St John Park

The City of Austin maintains a wide variety of spaces in its extensive park system. Properly developed, the many components of this park system could be the envy of any city in America.
And then we have Saint Johns Park, which, if it weren’t for the City of Austin sign in front of it, would be easily mistaken for a weedy, unmaintained acre lot with a broken-​down, closed swimming pool, in a very seedy, run-​down part of town.
Oh, wait, that’s EXACTLY what this is.
At less than one acre, this forgotten and neglected piece of land is clearly a low priority for Austin’s Parks and Recreation Department, and while it’s green on Google Maps, it’s … not very green in reality. Since the wading pool (or what appears to have been one in past decades) is very obviously permanently closed, this feels like a space better suited to a neighborhood garden or some other form of small-​scale revitalization project, if some community activist group were up to the task.
Alas, for now, in the year 2015, this is simply an open, poorly maintained space that invites illicit activity, and perhaps the occasional Ingress player (and difficult to recommend for any but the most assiduous portal-​hunter, and perhaps not even then).
Unless you like your parks creepy and possibly dangerous, stay very well away from this place.