The Park is also located at the 2500 block of 11th Street a half block from Kujenga Pamoja Park. The park and the mural were designed by Lily Yeh, built by the Village construction crew. Mosaic work by James (Big Man) Maxton.

Originally it was called the 11th Street Youth Construction Park because it was built with the help of the youth living on the 11th Street. The Village construction crew began cleaning up this vacant lot in mid 90s. The lot grew in size because the city demolished several houses standing next to the lot. In the late 90s, the Village received enormous help from the dedicated Americorps members, who took residency for weeks at the Village to help our community building effort. In addition, the Village also received enormous help from the City Year members. With their support, the Village was able to organize neighborhood residents, particularly the youth living on the block to begin the construction of the park.

Most of the vacant lots in North Philadelphia once contained homes. When they dilapidated due to abandonment, city sent workmen to demolish them. The workmen would bury most of the demolished houses into their basements and packed clay like soil on the surface. When we began converting the lot into a public park, we dug up a huge amount of debris composed of bricks, rocks and broken concrete pieces. It would cost a lot of energy and money to dispose them properly. So we decided to recycle them and turned them into a rock garden.

The Park needs to be enclosed and yet accessible to people. I designed a sculptural wall punctured by two entrances of generous proportion. Although always open, the entryways are guarded by two pairs of Chinese styled lions. They are among the most ferocious guardian figures I know, so I put them at the Park entrances to guard the Park. With the help of the Village construction crew, James (Big Man) Maxton shaped them such that they look African. The entrances, though always open, were guarded by a pairs of Majestic spiked lions and a pair of chubby baby lions with their origin from Chinese folk art. Gradually the Park became known as Lions Park.

Again there were three-story building plain walls on both sides of the park. The place called for colors and actions. I decide to design a mural for the wall on the north side of the park. Incorporating designs by children with images from various cultural backgrounds, I created “A ferocious World of Wonders,” which was painted by Rachel Schwartzman, Andres Chamorro, Brother Mohammad, myself and other volunteers.

At that time, the Village teens have produced some strong paper mache sculpture of themselves. I wanted to incorporate these images into the sculptural wall on the west side of the Park. I showed these images to Big man and the construction crew and asked them to construct figures into the wall with this kind of power and simplicity. The end result is a series of delightful and jubilant cement sculptures. Big Man mosaicked these statues with the help of the construction crew. I feel that they looked very much like us, the villagers, funky and full of joy.

In 2003, with the help of volunteers from various groups, we constructed a labyrinth in the park. It was very beautiful at the beginning. But we could not stabilize the stones in the grass and the labyrinth often looked disfigured and chaotic. Eventually we removed the stones and return the ground to grass.