Boggy Creek Greenbelt
Saturday, December 29, 2012
A new bed for x-mas
The crew graded the banks a bit more and cleared the creek for a new x-mas bed.
It'll be a bit before this faux waterfall stops. Your dog can still enjoy an afternoon splash.
A pair of hawks enjoyed the lack of activity in the park. I've guessed red shouldered. You?
Monday, December 17, 2012
Restoration Update
The engineered restoration project has moved beyond setting up the staging area and they are actively working in the creek. Here are some photos taken this afternoon:
A pipe runs from Rosewood Ave. to the Pleasant Valley Overpass
to pump water out of the creek segment that's being actively worked on.
where the water reenters Boggy Creek just upsteam of Pleasant Valley
heavy equipment in the staging area
creek just downstream of Rosewood Avenue. water pumped out of it & regrading work has begun
material removed from the creek bed & ready for composting
boulders for erosion control, bank stablization
An overview of the project is available at: www.austintexas.gov/boggycreekrestoration
Saturday, December 15, 2012
19.5 volunteer hours, 16 bags of trash, 7 bags of recyclables
Thanks to the twelve volunteers who came to the greenbelt this morning to celebrate the true spirit of the holidays. Together we contributed 19.5 hours of volunteer time and collected 16 bags of trash plus 7 bags of recyclables. Thanks to Keep Austin Beautiful for providing the cleanup supplies and to the Parks and Recreation Department for collecting the full trash bags.
If you'd like to donate to the park in honor of these hard working volunteers please visit Austin Parks Foundation's donation webpage and select "Boggy Creek Greenbelt - Rosewood Glen Oaks."
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If you'd like to donate to the park in honor of these hard working volunteers please visit Austin Parks Foundation's donation webpage and select "Boggy Creek Greenbelt - Rosewood Glen Oaks."
cookies for energy
visiting before the cleanup
our creek was full of styrofoam, chip bags, and plastic bottles
VOLUNTEERS HARD AT WORK
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The most unusual object found during the cleanup was a bone. Think he's hungry?
Other unusual objects found this morning included a basketball, gym bag, and a metal arch.
Saturday, December 8, 2012
Creek Cleanup! Saturday, 12/15/12
Let's celebrate the holidays by holding a creek cleanup. Keep Austin Beautiful is going to provide the supplies and one of our neighbors is going to provide the home-baked cookies. Bring your ideas for future park projects!
Date: Saturday, December 15, 2012
Time: 10 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
Location: Boggy Creek Greenbelt, 1114 Nile Street - 78702 (There are two pavilions in the park. We
will meet at the pavilion that has picnic tables and a stone fireplace.)
Bring: your gardening gloves, a reusable water bottle
RSVP: jecawilson@yahoo.com
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Dog Found - Sunday, December 2
FOUND
This elderly gentleman was found in the greenbelt on Sunday morning. The phone number associated with his microchip and his rabies tag has been disconnected. If you can help reunite him with his family please post a comment here.
Sunday, December 2, 2012
“Images of America: Austin’s Rosewood Neighborhood”
Our neighbors Jane and Gilbert Rivera and their new book, “Images of America: Austin’s Rosewood Neighborhood” were featured in the Austin American-Statesman on November 30, 2012. Just in case the link changes, I've copied the article and photos below. The book includes photos of Rosewood Park and the history of our neighborhood's Juneteenth celebration which is the largest event that happens in the Boggy Creek Greenbelt each year.
The book is available in Austin at Book People, 603 N. Lamar Blvd., (512) 472-5050; Resistencia Bookstore, 1801 S 1st St # A, (512) 416-8885. Also, it will be available next week at Monkey Wrench Books,110 N Loop Blvd. East, (512) 407-6925
Austin’s Rosewood neighborhood blossomed in spite of politics, authors say
By Juan Castillo
The book is available in Austin at Book People, 603 N. Lamar Blvd., (512) 472-5050; Resistencia Bookstore, 1801 S 1st St # A, (512) 416-8885. Also, it will be available next week at Monkey Wrench Books,110 N Loop Blvd. East, (512) 407-6925
Gilbert and Jane Rivera stand outside the George Washington Carver Museum & Cultural Center in the heart of the historical Rosewood neighborhood. The couple said their book doesn’t mince words about Austin’s history of segregation. Photo by Deborah Cannon
By Juan Castillo
American-Statesman Staff
Almost 50 years before Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger, blacks in Austin organized their own, lesser-known civil rights protest.
