   |
|||||||||||||||||
 |
|||||||||||||||||
      |
|||||||||||||||||
 |
|||||||||||||||||
|
Bushnell Park FoundationBushnell Park, the city’s oldest public park, was seriously distressed just two decades ago. The Park’s landscape and landmark sculptures such as the Memorial Arch were in disrepair when concerned citizens formed the Bushnell Park Foundation in 1981. In 1854 Horace Bushnell envisioned the Park as an urban green space where all the city’s residents could meet on common ground. Today the Park’s 37 green acres with its artwork, sculpture, and play areas are important to thousands of people and used each year by about half a million adults and children. The Park is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is recognized for its historic artwork as well as its arboretum of over 700 quality trees. The Bushnell Park Foundation has served for more than twenty five years as the prime advocate for the conservation and restoration of Hartford’s historicWith a committed volunteer Board of Directors and a small annual operating budget of about $125,000 the Foundation has raised more than $9 million in capital restoration funds for the Park. We have restored the Memorial Civil War Arch, renovated the Park entrances; built the Performance Pavilion and Pump House Gallery; and added new landscaping, lighting, and benches and built the play area. We restored the Horace Wells Monument, the historic Corning Fountain sculpture, and its Victorian garden. “central park.” Urban Strategies, Inc. of Toronto, prepared The Downtown Hartford Economic and Urban Design Action Strategy (a.k.a. Greenberg Plan) in 1998 and said: “Renewed by the efforts of the Bushnell Park Foundation, Bushnell Park is an outstanding urban park and the sites around it, some of the most valuable in the downtown…. The Circuit Line (strategy) builds on existing success stories. Perhaps, first and foremost, it builds off the enormous accomplishments of the Bushnell Park Foundation, that has cleaned up Bushnell Park to create an oasis within the city.” More than one million people visit Bushnell Park during the year: including visitors to the 100 public events, the historic Carousel, and art exhibitions at the Pump House Gallery; hundreds of children, and city residents and Hartford business workers who walk, run, bicycle, and simply rest in the Park.
|
||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||
