"Entranced by the vision of an innocent era, a man transforms a field into a shrinelike ball park that attracts hundreds of eager visitors.

"[Film actor] Kevin Costner acted the role in 'Field of Dreams.'

"Astin Jacobo lived it in the Bronx.

"The 59-year-old school custodian built the Mapes Athletic Field six years ago in Crotona, taking a brick and garbage-strewn lot that symbolized the borough's struggle with ruin and transformed it into a broad patch of green that embodied his dreams for the area's rebirth.

"That vision grew brighter last week when Jacob, as he is known to all, flipped the switch for the field's towering new lights....

" 'Before you used to see a lot of gun shooting and drugs,' Mr. Jacobo said....

"What Mr. Jacobo wants to do for his community was dimly visible that Thursday night on the blocks that skirt the field, where the faintly reflected light revealed tidy two-family homes and towering apartment buildings. They form a core of homeowners nurtured by the Crotona Community Coalition, a volunteer advocacy group to which Mr. Jacobo belongs.

"Its housing efforts turned tenants into landlords, in some buildings for as little as $250 an apartment, and brought a stability to the area by the Bronx Zoo that once was so unruly, some residents cynically dubbed it Jungle Habitat....

" 'There was something we did in the Dominican Republic that we want to see here,' he said in his raspy island-tinged English. 'When we played baseball, our parents used to come to the park on the weekends and play dominoes, cards, have a barbecue and everybody stayed in one place minding each other.' ...

"Nearby, the racially mixed crowd of adults nodded approvingly. Some congratulated Mr. Jacobo with a handshake or a hug. Anne Devenney, a round-faced sparkplug who helped organize the neighborhood 17 years ago with the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition, beamed at the thought of how far the field and the neighborhood had come....

" 'We need to get together to make things happen,' [Mr. Jacobo] said. 'A community can't get together with only one person.' "

Editors' comment: One keeps hearing of people like Mr. Jacobo, individuals who see beauty and promise for a neighborhood where blight and isolation appear to be. And the interesting thing about that kind of vision is the way it has a tendency to become realized, the way it carries the power to transform, the way it impels people to make things happen.

That kind of vision affects people in much the same way it changes drug hangouts into baseball fields. We all have much to learn from visionaries. They come from all kinds of backgrounds—including custodians like Mr. Jacobo.

Copyright © 1991 by The New York Times Company. Reprinted by permission.