African-Americans in Austin could not board public streetcars from the front door or sit up front. A 1906 city ordinance prohibited it.
Blacks were outraged, and when the city refused to revoke the ordinance, they began a boycott similar to the one by African-Americans decades later in Montgomery, Ala., after Parks’ arrest. In Austin, owners of horses and wagons offered rides to those who had depended on the trolleys to get to their jobs. The boycott gained traction, and a year later, city leaders rescinded the ordinance.
“We were just amazed. It was a part of Austin history we did not know,” says Gilbert Rivera, who, with his wife, Jane, opened that window to the past in research for their new pictorial book on Austin’s historical Rosewood neighborhood.
Stocked with about 250 photos, the majority from Gilbert Rivera’s private collection, “Images of America: Austin’s Rosewood Neighborhood,” tells the story of the evolution of one of the city’s oldest black enclaves, from the late 1870s to its current incarnation as a diverse, dynamic neighborhood feeling the effects of gentrification and now home to blacks, Latinos and whites.
Rosewood’s traditional, historical boundaries are East Avenue (what is now Interstate 35) on the west, Airport Boulevard, Manor Road and East Seventh Street. The neighborhood is named for Rosewood Avenue, part of the once-bustling commercial heart of the community.
Crucial to understanding the forces that shaped Rosewood, the authors say, is understanding the city policies beginning in 1907 that sought to segregate African-Americans in East Austin. A 1928 city master plan was a key component of the policies.
“It is a work of love and of politics for us,” Gilbert Rivera said of the book.
Rivera, a retired energy conservation representative with Austin Energy and an amateur historian, said the book set out to convey that Rosewood began because of politics. “We wanted to show that though the African-American community was put into a part of town that in many ways had no infrastructure or city services, the strength of the community made Rosewood a very viable, beautiful neighborhood,” he said.
The Riveras have lived together in Rosewood 33 years. Gilbert Rivera, 65, was born there, about three blocks from where the couple live. He often tells the story about the midwife who buried his umbilical cord in the yard. “My mother always said I’ll never be able to leave Rosewood because my umbilical cord is still there,” he joked.
“We wanted to celebrate the community,” said Jane Rivera, a state employee. “Celebrate the community it became, not what the city had envisioned. It’s impossible to write a story of Rosewood without talking about the bad things, and the institutional racism it faced.”
Rosewood and other historically black neighborhoods overcame those barriers, Harold McMillan, executive director of the Diverse Arts Production Group in Austin, says in the book’s introduction. “Jim Crow had a positive impact in that it created strong and viable African American communities,” McMillan wrote.
The Riveras worked on the book about two years, interviewing old-timers and poring through the archives of the George Washington Carver Museum & Cultural Center and the Austin History Center. They learned of the boycott of public streetcars during their research at the history center.
Cynthia Evans, African-American neighborhood liaison at the Austin History Center, had not read the book but said such accounts are important because they preserve teachable information for future generations. “There’s so much information that gets hidden over time,” Evans said. “People kind of forget that.”
The Riveras are longtime East Austin neighborhood activists; they met during a protest march more than 30 years ago. Gilbert, chairman of the city’s Community Development Commission, founded the Brown Berets in Austin and participated in a number of Chicano civil rights and East Austin community groups. A native of Ohio, Jane came to Austin in 1980 and helped lead efforts to build affordable housing in East Austin. She is the chairwoman of the city’s Parks and Recreation Board.
