In St. Paul’s Payne-Phalen neighborhood, Ronald J. “Arjo” Adams has built a public park on public land, without the blessing of public policymakers.
After 10 years of sculpting and weeding, the North Dakota transplant and his folk-art “People’s Park” are now on a collision course with the St. Paul City Council, as well as a bulldozer.
His sculpture garden and “People’s Park” is part protest, part public art. Using an elaborate retaining wall he made out of discarded rocks and concrete as backdrop, Adams began filling the empty, city-owned lot next to the Wells Avenue home he shares with his sister with iron gargoyles, picnic tables, bed headboards, an old furnace and other carefully-arranged ramshackle attractions.
The effort, lauded by some and opposed by the city, started nearly a decade ago, in part as a way to get back at the city for the Payne-Phalen Main Street redevelopment project, which called for the construction of 11 twin-homes near his house, some of it on land he had helped clear. Adams — who had previously rallied with public officials in favor of razing several nearby houses to make room for a school — felt duped, and he sensed a city-backed effort to kick out lower-income homeowners and gentrify the neighborhood.
By October 2006, the city-owned lot next to his house at 676 Wells St. was brimming with non-city owned items, some of them huge. Profiled at the time in a story by Pioneer Press writer Emily Gurnon, Adams told the reporter: “What they did was legal, but it was damn immoral. It’s a beautiful view (here), so they needed to get rid of the lower- and middle-income people.”
His protest has never ended. In fact, some residents have rallied to his side to help him add to the park and weed a stone-lined walking path.
Soon, it may all get torn up — the park and Adams’ house included.
In August 2012, the St. Paul Department of Safety and Inspections declared 676 Wells a vacant house and “nuisance property” and condemned it, with every intention of tearing it down. A June 2012 order to vacate listed 46 deficiencies, from a broken furnace to out-of-code handrails to exposed wiring.
More recently, the city’s Housing and Redevelopment Authority transferred title of the lot where Adams’ park sits to the city’s Parks and Recreation Department, with the goal of having the lot serve as a kind of adjoining buffer to the East Side Heritage Park.
A city inspection uncovered “distinct hazards” at 680 Wells, said Robert Humphrey, a spokesman for the Department of Safety and Inspections. Among them, “there’s things like giant granite slabs held up by 2 X 4s and a rusty chain.” Art fashioned from a furnace, said Humphrey, rests at an angle against the unstable retaining wall. Heavy objects hang precariously in the trees. A railing that gives the misleading appearance of safety is anything but safe.
“Nothing there was built with any city permitting,” Humphrey said.
Adams has appealed an order to abate the nuisances at 676 Wells, setting him on a collision course with the St. Paul City Council.
First, his supporters (and presumably some critics) will attend a public meeting Aug. 7 at the St. Paul Police Eastern District, 722 Payne Ave. The meeting is being conducted hand in hand with the Payne-Phalen District 5 Planning Council and St. Paul Parks and Rec.
Adams is currently scheduled to meet with the city’s legislative hearing officer Marcia Moermond on Aug. 27. A hearing before the city council is tenatively scheduled for Sept. 18.
Supporters of the People’s Park aren’t taking the city condemnation action sitting down. They’ve started a Facebook page for the People’s Park and a petition at Change.org, complete with a YouTube video interview of Adams and tour of his park.
The Facebook page indicates a possible rally this Friday, July 19, but no other details are posted.
Stephanie McCorkell of St. Paul writes on the Change.org petition, which had more than 200 signatures as of this writing:
“There must be a way to preserve the spirit of Arjo’s project while addressing safety or liability concerns. Not everything has to be out of the box and great art rarely if ever is. We believe that the City could work to find a compromise that reduces liability but retains what some find to be a unique artistic landmark in the neighborhood, and we believe the community deserves time for the fans of this landmark artistic installation to be heard.”