Marcy Park at 711 11th Ave. SE is set to get a new name as soon as November. The Minneapolis Parks and Recreation Board held the final public meeting to rename Marcy Park to Dinky Park.

This is the second public hearing for the name change for Marcy Park, with the calls for a name change starting about five years ago, according to Neighborhood nonprofit executive director Chris Lautenschlager.

Neighborhood nonprofit East Bank Partnership surveyed Marcy Park residents in 2020 to figure out new names. The names that stood out in surveys and meetings were Dinky Park, Dinkytown Park, Gopher Park, 11th Ave and Southeast Park. 

The neighborhood association sent out over 6,000 mail-in ballots to vote on their favorite name. The winning name was Dinky Park.

 At Thursday’s meeting, Lautenschlager said Dinky Park is a familiar name for students. 

“The name reflects both the park’s location in Dinkytown and its small but lively character,” Lautenschlager said. “Dinky is a familiar name used by students, and it honors the spirit of this neighborhood.”

Billy Menz, the District One Park Board Commissioner, said he thinks people support the name change because it would help give the park a sense of identity. 

“I think that in that process, the neighborhood, there was some underlying, you know, animosity towards the name Marcy, underlying animosity towards the lack of identity of that small park,” Menz said. “And looking to sort of elevate that space to claim a little bit more of what the neighborhood represents.”

According to the East Bank Neighborhood Partnership website, the park used to be named after Marcy Arts Elementary School. 

The school is now located in the Holmes Park neighborhood, but is still named Marcy School. Lautenschlager said people still confuse the park with the elementary school in the Holmes Park neighborhood. 

“So when you make a request of the park board workers to clean the graffiti off of a basketball court, they’ll go to Holmes Park thinking that it’s Marcy Park, when in reality, they need to be going to Marcy Park over in Dinkytown,” Lautenschlager said. “So this sounds confusing to us and the Minneapolis Park Board.” 

Marcy Park is a historical reference to William Learned Marcy, the U.S Secretary of State under President Franklin Pierce for four years. Marcy helped draft the Ostend Manifesto in 1854, a document that detailed the reasons for the U.S acquisition of Cuba. 

University alum Derek Eicholz lived near Marcy Park for a few years. At the hearing, Eicholz said he wants the name changed because he does not want the area to be associated with Marcy’s legacy. 

“I remember looking the person up and not finding anything about it, but instead something much worse,” Eicholz said. “As a resident, that this park does not need to be named this, and it should be named something better that’s more reflective of the area and the students.”

Hersh Berman, an Alumni Advisor at Alpha Epsilon Pi Fraternity, said he wanted the name change not for historical reasons but to have an accessible park for the students. 

“They have no idea that Marcy is the neighborhood that they’re in,”  Berman said. “Renaming the park would key them to the fact that it’s in their neighborhood.”

Minneapolis Park Superintendent Jennifer Ringold said the chosen names will advance to the planning committee, and they could vote on the change as soon as November.