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Thursday, March 5, 2020

If Railroad Agrees, Elizabeth City Will Have Public Playground, March 5, 1920

From The Independent, Elizabeth City, N.C., March 5, 1920

Norfolk Southern Officials Meet Elizabeth City Men About Pennsylvania Avenue Play Ground Proposition

The movement to secure a public playground for the children of Elizabeth City took reassuring form yesterday with the appearance here of leading officials of the Norfolk Southern Railroad in a conference with the directors of the Elizabeth City Chamber of Commerce.

The Norfolk Southern rail road yards are 700 feet long on Pennsylvania Avenue. There is an unused strip 90 feet wide between the street line and the rail road tracks. This unused property is at present serving no purpose and is an eyesore to the town. It is overgrown with weeds and harbors vast pools of stagnant water, breeding places for mosquitoes. To improve and beautify this property would involve considerable expense for the rail road company, without showing a profit. Elizabeth city has offered to drain, fill improve and equip this property for a public park and playground if the Norfolk Southern will lend or lease the property to the city for a nominal sum for a definite period of years.

E.D. Kyle, vice president; Morris S. Hawkins, assistant to the president, and F.L. Nicholson, chief engineer of the Norfolk Southern came to Elizabeth City yesterday especially to view the situation and confer with interested citizens. Directors of the Chamber of Commerce took them over the ground and entertained them at an informal luncheon at Dinty Moore’s Place.

Being rail road officials, the visitors would not commit themselves on the spot but they said many things to indicate that they are inclined to favor the proposition. Mr. Hawkins, assistant to President Young, stated that the officials would give the matter immediate consideration and probably give the city an answer within 10 days.

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