Capouse Corner: Ribbon cut on new pocket park green space in Scranton's Pine Brook neighborhood

Jim Lockwood, The Times-Tribune, Scranton, Pa.
·2 min read

Jun. 9—SCRANTON — Pine Brook has a new pocket park green space called "Capouse Corner."

United Neighborhood Centers of Northeastern Pennsylvania, which leads a long-term Pine Brook revitalization plan, held a ribbon-cutting Friday at the parcel at 1371 Capouse Ave. at New York Street.

UNC recently acquired the long-vacant lot with a goal of turning it into a community focal point where Pine Brook meets Green Ridge.

"We wanted to create an entry point" into Pine Brook, UNC Director of Community Revitalization Chrissy Manuel said. "We looked at a lot of properties and this one seemed like a really great place to try it as a model, to see how we could work with different groups and redevelop a vacant lot to make it a community space."

To that end, UNC worked with Leadership Lackawanna and several other partners to improve the property.

"It's a community effort. It took a lot of community partners to make this happen," Leadership Lackawanna Executive Director Nikki Morristell said.

A team of volunteers from Leadership Lackawanna raised funds for plants, shrubbery, mulch, a lawn sign and benches, Morristell said. The volunteers also did the work of planting, mulching and installing signs and benches. Their efforts raised $3,000 in cash and $6,000 in in-kind services, she said.

"I think we'd summarize it as 'vacant spaces to beautiful places,' and that was our mantra throughout the whole thing," Leadership Lackawanna volunteer Joel Perkins said of the Capouse Corner project. "It's just something we're really proud of."

The Capouse Corner ribbon cutting was one event of the annual citywide beautification and improvement program called City Pride, a weeklong project of Scranton Tomorrow, UNC and NeighborWorks Northeastern Pennsylvania.

City Pride this year added in the city several "little free libraries" constructed by students of the Career Technology Center of Lackawanna County and sponsored by NET Credit Union.

One of these new little free libraries was installed at Capouse Corner, where a companion ribbon-cutting held Friday opened the book on this attraction.

The Scranton Public Library will regularly place donated books in the new little free libraries, library CEO/Director Scott Thomas said.

"We're going to make sure they're stocked and put our brochures in there," Thomas said. "They're great. And if it turns people on to the big library, I'm a very happy person."

Capouse Corner reflects several core strategies of UNC's plan for Pine Brook, including engaging and empowering residents, reducing blight, preserving and protecting green spaces, increasing public spaces for community use and providing more places for programming for the community," Manuel said.

"We're really excited to see how this flourishes over the years," Manuel said. "We want to use this as a template for more projects like this."

emailto:Contact the writer: jlockwood@timesshamrock.com; 570-348-9100 x5185; @jlockwoodTT on Twitter.