Hurt Park (Atlanta)

Hurt Park is a small park in downtown Atlanta in the triangle between Edgewood Avenue, Courtland Street, and Gilmer Street. It opened in 1939. It is named after banker, real estate and streetcar developer Joel Hurt.

When Hurt Park opened in 1940, it was the first public park in downtown Atlanta since the 1860s and represented one of the great achievements of Mayor William B. Hartsfield’s first administration. The park was part of a 1937-1942 "transformation of [the city's] aging Municipal Auditorium and the surrounding area into a civic center that befitted Atlanta’s rising status as a convention center".^[1]

The park and its fountain were funded in part by the Woodruff Foundation and were designed by the noted landscape architect William C. Pauley. The park was one of downtown Atlanta's principal attractions during the 1940s and 1950s.

Fountain of Light

The park houses the "Fountain of Light", which used to light the water in different patterns and colors:

"An electric fountain with seventy-eight bulbs from one hundred watts to fifteen hundred. It plays for twenty minutes at a time, giving numerous changes of pattern and color before it repeats its rainbow symphony. It was built at a cost of seventeen hundred dollars, and designed by Atlanta sculptor Julian Harris and presented to the city through the Emily and Ernest Woodruff Foundation."^[2]

The fountain is still present in the park, but without the light show.

External links

References

Parks and trails in Atlanta

Regional parks	Centennial Olympic Park Chastain Park Freedom Park Grant Park Piedmont Park Southside Park Westside Reservoir Park (proposed) Woodruff Park

Community parks	Adams Park Atlanta Memorial Park Ben Hill Park Bessie Branham Park Brownwood Park Candler Park Central Park Georgia International Plaza Goldsboro Park Historic Fourth Ward Park Hurt Park John A. White Park John Howell Memorial Park Maddox Park New Highland Park Orme Park Perkerson Park Renaissance Park South Bend Park Tanyard Creek Park Wesley Coan Park

Nature preserves	Cascade Springs Nature Preserve Fernbank Forest Morningside Nature Preserve

Parkways	Lanier Boulevard Parkway

Trails	BeltLine Cheshire Farm Trail Maiden Trail PATH trails PATH400

Former	Mims Park

City of Atlanta Office of Parks

Coordinates: 33°45′15″N 84°23′08″W / 33.754165°N 84.385582°W / 33.754165; -84.385582

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