Jonathan Rogers Park

Apparently this is a great place to take your dog for a crap in the baseball diamond.
If you or someone you love is currently taking your dog to poop in Jonathan Rogers park, please enjoy the following public service announcement:
Dear dog pooper non-​scoopers: you are literally the worst. I am no longer able to count the number of people I have seen either run through a steaming heap of your best personality traits, or step in it while walking through the park, or narrowly avoid it and feel gross anyway, or have to relocate to another spot in the park just to avoid smelling the nasty odour of your dog’s freshly squeezed embodiment of your personal self hatred. Get therapy.
As for the rest: watch out for poop.

Advocacy alert!
I see in all the other reviews of this lovely little QUIET park that people are recommending chilling on the hill with the view. That’s one of my favorite things to do after work in the summer, too. And, with 33 Acres and R&B selling growlers right there, the chilling is all the easier, as Sahra and Alex note.
But, the city wants to build a skateboard park there, which is NOT chill. Skating is LOUD, and loud in a particular repetitive way that really echoes and carries. It would completely change the experience of the park.
The official comment period was very short, but you can still write the project manager and offer your opinion. Her email is on the right side of the page below.

I think it used to be called Manitoba Park long time ago. At least that’s what we used to call it. Anyways, great little park with awesome city line views of downtown Vancouver.

Good ol’ J-​Rog. Great park, with a great view of the city and mountains. Good place to go watch the sunset if you can’t be arsed to head to the beach. There is even a bathroom so you can sit and get totally wasted (brown baggin it, the po po drive by but as of yet have never really stopped to ticket EVERYONE in the park drinking).
There’s always Granola’s doing some sort of physical activity on the main field, so far I’ve seen; softball, ozzy rules football, and ultimate frisbee. I’d never participate but when you are sitting on the hill with a beer and listening to some jams on an ipod speaker with your buds it’s a good visual distraction.
Make sure to not be an @$$hole and pick up your garbage. There are garbage cans provided near the benches where the homeless dudes chill.

You know those late August nights where the sun dips low over horizon around 10pm and it’s still warm enough to be in shorts and maybe an unzipped hoodie? As the lingering smell of distant barbeques drifts across the city and your sun taut skin welcomes the cool night air and you wonder, «How can I better enjoy this weather and this amzing time in such a beautiful city?»
Enter Park Park. I suppose I know that her proper name is Jonathan Rogers park or depending on my level of inebriation John Waters or alternatively Roger Waters Park. From the get go — as noted by other reviewers — very few people knew/​know the proper name of this gem of an urban oasis. From the start when my friend Jason called it so it was just Park Park and I suppose now it always will be.
What is it about Park Park? I guess it’s the intermingling of cross economic subcultures. Hobos and Hipsters, Soccer Moms and Dog Owners, Children and Gardeners; they all come to spend time here.
Myself and my friends prefer the cover of darkness as dusk falls on those hot Summer nights. Post-​Wreck Beach or after a night at the movies, sitting on the steep hill on the Southern side, drinking from cold tall boys in a none-​too-​clandestine manner. For you see the police remain wilfully ignorant of the goings on here. I have yet in my many times spent here ever even seen a cop car drive by which is odd given the closeness to CSIS a few blocks away. Even at a recent spontaneous gathering with over 40 people there was nary an officer in site and we were there for over 6 hours Oh yeah, and a keg of beer. In a park. I know…
I suppose they have better things to do than harass immature adults who insist on drinking in a park as though we were teenagers. Well, call me immature if you like but there is something liberating about log-​rolling drunk down a hill at midnight with your close friends after another epic Summer day.
Plus there’s that nice Asian lady (every park has one) Who collects our cans after we are finished.

Jonathan Rogers Park, huh? And to think, all this time we just referred to it as «The Park on 7^th.» This name is more than likely not only a statement of how much of a staple this park is to the neighbourhood, but also to how rad the actual grounds are. Seriously, nothing says summer more than a long bike ride that ends with a backpack full of yummy snacks, cold drinks and a spot on the hill while we watch the sun go down over the tall glass buildings in the west.
Turns out this place has a real name, but I’ll still be calling it — with much endearment, and mad love — The Park on 7^th.

It was only recently that I discovered the name of this spot is Jonathan Rogers Park, my friends and I have always referred to it affectionately as Park Park. I can’t say much about it’s charms during the daylight hours although it does have a variety of amenities like a baseball diamond, wading pool and washrooms that I assume are well used by the community at large.
The real secret of Park Park is that in the summer months it’s one of the best outdoor places to drink in all of Vancouver. Indeed, as someone who’s teenage years have extended well past my twenties and into my early thirties I can say that there are few public places I’m aware of where you can gather, have a few (or a few dozen) beer and generally enjoy the pleasant climate on a nice green hill overlooking a field without fear of harassment from the local constabulary. Of course if people acted like assholes and caused a ruckus this sort of space wouldn’t last too long, nor should it. I’m happy to report that on the varied and numerous occasions I’ve spent a summer evening getting hammered in Park Park with a small cadre of friends that neither we, nor any of the other groups that congregate there have ever been observed to be behaving in any less than an exemplary fashion. That’s actually fairly surprising considering the potential for friction between the homeless people, teenagers, shifty layabouts and other assorted revelers that make up the park’s summer time population. Everyone seems content to just hang out, maybe swing on the swings a bit or roll down the hill without causing any trouble to anyone. Proximity to a 7 – 11 for snacks and the Anza Club as a back up if it starts drizzling are both welcome features in an outdoor locale, as are the public washrooms which despite being dark are always unlocked. And there’s usually a helpful hobo who will come to get your empties from you as you work through them! Talk about convenient!
Maybe it’s the fact that it’s a beautiful day today and I can practically taste the impending Spring, but I’m feeling the urge to indulge my love of getting plastered under the stars. It won’t be long before I get that inevitable text; «Hey, meet us at Park Park». I can’t wait.