Build it and they will come

Our view: A fire at Waverly playground should reunite volunteer supporters

People wept. Standing before the charred, ugly remains of the playground at Stadium Place, they saw the dream smoldering. No one cried harder than Debra Evans, the woman behind the idea of a playground for neighborhood children in this corner of the city, on the site where giants of sport once played. She led the drive to fund it (a $350,000 cost) and build it, and build it they did, an astonishing 4,000 volunteers over nine days in April 2005.

"I didn't build this playground," Ms. Evans is the first to say. "Everybody built this playground."

And that's the crime of Tuesday's fire. An acre of swings and tunnels and slides and Jungle Jims brought together all types of people in a common purpose. The playground project had its skeptics, but it inspired many others and united them. It was an expression of possibilities and a can-do spirit, a love of community and Baltimore that went beyond the city's limits.

So many had a stake in it and owned a piece of it, including those who didn't even live in Waverly or nearby. So many pitched in, from college kids and a Girl Scout troop to local chili makers and the business that provided the portable toilets. And ever since, friends of the playground have cared for and maintained it as if they owned it.

For Ms. Evans and others, there is only one response to this fiery affront: Rebuild. Their efforts should be supported. Ms. Evans takes some comfort in the fact that the playground's tot lot didn't burn. "That's the future," she says. "We're going to make it bigger and better."

That's the spirit of this city.