Filling a vacant lot creates a hole in childhood

By Keith Forrest

Empty lots are fast dwindling from the American landscape. There were several where I was growing up in Cape May. They were wonderful places because we could infuse them with our imaginations. They were the stuff of our tall tales.

The last empty space in Collingswood has been inundated with heavy construction equipment, and I don't have the heart to tell my sons, 5-year-old Kameron and 3-year-old Josh.

At the end of our block, where Bryant Avenue hits Haddon Avenue, an office building is going up. I have been trying to divert my sons' attention whenever we walk by it.

The lot had been the domicile of one of my sons' favorite yarns. They had spun an enchanting story about a troll that lived there guarding our block. He was mean and nasty to everyone, except people who lived on our block.

The troll had a sidekick, a suburban groundhog. The troll and groundhog would lavish attention upon us whenever we would cross his lot. He would call us all by name, even if only in our imagination.

The troll apparently also provided a civics lesson for my sons since he was a rather efficient bureaucrat, collecting tolls from unwitting passersby who didn't live on our street.

The troll was quite the traveler, too, since he would sometimes swap with a Philadelphia or Shore troll for the week. I guess even imaginary creatures need vacations.

My sons got so attached to their imaginary friends at the end of our block that they started going on "creature walks." We would begin by darting around the empty lot, trying to outrun the troll, before walking through the rest of our town in search of more enchantment.

On the way home, the boys would always return to the lot to review their adventures. They would begin by scaling a great stone pile in the middle of the lot, producing sounds simulating the exertion of climbing some great mountain.

After leaping down from the stone pile, Kameron and Josh would begin an archeological expedition. After a few moments of clawing at the soil, the boys would exclaim.

"Look, Daddy," they would say as if they had discovered a planet. "It's the door to the troll's house."

Because the rest of our town is so encroached upon by suburbia, nothing else holds quite the same sway as our empty lot. But development was inevitable. An empty lot can only last so long in densely populated areas. There's nothing we can do to prevent the troll and groundhog from being driven out.

Collingswood is a middle-class community. I suppose if everyone on the block was stupendously wealthy, we could have banded together to buy the lot.

But that kind of civic effort would demand that the lot be turned into a park or community center. That might be better than an office building, but the empty lot still would be gone. The troll and groundhog still would be banished.

There's no conspiracy here. No wrongful use of eminent domain to serve as a rallying cry. But it's another blow to our imaginations. The nooks and crannies of a town are fuel for our children's imagination. It teaches them how to pretend.

As we continue to gobble up every speck of available space for some purpose, we expel any opportunity for serendipity. For my sons, the troll and groundhog are being evicted as surely as any flesh-and-blood neighbor.