Washington Park

Washington Park is a place of beauty and recreation, with colorful displays of tulips and other plantings, a foot bridge that spans a tranquil lake, the Park Playhouse alive with summer theater, and a lighted display of holiday scenes that entertain children and adults alike.

The beauty that we may take for granted today grew from mid-19th century concerns about public health and urban disorder. Join John Pipkin as he talks about the history of Washington Park, followed by an excursion into the park.

Part of the Albany Heritage Architecture and Art series, this is a free event.

 

John Pipkin is an urban geographer with interests in urban social geography, public space and urban design. He grew up near a Roman road in a small English town which had received its modern name, and some of its layout, by the sixth century, then attended graduate school in suburban Illinois, where most of the urban fabric was only a few decades old.

In 1974, when Professor Pipkin arrived in Albany, he was relieved to find historical depth again and he became an enthusiastic student of Albany's rich urban fabric. As a social geographer, he is fascinated by the ways in which different groups of people use architectural styles to express their private and public aspirations. As a professor of urban design at the University at Albany, he is interested in the role architecture plays in creating congenial public spaces.