Field of Green Dreams

Here's one of Dan Geringer's patented heartwarming neighborhood stories - and this one has more than a little to do with the Green theme. Of course turning the city's last cinder-based ballfield into one with grass is in itself a "green" initiative, but it's part of a project to return a vast stretch of  North Philly to a more natural and sustainable environment. Read on right here or click through for the Daily News version that has a complete map of where and how the greening will occur: 

Fishtown's cinder field giving way to grass after generations of scraped knees

After forcing Fishtown kids to play with pain for more than 50 years, Philadelphia's last cinder ballfield is finally going green.

Shissler Rec's grass baseball/soccer field will be the crown jewel in a $1.2 million, six-block "Green Connection: Shissler to the River" plan that the city's newly merged Department of Parks and Recreation unveils today.

"We're living the merger before we actually merge in July," said Michael DiBerardinis, parks and recreation commissioner, announcing that other major improvements include:

* Replacing Shissler Rec's blacktop parking lot - which sends storm-water runoff flooding into Blair Street - with a permeable surface that will prevent those floods.

"All the water will go into the earth in a natural way instead of getting siphoned into sewers that overload, flood and carry all the high-fecal waste into our rivers and streams," DiBerardinis said.

* The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society will plant rain gardens around the rec center and trees all along Columbia Avenue and around Hetzell Field, at Columbia and Thompson.

"This is our coming-out party for our new vision of connecting kids to the outdoors, taking care of the land and building a sustainable infrastructure," DiBerardinis said.

He said the idea of replacing Shissler's cinder field - which has always been called "Newt's" in the neighborhood - had been discussed in Fishtown for years, but the city didn't have the $400,000 in its cash-strapped capital budget to fund it.

DiBerardinis met with City Councilwoman Maria Quinones-Sanchez, whose 7th District contains the cinder field, and with Councilman Darrell Clarke, whose 5th District constituents are most of its users.

"We said to each of them, 'You kick in $150,000, Mayor Nutter kicks in $100,000 from the city's capital budget, and everybody gets a $400,000 facility," DiBerardinis said. "It was real retail politics. Everybody wins."

Dave Dougherty, 50, longtime president of the Fishtown Athletic Club, which runs Shissler's youth-sports programs, said, "I played on those cinders as a kid back in the day, so I'm one of those guys who's going to be heartbroken when the cinder field's gone.

"I meet grandfathers, watching their grandkids play baseball on grass fields in other neighborhoods, who tell me, 'I still got cinders in my knees from Newt's.'

"But I know we need to change, because most other leagues won't play here. You can't attract people with cinders. So I'm looking forward to a beautiful grass field. We're catering to 870 kids now, baseball and soccer. When the field is grass, we hope to get over 1,000."

Fishtown native A.J. Thomson, who was watching his 5-year-old daughter playing on cinders during soccer camp yesterday morning, said he's a fan of traditions, but this is one he's glad to see go away.

"The cinders made the field one-of-a-kind, but it wasn't a good thing," he said. "The new grass field will be a point of pride for our neighborhood."