Recent News From Dix Park
The daredevils crowded at the top of Dix Hill on Wednesday, preparing to slide down the city’s undisputed favorite of sledding hills, perched on air mattresses, surfboards and a cookie sheet coated with Pam. Then the city upped the ante by handing out 500 free plastic saucers, distributing them off the back of a golf cart, and suddenly hundreds more daring residents tore down the slope with a souvenir from Winter Storm Inga.
Thanks for “In transforming Dix Park, it’s mostly been ‘what ifs?’ A vision should take form in 2018.” (Dec. 27) regarding the Dorothea Dix Hospital property. For much of its history, the property included a farm where the patients helped grow their own food.
Everybody in Raleigh has ideas about what Dorothea Dix Park should become. Just ask Kate Pearce, who hears them all.
“One suggestion was actually for a ‘Gaelic football field,’ ” said Pearce, a city of Raleigh senior planner who is working on the project. “Or fields for Ultimate Frisbee, a Frisbee golf course, things like that. The role of music, culture, art and recreation are the fun things everyone wants to talk about now. But we’re thinking broader, more long term.”
Video: Fans of outer space braved the cold at Dix Park in Raleigh on Wednesday night to get a peek at the Geminid Meteor Shower.
If you ever have the chance to tour the land that could become America’s next great public park with senior City of Raleigh planner Kate Pearce, count yourself lucky, but don’t expect a leisurely stroll. These 307.9 acres – the grounds of the former Dorothea Dix Hospital – are just too big, and she’s got too much to tell you about what they were, are, and will become. A tour of Dix with Pearce is a workout, a history lesson, a colloquy on community; it’s a treasure hunt, an adventure, and a peek into the future.
Dix Park. For a while, it was a dream, and then, thanks to volunteer enthusiasts led by Greg Poole Jr., it edged toward reality, and then political disputes with Republicans on Jones Street seemed to threaten to return it to dreamland. Raleigh Mayor Nancy McFarlane, long a park advocate, worked hard to move that dream along, and now, with Raleigh having bought the park for $52 million from the state, the planning process for the park has begun.