In 1964, a group of teenagers in D.C.’s Adams Morgan neighborhood took over a vacant lot because they needed a place to play. Over the next ten years, with the support and involvement of hundreds of neighbors, they built and maintained an autonomous community park, which they dubbed “Community Park West.” When the speculators who owned the land finally went to sell it for luxury housing development in 1974, the community fought back — and won. Today, the park, which is now public property, has been renamed for Walter Pierce, one of the original teenagers who claimed the space in the ‘60s, and who dedicated much of his life to the cause of the park. My piece on this history, “Caring in Public: The Struggle for Community Park West,” is out now from Washington History.

Pictured is a baseball game in the park in the summer of 1974. Photo from The Washington Post.