Harantraft: Amos Playground Pool Has Not Been Filled in Three Years; Council Member Says There Are Not Enough Kids Around to Use it  

Amos Playground, located on North 16th Street in the Harantraft neighborhood of North Philadelphia, used to boast a lively swimming pool used by the kids enrolled in the Parks and Recreation summer camp. Now, almost four years have passed since the pool has been filled. The playground is not on the Rebuild List, and there are no future plans for a repair to be made. I spoke with Ruth Birchett, the President of the Amos Playground Advisory Council, who shared her position on the closure of the pool and Amos as a whole.  

Why do you feel that Amos Playground should be on the Rebuild List?  

We are located in the 22nd Police District, one of the city’s most challenging in terms of crime and violence and even gun violence. And we’re located just a block from the headquarters of the 22nd Police District. So when the cars come out of the district, they come to the corner and zoom past our playground.  I’m invested in maintaining this playground. I remember when it was built, and the hopes that I had as a child, and in hopes of me and my classmates who attended Carver School across the street, which is now in high school for engineering and science. We were thrilled that a playground was being built. 

What have you done so far to push for the Rebuild and use of Amos Playground, and what has the City’s response been? 

Nobody asks the Advisory Council what it thought about it, even though the commissioner herself knows that in 2018, I wrote to her and acknowledged that Amos Playground was not on the Rebuild List. And because of that, I would like to initiate efforts to do a makeover there. And that’s when I discovered that, and she responded positively, it turns out to have no real substance. Because other than having her staff come meet with me and work with me, or to supposedly work with me to organize the Advisory Council, which was not active, I ended up doing all that by myself. There wasn’t really a sincere effort on the part of the previous recreation commissioner. 

What has the city engineer done for the park so far? 

Darrell Clarke had the city engineer and Parks and Rec engineer come out multiple times to assess what the facility needs were, and made a punch-list of things that needed to be done. And Clarke put it into the capital budget. He recorded it being put into the capital budget for all the floors to be replaced, for the bathrooms to be updated, for the pool area to be attended to, for the storage room to be expanded into the whole area, because there was a lot of space. The storage rooms right next to the pool. And there was a good amount of space there. 

How has the playground/pool not being updated impacted kids in the area? 

It pushed children and families further away from Amos Playground. So it had a direct impact on the participation and programs the playground had, and impacted the number of kids that were coming. Across from Amos Playground,  we used to see three story houses where these children lived…many  daycare centers and summer camps visit Amos Playground on a routine basis as part of their excursions throughout the community and Amos is not as on the Rebuild List. 

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