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There's a big difference between a city park and state parks too. Chicago has fabulous Lincoln Park, Washington Park, Grant Park and other well known city parks but out in the suburbs you have the tranquil Cook County Forest Preserve. Farther away is Starved Rock State Park. I don't know of any national parks in Illinois but there are plenty of well preserved public places outside the city that aren't in the National Park System.
With the National Mall, the Gateway Arch, Independence National Historical Park and other urban national parks, I agree they are urban parks; hard to argue otherwise. I'd say they have a different purpose than an all around city park like Central Park in New York because they're either preserving important national monuments like Independence Hall or, as with St Louis, they're constructing a monument to some national theme where there was none. Still, they're wide open, popular and accessible. Independence may be less of a city park than, say, Rittenhouse Sq or Fairmount Park; a lot of visitors are tourists or people who take their visiting relatives to see the bell, rather than parks that residents use frequently themselves. Tourists visit the arch, locals go to Forest Park? IDK but they seem somewhat different that way.
I agree with that last sentence of yours, but there is some overlap in functions.
Washington Square in INHP, for instance, gets used by many of the people living and working in the offices, condos and apartments that surround it. It's not as intensely used as Rittenhouse Square, and it's usually quiet, as if everyone there knows they're on a burial ground. But it does get used by locals, maybe more than by visitors.
Used to live near Boston's Franklin Park on JP side. It's ruined by the sad zoo (animals in small caged enclosures) and the golf course as well as a busy throughway in the middle of the park. Shattuck, methadone clinic and homeless shelters in the park don't help either. Definitely not even a top 200 park.
Used to live near Boston's Franklin Park on JP side. It's ruined by the sad zoo (animals in small caged enclosures) and the golf course as well as a busy throughway in the middle of the park. Shattuck, methadone clinic and homeless shelters in the park don't help either. Definitely not even a top 200 park.
Fair enough despite living near it (to the south) I never went too deep into it because it has a bad reputation for saftey. I know they're investing $28M for facelifts for the park... It just finished a 6 year pathway improvement plan https://www.wcvb.com/article/boston-...-park/27058176
Used to live near Boston's Franklin Park on JP side. It's ruined by the sad zoo (animals in small caged enclosures) and the golf course as well as a busy throughway in the middle of the park. Shattuck, methadone clinic and homeless shelters in the park don't help either. Definitely not even a top 200 park.
Far from ruined. Whether the zoo is sad is debatable. Lots of people love it. The golf course is good-- it's a good game, a beautiful course, and as a public course available to anyone who wants to play. The problem is making a single use space of such a big part of the park. Shattuck will be demolished and replaced by something much more sympathetic. The planning process for the $30+ million recommends discontinuing use of Fr Park Road as a vehicular cut through--hopefully that will happen. It's still a beautiful landscape with nice woods, lots of paths, some romantic ruins, great history with Elma Lewis's playhouse and all, it accommodates cultural festivals, has places for cookouts and gatherings. Boston and surroundings have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to parks and reservations-- Blue Hills, Fells, Charles and Neponset rivers, the Boston Harbor Islands, the Arboretum, Jamaica Pond, Fresh Pond. If Franklin Park were in Brooklyn, where that's about all there is for big open space, it would a different story. As it is there are so many other great places to go.
I love Piedmont Park in Atlanta, it has a bit of a central park feel. For movies like the Avengers, they used Piedmont Park as a backdrop for "Central Park" scenes.
Far from ruined. Whether the zoo is sad is debatable. Lots of people love it. The golf course is good-- it's a good game, a beautiful course, and as a public course available to anyone who wants to play. The problem is making a single use space of such a big part of the park. Shattuck will be demolished and replaced by something much more sympathetic. The planning process for the $30+ million recommends discontinuing use of Fr Park Road as a vehicular cut through--hopefully that will happen. It's still a beautiful landscape with nice woods, lots of paths, some romantic ruins, great history with Elma Lewis's playhouse and all, it accommodates cultural festivals, has places for cookouts and gatherings. Boston and surroundings have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to parks and reservations-- Blue Hills, Fells, Charles and Neponset rivers, the Boston Harbor Islands, the Arboretum, Jamaica Pond, Fresh Pond. If Franklin Park were in Brooklyn, where that's about all there is for big open space, it would a different story. As it is there are so many other great places to go.
1. I worked at the zoo as a "ZooTeen" for two summers and then later in admissions and membership part-time on two separate occasions. The Zoo is sad. not that debatable. Who loves it? The employees working with the animals didn't even like it. The Zoo doesn't have that many members, really it doesn't. And people complained about the Zoo to my face on more than one occasion. Maybe the Zoo isn't good because its 50-50 public-private as opposed to all private? It's also in the hood, dude tried to break in and free the tigers just yesterday. Free Day was a logistical and safety nightmare.
2. Agree about the golf course. I wonder if they'll actually ever put in a dirtbike course lol.
3. Shattuck will be replaced with affordable housing or methadone clinics in all likelihood. That's what the state wants and it will get it, they dumped transitional housing there without a moment's hold up or delay.
4. Cutting off that cut-through could have a negative impact on the poorer neighborhoods to the east of the Park. IDK it feels really important as a quick escape to a more affluent part of the city (Forest Hills)
5. Definitely so many places to go for greenery in Boston
Cascades Park in Tallahassee, Florida deserves an honorable mention.
It's a relatively small park in a small city, but it still technically qualifies as an "urban park". Tallahassee may have the best municipal parks system in the entire country when graded on the curve of city size.
Surprised that neither New Orleans' City Park or Audubon Park have been mentioned.
I'm probably the only person on this site that brings up New Orleans consistently. Big or booming cities get the attention here.
Audubon Park is wonderful though.
I'm probably the only person on this site that brings up New Orleans consistently. Big or booming cities get the attention here.
I've noticed. It took a few pages before Forest Park in St Louis was mentioned.
Sometimes it's good to live in a city that flies under the radar. Sometimes it isn't.
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