October heralds the widely anticipated St. James Court Art Festival, a 69-year-old festival celebrating arts and craftsmanship that runs through historic St. James Court, Belgravia Court, 4th and 3rd Street between Hill and Park Street, with picnicking and performances spilling into Central Park from the Magnolia Ave area of the festival.
If you’ve walked through the neighborhood in the last few weeks, you surely have spotted the bustling of preparation as Old Louisville welcomes thousands of visitors to the neighborhood for the weekend. If you’re an Old Louisville regular, you may have noticed quite a bit of bustling in the park over the last 2-3 years as Central Park has seen steady renovation on play spaces, infrastructure, landscaping, lighting, and more.
At 18 acres, Central Park is one of the larger neighborhood parks in the Olmsted park system. True to the historic design, the majority of the park features winding walking paths through unique urban tree canopy, impressive oaks and tulip poplars towering over sassafras and dogwoods to name a few. In early summer evenings the lawns and trees sparkle with fireflies. At any time of year, perhaps too-friendly squirrels are found burrowing through the lawns and trees. Play spaces and tennis courts are nestled into the West and North sides of the park, and 2023 saw a complete renovation of the playground into an accessible play space including a natural playground extension, as well as a new spray pad.
While the city invests in restoring sections of sidewalk throughout the park, Olmsted Parks Conservancy and generous donors collaborate with the city and neighbors on enhancing the park entrances. Historic brickwork and limestone curbing restoration preserve some of the enduring features of the park design, with projects completed at the entrances on 4th St and Magnolia Ave as well as 6th and Myrtle St. New signage and landscaping at these entrances are the beginning of an effort to update and uniform the numerous landscape beds and information throughout the park. The next phase of walking path renovation begins this month, with enhancements to the 6th and Park Ave entrance anticipated in 2027.
When reviewing historical planting plans for the 4th and Magnolia entrance, we realized the existing quince shrub in the landscape bed at the Y in the sidewalk aligns exactly with the placement of quince in the Olmsted Brothers design plan for Central Park in 1904 (then DuPont Square.) Replacement plantings may very well have taken place over the years, but the size and establishment of the present-day shrub indicate it could be one of the few remaining original landscaped shrubs in the park. The suckering nature of this shrub allows for harsh cut back to encourage new growth, so the branching is not necessarily the same that might have been touched by passersby in the early 1900s; however, the rootstock of the plant has almost certainly experienced over a hundred Louisville winters.
The long-loved wisteria vines were removed from the pergola in the heart of the park to allow for restoration of the support beams and new lighting: a backdrop for the outdoor amphitheater that hosts the longest-running, non-ticketed Shakespeare festival in the U.S., Kentucky Shakespeare Festival in Central Park, and numerous other community events. The lighting project was completed late September, and conversations are ongoing regarding replacement of the vines.
With restored historic homes and condominiums, converted apartments, multiple high-rise senior care and affordable housing buildings, UofL students, and historical cultural changes, Central Park serves some of the most diverse demographics in the Louisville area. Whether you’re enjoying live music, passing through on your work commute, looking for fresh vegetables at the Old Louisville Farmer’s Market, or contemplating on a bench, the park is a true example of the democratic spaces Olmsted envisioned when designing public parks for community and nature respite in the city.
Find something similar: History Highlight News Projects Central Park
