Home Destinations USA Connecticut Hartford Sights Bushnell Park

Bushnell Park Review

Read our Hartford sights reviews. Or post your own.

Hartford Categories:

• Overview
• Sights
• Restaurants
• Hotels
• Entertainment
• Shopping
• Travel Tips
• Features
• Fodor's Choice

WHAT'S NEARBY

• Sights
• Butler-McCook Homestead
• Harriet Beecher Stowe Center
• More >>

• Restaurants
• First and Last Tavern
• Max Downtown
• More >>

• Hotels
• Goodwin Hotel
• Residence Inn Hartford-Downtown Marriott

• Entertainment
• Arch Street Tavern
• Black-Eyed Sally's
• More >>

Bushnell Park

Fodor's Review:

Bushnell Park, which fans out from the State Capitol building, was the first public space (1850) in the country with natural landscaping. The original designer, a Swiss-born landscape architect and botanist named Jacob Weidenmann, planted 157 varieties of trees and shrubs to create an urban arboretum. Added later were the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch, dedicated to Civil War soldiers; the Corning Fountain; the Bushnell Park Carousel (open May through September), intricately hand-carved in 1914 by the Artistic Carousel Company of Brooklyn, New York; the Pumphouse Gallery; and a performance venue. An oasis of green, the park has about 750 trees, including 4 state champion trees, and a pond that is a popular summer lunch spot.

Get Advice From Other Travelers

• Hartford and Beyond- Thanks for all the advice!
  3 responses; most recent on 08/19/2008, 09:25 am
• Hartford to Boston, partly by car and then by train
  9 responses; most recent on 07/29/2008, 11:07 am
• Need Tips Driving from Hartford,CT to Newark, NJ
  9 responses; most recent on 07/02/2008, 02:24 pm
• Meeting point between Hartford, CT and Lowell, MA
  5 responses; most recent on 06/12/2008, 03:53 pm

Visit the Travel Talk forums for help on planning your trip >>

Buy the Guidebook

• 
  $21.95

Get the Fodor's Newsletter

Read the current issue
For more travel ideas, tips, and deals, sign up for the Fodor's newsletter here. Browse previous issues.