Sunday, July 27, 2014

Joseph Leisure Park

Joseph Leisure Park is 1 of 108 St. Louis parks, located near the intersection of Holly Hills and Christy Boulevard on the border between the Bouleard Heights and Bevo Mill neighborhoods.

Per the city website, the 16.1 acre park was placed into ordinance in 2000; but that seems odd, as this land has been as-is for many more years than that.  It was probably Christy Park until this stretch was renamed as Joseph Leisure Park.  Yahoo maps recognizes the park as the small strip of land bordered by Christy, Rosa and Gravois, but that is too small to meet the 16.1 acre size on the city website.
I believe the park is actually an extension of greenspace connecting Christy Park with the River Des Peres Park.  This is corroborated by the Joe Leisure park signs located at Christy and Gravois and Christy and Holly Hills:
The strip of land is bordered by Gravois, Holly Hills, Rosa and Carlsbad Avenues:
There is nothing on the city website commemorating this Lebanese/Sicilian family nor Joseph Leisure himself.  This is probably due to the fact that his family was one associated with violence, labor union thuggery and murders/car bombings.

To read more about the Leisure's click here.

Christy Avenue bisects the park and has a bike lane on each side of the winding street.
The northeastern side of the park is largely open space with several nice, mature shade and willow trees.
The southwestern side has a bathroom and utility building, playground, soccer and ball field.
Many new trees were planted along Christy as part of the Great Rivers Greenway construction several years ago.  The bike lane connects you to the River Des Peres Greenway or the beautiful Carondelet Park, just east on Holly Hills.

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