Henry Berry's father, Ralph, had a hard life.
He worked six days a week in the late 1950s as a hotel restaurant cook supporting eight children. The family lived in a low-income housing complex, Laurel Homes in the West End.
''My father worked hard,'' said Henry Berry, 40, who now lives in Westwood. ''So when he relaxed, he relaxed hard.''
Sundays were the time for that. Almost every Sunday in the summer, the family would pack up for a cookout at Twin Lakes in Eden Park. The area - with its wooded grounds and overlook of the Ohio River - was then, as it is now, a gathering place for friends and family, especially African-Americans.
''It's a funny phenomenon,'' said Fred Payne, who has been a Cincinnati Park Board official since the 1950s and who was director from 1972 to 1987. ''The only thing I could figure was that it was because of the close proximity of neighborhoods that were predominantly black.''
Mr. Brown remembers piling into his buddies' cars and cruising the park in the 1970s. He went every Sunday beginning when he was 14 years old, he said.
''We went there because there were a lot of other teen-agers - you talked, you laughed, you bragged about yourself, lied and told stories,'' he said. ''You knew other people there from the West End, Bond Hill. It was just a form of socialization.''
On some Sundays in the 1970s, Twin Lakes attracted crowds of about 1,000 people, said Don Smith, a police specialist for the Cincinnati Police Parks Unit who has been patrolling the Twin Lakes area since 1971. He and his partner - the only two officers assigned to Twin Lakes - were there mainly to direct traffic.
Steadily, the crowds became larger - it is estimated there were sometimes 2,000 people in the park on Sundays in the 1980s - and cruising started to become a problem. Traffic on Eden Park Drive often came to a standstill, and residents began complaining about noise and traffic.
A third officer was assigned to the park to help direct traffic and put a lid on the noise. There were few instances of vandalism or drug use, Mr. Payne said.
''Cruising was the biggest problem,'' Mr. Payne said. ''I think maybe it's because in the '70s and '80s, African-Americans were working their way into better-paying jobs, had more leisure time and were able to buy nicer cars. That may have been a factor in the traffic situation.''
The growth of the Sunday crowd has prompted increased police patrols, said Lt. Mike Bolte of the Cincinnati Parks Unit. Today, 21 officers are assigned to Twin Lakes on Sundays. They are there mostly to direct traffic and control the noise.
''(The park visitors are) looking for girls and someone to look at their cars,'' Spec. Smith said. ''It seems like a generally orderly crowd - it's just there's so many.''
TROUBLE IN EDEN
AREA'S DIVERSITY INCREASES
