Sunday, July 8, 2012

A Historical Day

The morning started with a thunderstorm but the weather cleared and we had a great "historical" day at the Withrow Park Farmers' Market on Saturday. 

We saw archival photographs of our park (thank you to the Riverdale Historical Society!) and had self guided tours of the park to learn more.

We discovered historical love with Shakespeare in the Ruff and their performance of an Elizabethan Bachelorette.  Thank you for such an enthusiastic performance.


If you fell in love with Shakespeare in the Ruff and want to see more (or if you missed them and want to make sure you catch them this summer) be sure to check out their performance of Two Gentlemen of Verona in Withrow Park on Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from August 15th to September 2nd at 7:30 p.m. 

The children made crafts at the crafts table (thank you Jennifer!) which we used on our tour of the lost river of Withrow Park.  Helen led a merry crowd through the park as she explained more about the history of the park and vicinity.  It was a wonderful tour- thank you Helen!


The children also had a chance to play some historical games led by Pepper (an endless source of energy- thank you Pepper!).  The children jumped over imaginary rivers, ran potato/spoon races, played crabwalk tag and rolled hoops with sticks.  It was great chaotic fun.

And finally, people had a chance to stop by and share ideas about how they like to imagine their Withrow Park of the future (and thank you to Rob for being at this table).  What did we hear? A tree map, a splash pad, new playground equipment, an indoor winter market, a cafe, more benches under trees, more bike parking, a bake oven, more flower gardens, a fountain, a community garden, solar panels, a gazebo and a wind turbine.  Lots of food for thought.  Do you like any of those ideas?  Do you have other ideas?  Join the conversation and we can make history by re-imagining our park! 

A final few notes of gratitude:  Thank you to IQ Living for lending us grids for our event.  Thank you to Friends of the Greenbelt Foundation for their generious sponsorship of this event.  Thank you to Wendy for helping design our posters.  And thank you to Roberta for her tireless work at the Withrow Park Farmers' Market and for hosting this event.