A new deal for Nira Rock

Nira Rock Urban Wild, the former puddingstone quarry near Day Street, has been foreboding for years: Dense woods hid its fenced-in, weedy grounds, and broken glass and syringes littered its overgrown paths.

Neighbors complained that the place was a destination for drugs and sex, according to Paul Lanoix, a member of the Day Street Crime Watch group.

''It's just a disgusting part of the neighborhood," said Lanoix, who lives nearby. ''I rarely come up here because I don't feel it's that safe."

Judith Wright, director of the Boston Police Neighborhood Crime Watch Unit, confirmed that the park is known for drug trafficking. For years, neighbors and police have labored to quash illegal activity there, she said, and police officers try to walk the park, whose grounds aren't visible from the street.

Unfortunately, she said, people avoiding the unsafe park has made it worse. ''If people don't use it, it becomes more attractive to people doing bad things there."

Now neighbors, working with the city and landscape architects, hope the 1.8-acre park at the foot of two dead-end roads can shed its seedy past.

In spring, Christine Oliver, who lives next to the wild area, revived Friends of Nira Rock, an informal offshoot of the crime watch group. The former organic farmer has weeded and mowed there, with a brush lawnmower she bought with her own money.

''It's part of my responsibility," Oliver said. Plus, she added, ''It's really beautiful. You can kind of be in the country, in the city."

More help is on the way. Landscapers with COGDesign of Waltham plan to cut brush, create more entrances, and add educational signs, which would make Nira Rock a pleasant place for families, designer Nina Shippen said.

''A lot of people don't even know it exists," she said. ''You couldn't see in and you couldn't see out. It felt very unsafe."

Sightlines are important in parks, and many people are uncomfortable in dense woods, said Lucia Droby, COGDesign executive director. ''There's the actual, true danger and then there's the actuality of the design -- pruning it so that people can see out of the park," she said.

A chain-link fence about 15 feet high separates the park from the VA Medical Center. Designers plan to add an entrance from the hospital's parking lot, to open the park to patients and staff while helping parkgoers feel less trapped.

Neighbors, designers, and officials say Nira Rock is worth the work. A meadow stretches out atop a 40-foot rise of mottled puddingstone while a small orchard of apple, pear, cherry, and plum trees sits in a field of nettles at its foot.

The quarry was active in the 1930s and '40s, sparked by Depression-era legislation -- the National Industry Recovery Act, said Paul Sutton, Urban Wilds Program Manager with the city parks department. The quarry's stones were used in the construction of the Jamaicaway and Emerald Necklace.

The park is bordered by Nira Avenue, Arcola Street, and Jefferson Playground, which is next to Hennigan Elementary School and is itself under renovation. The designer envisions children doing science projects here and artists hanging shows from the rock, now covered with graffiti.

''You could even hang a sheet off that rock and show movies there," Shippen said. ''It's a beautiful site."

Community support is one reason the park was chosen for a makeover, Sutton said. ''The 'Friends' groups are so key to the success of these natural areas."

Sutton isn't sure how much the work will cost, but said sprucing up wilds is less expensive than building playgrounds. COGDesign is also helping find grants, he said.

Volunteers will continue to be vital, Sutton said. In spring, neighbors, city workers, and designers cleared trees from the fence, pruned bushes, and picked up syringes and garbage. Another cleanup will be held in the park Oct. 2.

Planting could start in late winter, said Shippen. Work should be completed next summer, she said.

After that, maintenance could be divided among city workers and volunteers, Sutton said. For Lanoix, who has worked with his neighbors to fix up other Day Street gardens, get rid of drug houses, and install speed bumps, it's one more step.

''It's the broken-window syndrome," he said. ''You clean up the neighborhood. It looks like people care about it. Less crime happens."