The Tale of Titan Park sounds like the name of a J.R.R. Tolkien short story. But what we are talking about is instead how a pocket park in Pennsport has gone from being nearly sold to a private developer by the Redevelopment Authority, around this time last year to being awarded a service grant by the Community Design Collaborative to develop a new design for the park. So announced the Friends of Titan Park announced in late August.

Titan Park

Titan Park, at 108-110 Titan St., is today a concrete shadow of a park, that was likely built during a 1976 citywide pocket park project, according to Friends of Titan Park representatives. It was built during the days of non-sustainability when a rules governing pocket parks clearly required a slab of concrete, a few benches, and little else. Now that the Design Collaborative is involved, sustainability will be a theme of the project. The Collaborative helps groups around the city develop conceptual plans for projects, that can later use those plans to help secure funds. Like at the Lea School, at 47th & Locust in West Philly, where conceptual plans developed in collaboration with the Design Collaborative led to the school receiving a $75K grant to realize the plans.

A greened Lea schoolyard in the future

In Pennsport last year, neighbors got organized to raise money to help improve Titan Park, which happened, coincidentally, around the same time news surfaced about the park’s possible sale. It’s great to see that a year later, their hopes have grown from a recycling bucket with a sign fixed to it to receiving real capital for an improvement project. Neighbors pointed to Councilman Mark Squilla as a big help in securing the grant that will help transform the park from a version of its former self into a new sustainable pocket oasis.

–Lou Mancinelli