Community Rallies for Walton Street Park

Once again, rumors abound that Walton Street Park’s pool is closing, and once again those who have used the park and pool are unhappy.

Southside resident Shuvonda Harper considers the park a “valuable green space and community resource.” She sees a huge potential loss for the community and, especially, for area children if the pool were to close.

“There isn’t another recreation facility within miles of the downtown area for children to swim, or for families to gather for reunions, church, and social events. Losing this facility would be devastating to our children. Where will they go?”

She also notes that the Walton Street facility has been far lower on the city’s priority list than other pools that serve higher-income communities. She considers the continuing deterioration of the pool to be part of a long-time, subtle disenfranchisement of communities of color.

“It’s a perfect example of what has happened in Asheville’s majority-minority communities for decades, [and] it’s shameful.” Comparing Walton Street pool to those at Recreation Park and Malvern Hills, Harper says, “Those pools and buildings are very well maintained.”

Ms. Lucille Flack Ray, an Asheville Living Treasure and a lifelong resident, lived through decades of segregation in Asheville. When Walton Street Park was built, she recalled, blacks were prohibited from swimming at the segregated Recreation Park or other public facilities, and countless black children—most of them from low-income families—learned to swim there. Walton Street was “the only place African Americans could go,” says Ray.

Harper is particularly distressed about the city’s lack of maintenance of the pool, while Parks & Recreation and City Council debate whether to repair, restore, replace, or simply close it. Currently the pool is missing its protective cover, and Harper told The Urban News that she was told by staff at Asheville Parks and Recreation that it is torn and cannot be repaired, but replacing it is “too expensive.”

“If you come and look at the pool now, there are leaves and debris in the pool. We all know some level of water has to stay in the pool for maintenance purposes, but when the sandblasting happens in the pool, no care is taken to make sure debris is not washed down the drains in a way that would cause the pool further damage. I’ve watched it happen,” says Harper.

Debbie Ivester, Assistant Director of Parks & Recreation, told Urban News, “The city has no plan to close Walton Street Park. What we are doing that affects the park is we are conducting an assessment on the existing conditions of all three of our public swimming pools at these parks: 1) Walton St. Park, 2) Malvern Hills Park, 3) Recreation Park. The assessment will tell us what we need to invest in improvements to bring each pool up to code and to meet the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act. This will lead to a community dialogue about the pool assessment and investments, including the Walton Street Park community.”

Residents remain skeptical, especially about what “assessments” and other plans Parks & Recreation might make for the entire Walton Street Park, as the riverfront is redeveloped and “gentrified.” Thousands of African Americans were displaced from the same area in the 1970s during “Urban Renewal,” their communities destroyed and dispersed to make room for more “valuable” land use and the Livingston Street projects. Now, to many, the same process might be happening again as the River Arts District—highly valued by city planners as a tourist draw for visitors, who are almost exclusively white and upper-income—spreads farther south along the Depot Street corridor.

Says Mrs. Ray, “To erase such a landmark will be a slap in the face to the many generations for whom the historic Walton Street Pool has significant value. The city has money for greenways, bicycle lanes, and other things. It’s the ‘other plans’ that they envision for this park that have people in the community disheartened. Sometimes I wonder, are we going forward or backwards?”

A petition circulating on Change.org, at www.change.org/p/asheville-city-council-save-walton-street-park-pool/u/13413520 aims to keep the city’s feet to the fire to save the park and pool.