From sanitarium and soup kitchen, to 'island' oasis

City children used to line up on a pier in Penn Treaty Park by the hundreds on summer mornings, just to claim a seat on a riverboat headed to a South Jersey wonderland.

When the Sanitarium Playground opened in West Deptford, Gloucester County, in 1877, most of the kids took the six-mile trip down the Delaware because they had tuberculosis and fresh air was one of the treatments.

By the Great Depression in the 1930s, thousands of children and adults visited daily to get a free cup of soup. The idyllic, 25-acre parcel became forever known as "Soupy Island."

It's mostly been serving inner-city children ever since, but the park's two swimming pools, 107-year-old wooden carousel and unusual enclosed wooden slide are open to anyone, free of charge, every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

"There's really nothing like this anywhere," said Angel Seijas, who brought son Marcus, 6, to Soupy Island yesterday. "This is a great way for a low-income family to spend a day."

The riverboat doesn't ferry people to the park anymore, but hundreds of kids poured off buses yesterday to watch a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new basketball court. Plus, three Harlem Globetrotters were on hand for a lesson on ball-handling.

The basketball court was donated by Campbell Soup Co., based in nearby Camden, which has spent about $50,000 in upgrades and additions to the park, not to mention supplying soup and Goldfish crackers by the truckload.

Ironically, the famous soup company had no relationship with Soupy Island (which also isn't an island) until last year, when they came aboard as a sponsor and sent 175 volunteers to spruce up the park.

"I've been trying to get hold of them for at least 10 years," said Bob Perez, Soupy Island's caretaker. "I'm real excited about what they're doing here."

Perez, known as "Mr. Bob" to all the kids who pass by him, lives in a 12-bedroom mansion on the property. His family has run Soupy Island since it opened and lives off an endowment set up by physicians who established the sanitarium.

Perez is glad to take homemade soup off his list of chores, but he's still the only person who knows how to keep the carousel running.

"This is a full-time job for me," he said.

Sade Chambliss, a counselor with the Life Assembly of God Church in Camden, came to Soupy Island as a teen and was back yesterday with a few dozen city children.

"I try to get here about once a week," she said. "It's like another world here." *