This year, Public Utilities, in partnership with the City of Raleigh Department of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Resources (PRCR) and Office of Sustainability have planted five acres of flowers at Dorothea Dix Park to allow community members to access and enjoy the amazing blooms up close. Peak bloom is anticipated July 14th.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

Please join us for a lunch-time presentation and discussion of the transformation of the Dorothea Dix Hospital site into a “destination” park, and the role of the UNC Community Histories Workshop in recovering the long history of that site. 

More than a hundred people gathered Sunday afternoon to reflect and discuss what should be part of a memorial to the now-shuttered mental health facility.

Since Dorothea Dix Hospital was shut down by the state in 2010, suggestions for what to do with the 308-acre property have been wide-ranging and thick on the ground. But nearly everyone can agree that if Dix must remain closed, at least part of the land should be given over to commemorate the hospital and the thousands who lived, worked and sought treatment atop Dix Hill.

Article published by WUNC.