A Park for All Times and Seasons

A Park for All Times and Seasons. . , Trenton's Cadwalader Park , Cadwalader Park is known for its gently rolling hills, large shade trees and historic monuments. Grounds provide ample space for picnicking, recreation and play. The park's landscape has evolved over time to take advantage of a richness of natural and manmade features. Throughout the year, Cadwalader Park changes from the bright greens of summer, to the reds, oranges and yellows of fall, to the grays and white of winter, to the pinks and pastels of spring. It truly is a park for all times and seasons., The Evolving Park , Cadwalader Park was established in 1888 to be a pleasant retreat from the city. Its designers, led by world-famous landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr., planned the park to highlight its outstanding natural features. They planned hundreds of trees, dammed small streams to create ponds, and constructed paths and drives., Cadwalader quickly became a popular community park with parades, reunions, celebrations and visitors who loved strolling along its paths and exploring its landscape. During the early 20th century, the trees planted by Olmsted began to reach mature heights, forming shade-producing canopies. Natural events, however, took their toll. Chestnut blight and Dutch elm disease killed many beautiful trees, and Hurricane Carol in 1954 damaged many older specimens. Lost trees were not always replaced. Sometimes new trees and species were planted without respect to Olmsted's original plan., In the second half of the 20th century, Cadwalader Park began to suffer from a gradual decline in funding and cutbacks in overall maintenance. Nonetheless, the park has remained very popular with the community. Today, there is an effort to renew the park and a greater awareness of the park as a historical resource., Please Keep On the Grass! , Cadwalader Park has nearly 100 acres of green space to explore. There are hundreds of trees, historic monuments, a canal, a museum, meadows, streams and flowers. Many other natural historical treasures can be found by exploring this urban oasis., [Captions:] , The park drives were designed to be shared by carriages and pedestrians. Promenading in the park was a favorite pastime. Today these same drives are used by automobiles and joggers. This view was taken in 1908., The 14-foot-tall statue of George Washington was brought to Cadwalader Park in 1892. It was carved in Italy from white marble and first exhibited at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876. After standing in the park for over 80 years, it was moved in 1976 to Mill Hill in downtown Trenton to commemorate the anniversary of the Battles of Trenton., A quiet winter scene, looking through the archway of the entrance bridge near Parkside Avenue., This lovely Victorian water fountain once offered cool drinks to park goers. It was located in front of the Ellarslie mansion. This view was taken in 1908., Summertime in the park featured live music for many years. The original bandstand was located in a concert grove northwest of Ellarslie. The stand was later replaced by a bandshell in 1913, which burned during an "unintentionally spectacular" production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves in 1967., The "rock garden" at the Upper Pond was part of a landscaping improvement undertaken in the 1930s. In the background are homes on Cadwalader Drive., A springtime scene at the Upper Pond, c. 1950. The Upper Pond was created in the mid-1930s as a Works Progress Administration (WPA) project., The park's Stuyvesant Avenue entrance, c. 1920. Trenton's streetcars stopped here., The John A. Roebling monument honors the engineer who designed many famous bridges, including the Brooklyn Bridge. He was the founder of Trenton's John A. Roebling's Sons Company, a world-renowned manufacturer of steel wire. The statue was dedicated before a massive crowd of 15,000 people in 1908.