Summer had begun to loosen her sweltering grip and tease at the hint of fall on this lovely Friday of Labor Day weekend. We were meandering our way from the Trumbull Kitchen up to the Bushnell Theater for this evening's performance of Wicked. Bushnell Park was quiet, but not empty. There were people and dogs playing frisbee, couples walking the paved paths and small children squealing at their delight of the ducks in the pond. Beyond its role as a city landmark, we take for granted the idea that cities would have public parks, publicly funded. More than 150 years ago, when Reverend Horace Bushnell proposed a public park that would be municipally funded it was considered absurd. Part of that absurdity was rooted in what previously occupied the space, in the mid 1800s this land included tanneries, pigsties and a dump. The other notion was that tax dollars would be diverted to pay for such a thing. A central piece of land had recently been privately purchased in New York City for use by select patrons, but certainly not a public park. Within a year, Dr. Bushnell had unanimously convinced the Hartford City Council to set aside funds and the project moved forward with a public majority vote. This park was the first in the nation to be designed, built and publicly voted on to be funded by a city. It would be close to a decade before the park would take shape. Jacob Weidenmann, a Swiss-born architect and botanist would design and build the park, modeling it after the organic curves found in nature, a modern departure from the traditional New England town square. The park has undergone numerous additions and even a major redesign in the 1940s, but still today is free and open to the public. Among the most recognizable features is the Soldiers and Sailers Arch, a Civil War memorial to the 4,000 Hartford citizens who fought for the Union in the war, including the 128 African American citizens from Hartford who served. It took a dedicated visionary to stand firm on his beliefs that providing a public place of beauty and reflection in the center of an industrialized city could have a positive impact on people's lives. Today I celebrated my American freedom by walking through Bushnell Park, I wonder what tomorrow holds?
