Kennedy Park (originally known as South Park) is a historic park located in
Fall River, Massachusetts
Fall River is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States. Fall River's population was 94,000 at the 2020 United States census, making it the List of municipalities in Massachusetts, tenth-largest city in the state, and the second- ...
. It is bounded by South Main Street, Bradford Avenue, Middle, and Bay Streets in the southern part of the city. The area of the city where the park is located was until 1862, part of
Rhode Island
Rhode Island ( ) is a state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Connecticut to its west; Massachusetts to its north and east; and the Atlantic Ocean to its south via Rhode Island Sound and Block Is ...
.
History
The park was originally the farm of John Durfee. The location gained national attention in December 1832, when the pregnant lifeless body of
Sarah M. Cornell was found hanging from a stackpole there. Her death was later deemed to be murder. Methodist minister
Ephraim K. Avery was accused of the crime, but acquitted after a sensational trial. The verdict outraged many local citizens. Sarah's body was initially buried on the Durfee farm, but moved years later to
Oak Grove Cemetery when the park was being built.
Built in 1868, designed by famed 19th century landscape architect
Frederick Law Olmsted
Frederick Law Olmsted (April 26, 1822 – August 28, 1903) was an American landscape architect, journalist, Social criticism, social critic, and public administrator. He is considered to be the father of landscape architecture in the U ...
and Calvert Vaux, the park was originally known as "South Park". It was updated in 1904 by the Olmsted Brothers. The park was renamed in 1963 following the assassination of President
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), also known as JFK, was the 35th president of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. He was the first Roman Catholic and youngest person elected p ...
. The park provides a vast area of open space in the middle of a particularly dense portion of the city, surrounded by many
triple-decker
A three-decker is the U.S. term for a type of vertical triplex apartment building. These detached three-story buildings are typically of light-framed, wood construction, where each floor usually consists of a single apartment. Both stand-al ...
working-class tenement houses and the Catholic
St. Anne's Church.
Description
The park has three sections: a flat upper section used for
baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...
and recreation fields, a sloping middle portion with sweeping views of
Mount Hope Bay
Mount Hope Bay is a tidal estuary located at the mouth of the Taunton River on the Massachusetts and Rhode Island border. It is an arm of Narragansett Bay. The bay is named after Mount Hope, a small hill located on its western shore in what is ...
, and a lower somewhat wooded portion along the Bay.
The park was added to the National Historic Register in 1983. It was restored in 2001.
Kennedy Park has long been used a place for public events in the city.
In September 1996, over 25,000 people gathered in the lower portion of the park to see then President
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician and lawyer who was the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, ...
during a campaign stop for his 1996 re-election.
Each August since 1986, the park hosts the Great Holy Ghost Feast of New England, a celebration of
Azorean
The Azores ( , , ; , ), officially the Autonomous Region of the Azores (), is one of the two Autonomous Regions of Portugal, autonomous regions of Portugal (along with Madeira). It is an archipelago composed of nine volcanic islands in the Macaro ...
culture which attracts over 200,000 people each year.
In 2014, an "inclusion playground" opened in Kennedy Park, which features equipment accessible to children with disabilities.
The park includes a partially fenced playground area with slides, a seesaw, and mini monkey bars.
An empty ice skating rink provides a place for children to ride bicycles.
See also
*
*
List of Olmsted works
References
{{National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts
National Register of Historic Places in Fall River, Massachusetts
Parks in Fall River, Massachusetts
1868 establishments in Massachusetts
Parks established in the 1860s