park

Public meeting on future Pender Street Park and Center.

This public notice appeared on the City of Wilson’s website, http://www.wilsonnc.org, on 10 March 2024. Pender Street Park lies within historic East Wilson and was once the site of housing for workers employed in nearby tobacco factories and cotton oil mills. The City recently announced plans to develop affordable housing near the park.

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Please join us for a public meeting to discuss future plans for Pender Street Park and Center. City staff and the project team will present options for the new park and center and solicit feedback from the public on potential designs. 

WHEN: Thursday, March 14, 2024, at 6 p.m.

WHERE: 300 Pender Street, Wilson, NC 27893

Last year the city announced plans for Pender Crossing, a new affordable housing project near the site of Pender Street Park. The multifamily property will include 48 apartments with a mix of 1-, 2-, and 3-bedroom units and will have onsite parking, a community building, and other amenities. The apartments will be priced to be affordable by people who work in the surrounding area. 

The city will build a new park and center in the area. This public meeting will provide additional details on the park relocation and site layout, as well as review the amenities proposed for the new center. These amenities include a basketball court, playground, open space, a walking path, shelter, and meeting space. During the meeting, the team will share potential park and center designs and provide ways for the public to provide input. 

This is a great opportunity to have your voice heard in the planning phase of this exciting new development!

Hat tip to R. Briggs Sherwood for alerting B.W.A. to this notice.  

The park should be named in his honor.

In 1980, the Mary McLeod Bethune Women’s Civic Club petitioned Wilson Parks and Recreation Director Burt Gillette to name a new city park for Oliver Nestus Freeman. Their letter contains interesting details of Freeman’s life, including more about his amusement park and the focus of his real estate development.

The petition was successful.

The origins of the linear park.

Wilson Daily Times, 14 January 1983.

In January 1983, the City’s Community Development announced the installation of a 1100 foot long linear park to replace a noisome open drainage ditch running between Vance and Viola Streets. The park was to include a play area, picnic tables, grills, fruit trees, and a paved path. “The city acquired most of the property for the park from the heirs of S.H. Vick, a former community leader who once owned much of east Wilson.”

In this 1940 aerial view of the area, the drainage ditch is visible as a darker gray angling across the interior of the block between Vance and Viola Streets, then angling sharply near Vick Street to join its source, the branch of Toisnot Swamp that flows behind Reid Street Community Center and the former Sam Vick Elementary School, now the offices of OIC. (Another fork of the branch flowed parallel to Elba Street toward Viola.)

And here is the Linear Park now.

Aerial photo from Wilson_CSP_6B_12, U.S.D.A. Photograph Collection, State Archives of North Carolina; current photo courtesy of Google Maps.