“At the end of the day, we sit down and talk about what we did for the neighbors,” Gilbert Rivera said. Of Rosewood, he said: “The people who live here are very proud of what we’ve been able to build out of basically nothing. … That’s what we tried to show.”
African-Americans in Austin could not board public streetcars from the front door or sit up front. A 1906 city ordinance prohibited it.
Blacks were outraged, and when the city refused to revoke the ordinance, they began a boycott similar to the one by African-Americans decades later in Montgomery, Ala., after Parks’ arrest. In Austin, owners of horses and wagons offered rides to those who had depended on the trolleys to get to their jobs. The boycott gained traction, and a year later, city leaders rescinded the ordinance.
“We were just amazed. It was a part of Austin history we did not know,” says Gilbert Rivera, who, with his wife, Jane, opened that window to the past in research for their new pictorial book on Austin’s historical Rosewood neighborhood.
Stocked with about 250 photos, the majority from Gilbert Rivera’s private collection, “Images of America: Austin’s Rosewood Neighborhood,” tells the story of the evolution of one of the city’s oldest black enclaves, from the late 1870s to its current incarnation as a diverse, dynamic neighborhood feeling the effects of gentrification and now home to blacks, Latinos and whites.
Rosewood’s traditional, historical boundaries are East Avenue (what is now Interstate 35) on the west, Airport Boulevard, Manor Road and East Seventh Street. The neighborhood is named for Rosewood Avenue, part of the once-bustling commercial heart of the community.
Crucial to understanding the forces that shaped Rosewood, the authors say, is understanding the city policies beginning in 1907 that sought to segregate African-Americans in East Austin. A 1928 city master plan was a key component of the policies.
“It is a work of love and of politics for us,” Gilbert Rivera said of the book.
Rivera, a retired energy conservation representative with Austin Energy and an amateur historian, said the book set out to convey that Rosewood began because of politics. “We wanted to show that though the African-American community was put into a part of town that in many ways had no infrastructure or city services, the strength of the community made Rosewood a very viable, beautiful neighborhood,” he said.
The Riveras have lived together in Rosewood 33 years. Gilbert Rivera, 65, was born there, about three blocks from where the couple live. He often tells the story about the midwife who buried his umbilical cord in the yard. “My mother always said I’ll never be able to leave Rosewood because my umbilical cord is still there,” he joked.
“We wanted to celebrate the community,” said Jane Rivera, a state employee. “Celebrate the community it became, not what the city had envisioned. It’s impossible to write a story of Rosewood without talking about the bad things, and the institutional racism it faced.”
Rosewood and other historically black neighborhoods overcame those barriers, Harold McMillan, executive director of the Diverse Arts Production Group in Austin, says in the book’s introduction. “Jim Crow had a positive impact in that it created strong and viable African American communities,” McMillan wrote.
The Riveras worked on the book about two years, interviewing old-timers and poring through the archives of the George Washington Carver Museum & Cultural Center and the Austin History Center. They learned of the boycott of public streetcars during their research at the history center.
Cynthia Evans, African-American neighborhood liaison at the Austin History Center, had not read the book but said such accounts are important because they preserve teachable information for future generations. “There’s so much information that gets hidden over time,” Evans said. “People kind of forget that.”
The Riveras are longtime East Austin neighborhood activists; they met during a protest march more than 30 years ago. Gilbert, chairman of the city’s Community Development Commission, founded the Brown Berets in Austin and participated in a number of Chicano civil rights and East Austin community groups. A native of Ohio, Jane came to Austin in 1980 and helped lead efforts to build affordable housing in East Austin. She is the chairwoman of the city’s Parks and Recreation Board.
“At the end of the day, we sit down and talk about what we did for the neighbors,” Gilbert Rivera said. Of Rosewood, he said: “The people who live here are very proud of what we’ve been able to build out of basically nothing. … That’s what we tried to show.”
The Riveras worked for two years on the book, “Images of America: Austin’s Rosewood Neighborhood,” interviewing old-timers and researching the archives of local history centers. Photo by Deborah Cannon
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