Monday, April 4, 2011
Phillips Brookemeade Park: A Review
Posted by Betsy Phillips on Mon, Apr 4, 2011 at 5:55 AM
Location: Just off Charlotte, by the Wal-mart, behind the Bojangles
Size of Park: The park itself is small and the greenway is small as far as greenways go.
Crowds: Not sure
Approximate Age of Patrons: Not sure. The people we saw were all senior citizens
Topics of Conversation: "Are these park reviews turning me into some kind of pervert?"
Stray Dogs Seen: None
Types of Vehicles in Parking Lots: Cars and trucks
Perceived Safety: Medium high
Number of Gunshots Heard: None
Dog Friendliness: Fine
Number of pitbulls sighted: Just mine
Accessibility: Pretty good.
Incorporation of Local History: Excellent, some of the best I've seen lately.
Recommended Patrons: Civil War buffs, fans of water fowl, busybodies
So, just in a non-pervert way, Brookemeade Park is strange. I took a picture of it (see above) and it appears to consist of a parking lot with some trees planted in the middle, a few benches, and a map of the greenway. The benches look into the parking lot/park. It's not clear to me why you'd want to go to Brookemeade Park for any reason other than to access the greenway, but I guess if you were like "Oh, hell no! I'm not going to Wal-mart," your family could leave you on a park bench there and pick you up when they were done shopping.
But as far as a park of which 75 percent is a parking lot goes, it's well-kept. When the trees get bigger, I think it will be very nice.
The greenway is really lovely. It's a strange place for a greenway. You basically are down below the Lowe's parking lot, and then you wrap around back of Lowe's to look at the river and read a display about some Civil War battle that took place there. I would have liked to read said display, but the dog was acting like a total nincompoop about not wanting to go out on the little deck that overlooked the water.
From a distance, all I can tell you is that some red ovals came from Lowe's and attacked some blue ovals in the river. But it's an easy and lovely walk. I'm going to guess just over a quarter of a mile to the battlefield and you go by a cool marsh where a couple of geese were hanging out and over a bridge.
The only weirdness on the greenway I noticed was that there were these weird rectangles of pavement off to the side and I couldn't figure out what they were for (see here).
I think the battlefield is pretty accessible. I'd just keep two things in mind, if I couldn't walk or couldn't walk far. There are no benches along the way. There are at the start and at the end, so if you need to be able to stop and sit and rest, keep that in mind. If you're in a wheelchair or on a scooter, you should be aware that the greenway path clearly took a little beating in the flood and there are some raised and cracking areas. These didn't seem too bad to me, but still.
Also, I think the slopes are a little deceptive. You go down from the parking lot, go along the marsh and then go back up to the battlefield. I didn't really notice i was going down the first slope nor up the second (I felt they were pretty gradual), but coming back, I felt like the second slope, going down, was noticeable and the first slope going up was definitely at a grade that made me wonder if it'd be trouble for someone on wheels. So just be aware of that.
Okay, so here's the weird thing. When I arrived at the park, there were two vehicles in the parking lot. One, a couple had just gotten out of and they were checking out the sign and deciding if they wanted to walk to the battlefield. The other was a truck that appeared to be empty.
On the greenway, we encountered that couple and a woman who was power-walking. That's it. I wouldn't say I was listening for the ambient noises of people misbehaving, but I was aware that the truck in the parking lot could mean someone else was on the greenway and I was listening hard for that person because I try to make sure I can get off the path with my dog if someone else has a dog. The only noises I heard were the interstate, the low mumblings of the couple, and the loudspeaker at Lowe's.
When I got back to the parking lot, there were easily a dozen cars there. Not all of them empty. So I ... and I am loathe to even admit this. Pith readers, what has park reviewing done to me? Now I'm sitting in my car, pretending to check Twitter, so that I can seem to have a plausible reason why I, too, am just hanging out in a park/parking lot? But my curiosity got the better of me.
Were men meeting illicit lovers here? Were Bojangles employees sneaking back here to eat KFC in their cars? Were many bloggers sitting in their cars pretending to Twitter?
Finally, one of the car doors opened and a kid in black pants and a white shirt stepped out. He leaned against the van next to him and I waited to see if the van door would open and he would disappear inside. He looked around furtively to see if he was being watched, and then he reached in his pocket, pulled out a cigarette and a lighter and had a secret smoke there behind the van. I was his only witness.
So hell if I know what's going on there, people. If people are meeting there to hook up, they don't appear to be copulating outside, where you might run into them. Honestly, I suspect many of the cars may just belong to the employees of the businesses that back up to the park.
But if you know otherwise, please clue me in.
Anyway, if you're a Civil War buff, this should be on your to-do list.
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