Instant Beautification

Nine days ago, Mayor Richard Riordan put his personal and political credibility on the line by promising to revamp a troubled park in South-Central within two weeks. Friday, he presided over a community celebration of his vow’s fulfillment.

During the past nine days, Vermont Square Park has undergone a striking transformation. Where once there were dark shadows and graffiti-scarred walls, Friday there were new lights, repaired and replaced bathroom fixtures, even new flowers and vines along the periphery. The trees were trimmed, the sandboxes graded and the gazebo so freshly painted that the smell hung in the air.

There was still a little work to be done. The dropcloths remained bunched around the gazebo, and a couple of walls still had graffiti scrawled across them. But the two weeks are not quite over, and those who gathered Friday said they had no doubt the project would be completed as promised.

Indeed, on Friday, residents who for years have complained of crime and blight connected to the park joined Riordan in toasting one another for the turnaround.

“I am elated,” said Helen Johnson, whose personal plea to the mayor touched off the effort on Dec. 6. “Now we’ll be able to walk by here, come and play here, bring our families here.”

Riordan, his hands and nose still streaked with off-white paint from his turn at the gazebo, proudly took in the scene at the park, where children played on freshly scrubbed playground equipment and adults ate hamburgers and hot dogs under blue tents and balloons strung from the poles. The mayor wondered aloud whether there might be other quick-turnaround projects such as this one waiting to be undertaken.

“The shorter the period for one of these things, the less you spend,” he said.

In fact, the city’s Recreation and Parks director, also on hand Friday, said the entire project had been virtually completed for less than $20,000. A second phase that will incorporate some longer-term changes to the park is scheduled for completion in June.

Riordan’s press for the park’s renovation began on Dec. 6, when Johnson confronted him at a community meeting and begged him to look into the situation at Vermont Square, which is just a few blocks from some of the worst damage of the 1992 riots. Johnson complained of drug dealing, fights, gambling and drinking, all spilling over into the streets around the park.

In response, Riordan unequivocally pledged that the problems would be fixed inside of two weeks.

The mayor’s staff was taken by surprise but moved into action the following day, partly because news reports of the mayor’s promise turned restoration of the park into a test of the mayor’s word--and partly because the challenge of fixing it in such a short time seemed to capture Riordan’s imagination. That afternoon, after a news conference with Housing and Urban Development Secretary Andrew Cuomo about a housing program, Riordan immediately returned to the subject of the park.

“This,” he said on Dec. 7, “is

what makes this fun.”

Less than 24 hours later, the heads of various city departments were gathered in Riordan’s office, and crews already had begun arriving at the park, the first of them before 8 a.m.

“I’ve never seen so many people working here,” Delores Jefferson, a longtime resident, said of that morning.

As the week progressed, gardening crews dug up long-neglected beds and planted flowers. Painters arrived to cover graffiti on a bathroom wall. The Department of Water and Power sent workers to string nine security lights from power poles. Tree trimmers tackled 27 trees, removing low-hanging branches that for years have given cover to drug dealers and gamblers when LAPD helicopters scan the park from above.

By the weekend, Vermont Square Park smelled of fertilizer and fresh paint. By the middle of this week, once-wary neighbors had begun to wander back.

“This is beautiful,” community resident Keith Brock said Friday. “Look at it.”

Another, Delores Freeman, pushed her daughter on a swing and marveled at the changes. “It was looking kind of ratty,” she said. “Not now.”

Though the park today shines--and more improvements are promised in coming months--Riordan said Friday that the job of maintaining its luster now returns to the community.

“There’s a saying in the restaurant business,” said the mayor, who owns the downtown restaurant called the Original Pantry. “It’s called ‘the eyes of the owner.’ In this case, the owner is the community. They are the people who live here and who need to keep on top of this.”

As Riordan chatted with neighbors who turned out for Friday’s work day, one after another approached him with thanks.

“Mr. Mayor,” said John Mills, “we’re going to miss you when you’re gone.”

“I’m going to miss this,” responded Riordan, whose term ends next June and who is barred by term limits from seeking reelection.

Amid the hoopla and appreciation Friday, Johnson, the woman whose comments to the mayor launched the renovation, quietly conceded that the park’s rebirth was, for her, only the second-most important happening this week.

Johnson’s daughter, Nikki, was shot in the head in September in a drive-by. She returned home for the first time Thursday, still recovering but showing signs of progress.

“When we got out of the car, she said: ‘Mom, I’m home,’ ” Helen Johnson said, her eyes welling with tears. “This is a happy day.”