Post some pictures of your city! II

[SignalHillHiker]

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Bannerman Park - Old St. John's

Bannerman Park is the main park in the old town core of St. John's. It's smaller than the famous Bowring Park, and absolutely minuscule compared to our equivalent of Vancouver's Stanley Park, called Pippy Park.

But it's one of our oldest, and most beautiful.

Following the Great Fire of 1892, Bannerman Park was used as a tent city to house the tens of thousands of St. John's residents who were made homeless.

It was the scene of the violent riots of the 1930s that led to us giving up our independence and returning to British rule.

Just as in 2013 there is a call for the revitalization of Bannerman Park, so it was in 1887. It was in April 1887 that some residents of the city began to groan that:

“summer is coming again and nothing has been done to lay out or improve the vacant space.”

The residents of St. John’s complained that the enemies of the Park were the wild goats and foxes that made the Park their refuge. And there were two-legged enemies of the Park as well: the residents of Flavin Street who were taking the pickets from the fence turning it into “handy fuel.” In short, the people of Flavin Street were using the fence that surrounded Bannerman Park for fire wood!

The residents of the St John’s were determined. They argued that every other city in the world had a substantial park and that they too should have a Park to revel in.

Critics of putting money into Bannerman Park in 1887 argued:

“nature has been so kind to us around St. John’s that the whole countryside is one extended Park which spreads out like the sparking tail of a demonstrative peacock when summer comes and the sun shines.”

The supporters of the Bannerman Park countered:

“We believe that art is nature to advantage dressed, and we want so rural a retreat, within easy access of the town, where the tired tramp may repose his exhausted limbs when the sun goes down and dream of that happy Elysium where insects bite not, nor mosquitoes sting, but where the wick’ud cease from troubling and the weary are at rest.” Yes, we want a Park! “Other things being equal,” we want the Park, the one and only park, the Bannerman Park.”

As with all revitalization projects, funding has always been a concern.

In 2013 the Bannerman Foundation are actively courting private and corporate dollars and partnering with the city. In 1887 the suggestion was “that legislators put another cent or two per bushel on potatoes and give us the Park at once.”

In 1887 supporters of the Park said :

“Not much is required. A little seeding and a little draining.” They dreamt that in time you would find in Bannerman Park “cool shade trees and babbling brooks, of grottos and labyrinths, (fancy a labyrinth in Bannerman Park!) of groove’s and blarney. Nay, even the strawberries and cream, also, especially cream.”

One hundred and twenty six years later supporters of the Park dream of:

“ a refrigerated skating trail, a new pavilion, a splash pad, an upgraded playground, the Garden of Memories, and a new pool house, upgraded pathways, new trees and flower beds, and new Victorian-styled fixtures such as benches and lamps.

Located on the north side of Military Road next to Government House and the Colonial Building, Bannerman Park takes its name for Governor Alexander Bannerman, who in 1864, donated Governor’s lands in the vicinity of Government House for a public park for the use and enjoyment of the citizens of St. John’s.