Friday, June 15, 2007

a little history on bushnell park

picture: galenfrysinger.org/us/xmas05116.jpg





for example (and i didn't know this one) it was the FIRST publicly funded park in the country!






i did know there is a river running under it.






we (the big brothers big sisters group i belong to) were supposed to go to the carousel the other day but there was a bus mix up and we never did go. the kids were horribly upset (as were some of the bigs but we STILL had fun)












Story By SUSAN CAMPBELL, The Hartford Courant



picture: hartnet.org/als/Cable%20Collection/Images...


It's a beautiful spring day, and Edward Richardson of Glastonbury has just climbed 96 steps to the top of the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch in Hartford's Bushnell Park. To the south are the gold domes of the state Capitol and the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts. To the north? I-84 and the train station, and all around are the tops of the trees.That is Richardson's special love, the park's trees. After he retired from the Phoenix insurance company in the '80s, he wrote a guide to them, and he's happy to give a brisk tour.



Brisk because there's much to see in the park.But first? A little history: Back in the 1850s, Hartford was a happening place. In roughly a decade, manufacturing and insurance, banking and munitions concerns hummed, and the population nearly doubled. With the influx of new residents - many of them immigrants - came increased crime and sticky sanitation problems......





picture: thecarouselmuseum.org/pic_bushnellpark_ca

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