The land where Atlanta’s newest park is located, in the neighborhood of Vine City, used to have houses on it. But in 2002, there was a flood of sewage. It overwhelmed people in the neighborhood, Bishop John Lewis remembers. Lewis chairs the Vine City Civic Association.
“They had to wade through six feet, swimming, through sewage,” he said.
At least 60 families ended up losing their homes as the city bought out the properties.
Now, the park built in their place should help alleviate some of those long-running flooding problems. Cook Park was designed to slow and absorb stormwater. It does so with waterfalls and landscaped ponds, surrounded by curving paths.
On Wednesday, the City of Atlanta held an official ribbon-cutting ceremony for the park. Lewis encouraged the gathered crowd to keep those families that had to relocate in mind.
“Let’s think about them today,” he said.
Cook Park’s landscaped ponds and curving paths help alleviate flooding risks in the neighborhood. (Molly Samuel/WABE)
“I was blown away by the beauty of the park,” Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said. “It’s one thing to see it on paper but it’s another thing to be here.”
Bottoms said it’s the first park in Atlanta’s neighborhood planning unit Q, meaning that now all of the city’s local planning units have parks.
Cook Park is also intended to honor the city’s civil rights leaders.
The park is named after Rodney Cook Senior, who was an Atlanta Alderman anhttps://www.wabe.org/atlantas-newest-park-intended-to-honor-civil-rights-leaders-and-address-long-running-flooding Georgia House representative who supported the civil rights movement. His son, Rodney Cook Junior, is involved in the park’s development and plans for it to host statues of civil rights leaders. There’s already one there of Congressman John Lewis.
Ambassador Andrew Young has also been a supporter of the project; he knew Rodney Cook Senior. He said he envisions Cook Park as a “peace” park, “where you can come and just be at peace together.”
It took about four years for the park to be built. The non-profit Trust for Public Land raised money for the project and oversaw construction.
Cook Park is now officially open, though, as Bishop Lewis with the Vine City Civic Association noted, families and children in the neighborhood have already been enjoying it.
