Working the angles on Triangle Park

Church Hill has some magnificent parks, but you rarely hear Triangle Park mentioned among them. The equilateral-ish patch, wedged between Jefferson Avenue and East Clay and North 23rd Streets isn’t even listed as a park on Google Maps. It lacks the sweeping views, athletic facilities, and sheer space that make the neighborhood’s other parks so distinctive and delightful. But Triangle Park could be magnificent in its own right. And situated as it is equidistant to Union Market and Wheel Simple at Church Hill’s increasingly bustling western gateway it should be, too.

Harry Herskowitz is working on it—and he needs your help.

“With all the development that's gone on in that area, with the [Jefferson Ave. redesign] and all the businesses that have sprung up, I feel like that park is a very central part of Church Hill,” he told The Lookout in a recent phone interview. “It’s just interesting to me that it was so ignored for so long, because it’s the first thing you see when you come in” to the neighborhood.

For the past two years, Herskowitz has worked with a small group of neighborhood volunteers to beautify Triangle Park and turn it into a community greenspace befitting its prominence. After his sister passed away in 2023, the software developer and amateur hortoculturist found himself on the hunt for a suitable location to plant a pollinator garden in her memory. At a mulching event in Jefferson park, longtime Church Hill organizer Elaine Odell suggested Triangle, then not much more than a swatch of grass and a solitary tree across from Alamo BBQ. Herskowitz decided to give it a shot.

“I had to go through this whole process with the city of getting approval for it,” he said. “They didn't even know that they owned Triangle Park at first.” But eventually, he secured approval to create a raised bed in a corner of the park in honor of his late sibling. He built it the installation with his father in the summer of 2023. From there, more beds followed, built by Herskowitz and other neighborhood volunteers. Triangle began to take shape.

That’s not to say it’s been easy. “During the spring, I'm out there like every morning, weeding or watering… at least eight to 10 hours a week in the spring and summer” said Herskowitz, shouting out fellow volunteers Gwen Fitzgerald and Monika Bierschenk for their contributions. “We get [other] volunteers to show up for big work days, maybe twice a year, but for the most part, it's us out there.”

Now that spring has finally, officially arrived in Church Hill, Herskowitz and his fellow volunteers are gearing up for their biggest year of beautification yet. They created a nonprofit organization, Richmond Park Stewards, and Friends of Triangle Park within it. Bierschenk has put her skills as a landscape designer to use, sketching plans for a native-plant meadow within the bounds of the park’s split-rail fences. Herskowitz has imagined a rock garden to compliment his original planter. Another neighbor, carpenter Davis Boshears, has volunteered to build a custom, triangular Free Little Library that will hold books and pantry items and make the space more of a destination for the community.

These are big plans for a small park, and they call for more than just sweat equity. So tomorrow, Herskowitz and The Triangulators are throwing a fundraising event to help underwrite their important neighborhood work. From 11am-3pm on Saturday March 22nd, The Friends of Triangle Park are hosting a Spring Equinox gathering at the park, inviting the community to show up, hang out, and—if they can see the vision—to donate some dough to the beautification effort.

To sweeten the deal, local makers will be hawking wares, and Pi’s Coffee will be slinging lattes. Herskowitz’s fiancé, Jess Fauscette, plans to operate an indigo dye bath on site, too. (That’s exactly what it sounds like, and it’s BYO apparel. “As long as it's a natural material, like, no polyester or something, bring it over, dump it in the bath, hang it up,” Herskowitz says. “Every time I stain something, I just give it to her, and she dyes it blue.”)

Herskowitz hopes the fundraiser—which comes roughly a month and a half after the successful Yard No Sale buy-nothing meet-up in the park—will raise the requisite cash for the lumber, landscaping stones, and flats of native plants that the group needs to execute the next stage of its vision for the park. At press time, the group’s GoFundMe page stood at $195. “If we could make $1,000 that would be awesome, but even $500 would be great,” he said. “It all goes a long way.”

📜 Possum Poetry

Possum Poetry is original verse written exclusively for The Lookout by Penelope Poubelle, the Lookout’s litter critter-at-large. If you spot roadside trash you’d like her to immortalize in doggerel, email a photo to dave@dinfontay.com. All submissions anonymous!

🏡 What’s a “primary residence” in practice?

The Richmond Times-Dispatch published a report last week about the decades-long erosion in residency standards for city officials. The basic idea, Virginia political analyst Bob Holsworth told the paper, is that “[b]y living in the city, [officials] show that they are invested in the future of the jurisdiction.” Makes sense to me.

This passage about City Councilmember and current President Cynthia Newbille, which appears two-thirds of the way into Parker’s piece, made less sense to me (emphasis mine):

Maybe that’s a legal threshold for residency; I’m not a lawyer. But I feel like the lay definition of where you live is where you lay your head the majority of the time. No? I googled around and found an old Church Hill People’s News post from January 2009 that indicates Newbille’s residency was a source of some controversy way back when the she was first running for her long-held seat. (Apparently this is a bit of a thing: there was another flap about a councilmember’s residency in the 5th District back in 2019. Go figure.) Maybe you know what Newbille’s “primary residence” designation means in practice. I didn’t, and being a reporter who maintains his primary and only residence in the 7th District, I figured I ought to just ask her. At publication, she had yet to respond to my inquiry.

☘️ The 39th-annual Irish Fest is in the books

If you came by the big Premium Distributors truck parked on E. Broad St. between 12-3pm this past Saturday, you probably saw your humble Lookout editor trying to keep the pints flowing for my fellow volunteers as we served what felt like a record crowd. Naturally, I took a few sips during my shift just to make sure the quality was top-notch. Hard work, but somebody’s gotta do it.

Beyond the confines of my station, the Irish Fest was absolutely jammed Saturday afternoon, and I didn’t really have the energy to stick around. (Had to conserve what little stamina I’ve got for the Hilltopper 5K the following morning.) Truthfully, it seemed a little too jammed; maybe annexing another block is in order for next year? I haven’t heard yet how the fundraiser went for St. Patrick’s Catholic Church, which has now thrown the event 39 times. Given how fast those Guinnii were going, I have a hunch it was quite a haul. If you know the number, submit a tip! 

📢 Happenings on The Hill

• Give me liberty…: The 250th-anniversary reenactment of Patrick Henry’s famous speech is this Sunday (3/23) at St. John’s Church. The 1:30pm performance is sold out but can be viewed by livestream, and there’s a free 6:30pm event. More info.

• …and give me protest: Concurrent with the reenactment, a native Richmonder is organizing a “250 Years of No Kings in America” demonstration in Patrick Henry Park from 1-3pm on Sunday (3/23). The Lookout has the scoop.

• Playground pickin’: The Friends of Chimborazo Playground are doing a trash cleanup tomorrow (3/22) at 9am. Bring gloves! Put it on your calendar.

• Fresh cup coming: A new tenant for the old Rise Café space has been announced. Sarah & Co. Café, from the folks behind Urban Hang Suite and Virginia Black Restaurant Experience, is slated to open this summer. More details here.

• 7th District details: Cynthia Newbille is hosting an update session next Thursday (3/27) at the Boys & Girls Club. See you there maybe?

Happenings on The Hill is a digital bulletin board for events, causes, and other items of interest to East Enders that don’t necessarily merit full editorial treatment. Got something for a future edition? Email the relevant details, links, etc. to dave@dinfontay.com for consideration!

📸 A Very CHill Photo

Want to share your Very CHill Photo from the neighborhood? Email it to dave@dinfontay.com with your name as you’d like it to appear for publication, and the camera you shot it on.