Class Project proposal

For my class project plan to showcase Arsenal Park in Lawrenceville. My tentative title for the project is Disrepair and Rejuvenation.

Arsenal Park is a central gathering place in Pittsburgh's largest neighborhood, attracting children, dog-walkers, ball players, bicycle polo players, history buffs, and July 4th celebrants. In recent decades a wading pool was a big attraction until it was drained. In an earlier period when the arsenal was producing ordinance, this pool was a repository for black powder sweepings.

Arsenal Park is a portion of the 40-acre Allegheny Arsenal that was opened in 1814 to supply the U.S. Army in the west. The arsenal played a pivotal role in supplying ordinance to the Union army during the Civil War. On September 17, 1862 an explosion occurred at the arsenal killing 79 persons, mostly young women. Overshadowed in history by the Battle of Antietam, which occurred the same day and which was the battle with the biggest death toll in a single day, the arsenal explosion exacted the biggest loss of civilian life during the war.

Mary Frailey Calland wrote a novel, Consecrated Dust featuring the incident that was published in 2011.

During the G20 summit in 2009 a large number of protestors gathered in Arsenal Park with the expressed intention of marching downtown without a permit. Police massed in force and dispersed the parade using tear gas and a sonic canon. (I don't intend to include this in the final project; I mention it here as a curiosity that I witnessed.)

During and following a 150-year commemoration of the explosion in September, a group of neighbors in Lawrenceville as well as officials of the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundations called attention to the deteriorating conditions of the park.

I hope to enlist several people I know in the neighborhood to show how the park is used.

Here are some recent articles from the Post-Gazette.
http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/local/neighborhoods-city/neglected-lawrenceville-park-finally-has-a-few-friends-654676/

http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/opinion/letters/death-from-neglect-654551/

http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/life/lifestyle/with-allegheny-arsenal-explosion-as-background-consecrated-dust-blends-history-and-fiction-653536/

http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/life/lifestyle/events-to-recall-arsenal-explosion-652935/

Mud on the Ball Field

Canon at the base of steps

Police massed to stop unpermitted march planned by protestors during the G20 summit