Dorri Partain
Dorri Partain
Managing Editor
Pendleton Height neighbors celebrated the completion of its corner Pocket Park at Lexington and Brooklyn avenues on Friday, Sept. 12 with an array of activities and food.
The celebration began at 6 p.m. with two cellists from Northeast’s Harmony Project KC — a musical education program — providing entertainment. Children created chalk artwork along Brooklyn Avenue, which had been closed to traffic for the event to provide seating as well as a safe area next to the park. Inside the park’s fenced grounds, kids can now play hopscotch or climb on rocks and over-sized mushrooms.
This space is also a great location for neighbors to gather and chat, learn about native grasses and flowers and enjoy a pizza dinner from nearby Northeast Pizza.
This vision to transform this corner lot was coordinated by neighborhood resident Whitney Barnardo, who coordinated with the Hoxie Collective LLC and the Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) to create a site plan and Nomad Trails to assist with construction, as well as create special features including the decorative mushrooms and a pizza box receptacle.
During the celebration, Barnardo thanked everyone, from the collaborators to neighbors who stepped up with planting to signage, including her husband John, stating, “It’s an extraordinary experience to collaborate with your spouse on something that has nothing to do with your house, your children and is bigger and beyond, so thank you for this moment.”
Following plans that began in February 2024, work began in April of this year with a $45,000 grant from MDC.
“This was not a site that was easy to work on,” said Barnardo. “There was a building that was demoed into itself, so we hit all the foundational limestone, all the bricks, and still, we get all this amazing beauty.”
Refreshments for this celebration offered food and drink from nearby restaurants — free snow cones from PH Coffee (2200 Lexington Ave.) and pizza slices from Northeast Pizza, 2203 Lexington Ave.
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