not safe, and it’s certainly not peaceful, which was the whole point of the garden in the first place. We need to clean up the garden and make it safe for our students to use, or else we may eventually have to shut down that entire section of the grounds for good.
Now there are worse things. My friends who recently attended the school talked about the shopping carts they would find there, and how they would have to be careful not to step on old and broken syringes. When we visited they said it was one of the better days at the garden, but we were still able to find old firecrackers, condom wrappers, trash and even old and dirty socks and sweaters. It certainly didn’t look like the kind of place you want your 1st through 6th graders running around. The “garden” is mostly weeds and rocks, and there are cigarette butts lying everywhere. There is graffiti on the concrete walls that separate the school grounds from the houses on the other side and broken glass is everywhere — making the place even more dangerous.
How can we allow kids to play here when we have evidence that people smoke, do drugs and even live here? It’s not safe, and it’s certainly not peaceful, which was the whole point of the garden in the first place. We need to clean up the garden and make it safe for our students to use, or else we may eventually have to shut down that entire section of the grounds for good.
Graphic credit: Cameron