Dog's Little Half-Acre

"They need to clean this place up," observes thirteen-year-old Evans Raymonvil, pointing out the plastic bags, grass cuttings, and clumps of algae that foul the water. "It's hard to fish 'cause of the weeds, and all the junk that floats up fouls your line. But there's some good fish here -- mullet, bass, all kinds of things."

This must be a good park. It's after 8:00, and Raymonvil and his friends are here, risking a fine, maybe even imprisonment. "No trespassing after 6:00 p.m. Violators will be prosecuted," reads a sign affixed to a light post.

"No one's ever hassled us about that," says Raymonvil.

Miami River Rapids Park
2900 NW South River Drive
0.5 acres

The dogs are hot and thirsty, but this wide, overgrown patch along the south bank of the Miami River seems to make them forget about all that. At last, a park a dog can love. As the sun sets, they romp through the thigh-high grass, paying no heed to the bugs -- and snakes? -- concealed in the thick underbrush.

Plans are under way, however, to "improve" this park as part of a construction project next door, a new juvenile shelter for Miami Bridge, a private, nonprofit social service agency. Such usurpation is not unprecedented. At the one-third of an acre that used to be Allapattah Mini Park on NE 16th Avenue, for instance, a privately owned day-care center is being constructed, and if some city commissioners get their way, more of Miami's little parks may suffer the same fate.

"That has been discussed in the past, but selling them would depend on each of those properties," says Parks and Recreation's Kevin Smith. All the sites have deeds, Smith explains, just like any other property, but some are restricted to public use. "We would have to look at each one individually," he says, "before that decision could be made."

Like the decision to call one-tenth of an acre of land a "park