Mar 4 2013

Hebrew Cultural Garden in Cleveland

Brent

 

Cleveland Jewish garden

Today’s photo is of the Fountain of Wisdom located in the Hebrew Cultural Garden in Cleveland.

From the Cleveland Cultural Gardens website:

“The Hebrew Garden was designed by T. Ashburton Tripp and was the first garden in what was to become the Cultural Gardens. Dedicated in 1926, it is a monument to the Zionist movement, as well as the vision of Leo Weidenthal, who was instrumental in the founding of the Cultural Gardens chain, or Poets’ Corners as he originally named it. The Garden is laid out with the sandstone walk forming a Star or Shield of David, six pointed star, around the Wisdom fountain which echoes the star with six sides and points. To the right or north is a rock garden or poets’ corner. To the left a lyre or harp shaped Musicians area. Beyond the rock garden, to the right or north are a series of boulders with plaques and beyond is the B’nai Brith memorial.Jewish Federation of Cleveland sponsors the Hebrew Cultural Garden through its Hebrew Cultural Garden committee”.

For more info: http://www.culturalgardens.org/gardenDetail.aspx?gardenID=17

“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see”.- Henry David Thoreau


Feb 4 2013

Dante Statue in Cleveland

Brent

Dante Statue in Cleveland

Today’s Cleveland photo is of the Dante Alighieri statue that was dedicated in the Italian Garden of the Cleveland Cultural Gardens on June 29, 2012. Here is some more information about Dante from Wikipedia: “Durante degli Alighieri, simply referred to as Dante, was a major Italian poet of the Middle Ages. His Divine Comedy, originally called Commedia and later called Divina by Boccaccio, is widely considered the greatest literary work composed in the Italian language and a masterpiece of world literature”.

For more info:

http://culturalgardens.org/gardenDetail.aspx?gardenID=10

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dante_Alighieri

Today’s Quote: “Do not be afraid; our fate cannot be taken from us; it is a gift.” ― Dante Alighieri, Inferno


Aug 15 2012

Cleveland Cultural Gardens

Brent

cleveland cultural gardens

The Cleveland Cultural Gardens are a collection of public gardens located in Rockefeller Park in Cleveland, Ohio. The gardens are situated along Martin Luther King Jr. Drive within the 276 acre of wooded parkland on the city’s East Side. In total, there are 31 distinct gardens, each commemorating a different ethnic group whose immigrants have contributed to the heritage of the United States over the centuries, as well as Cleveland.

For more info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_Cultural_Gardens

http://www.culturalgardens.org/


Mar 2 2012

Czech Cultural Gardens

Brent

Cleveland cultural gardens

Here is some info from the Cleveland Cultural Gardens website: “Dedicated in 1935, the Czech Garden was designed by landscape architects B. Ashburton Tripp and Maurice Cornell. At the center of a circular lawn, flanked by an Eagle Pylon and a Lion Pylon, is a sculptured frieze depicting the history of the migration of Czechs to the United States. Atop the frieze and facing the lawn are busts of Bedrich Smetana, a composer, Dr. Miroslav Tyrs, an educator and organizer of Sokol gymnastic societies, Jan E. Purkyne, a physiologist, and Bozena Nemcova, a novelist. The garden also contains busts celebrating Frantisek Palacky, a historian and statesman, Anton Dvorak, the composer of the well-known “New World Symphony,” the Reverend Jendrich Simon Baar, a priest and novelist, Karl Havlicek, a journalist imprisoned because of his political views, and Thomas Masaryk, the first president of Czechoslovakia. Most of these statues, as well as the frieze, were the work of Frank L. Jirouch, a Cleveland-born sculptor of Czech descent who sculpted many of the busts in the garden.

On April 1, 1939, the President of Czechoslovakia planted two linden trees from Bohemia in the garden. In 1949, the Czech delegation added the Tyrs, Nemcova, and Purkyne bust, and in June 1962, Masaryk’s statue was added. At the dedication ceremony, United States Senator Frank Lausche lauded the choice of Masaryk, giving the dedication political resonance in the broader context of the raging Cold War. Lausche stated, that The love of liberty lives strong in the hearts of the Czechoslovakian people in America. … Our government will not make any pact for the degradation of Czechoslovak liberty.”

For more information on the Czech Garden: http://culturalgardens.org/gardenDetail.aspx?gardenID=7

Today’s quote is one of my favorites and comes from the garden itself: This Garden is dedicated, to our beloved Czech parents who by their teachings and by precept and example have established for us a high ideal of American citizenship.


Jan 31 2012

Hungarian Cultural Garden

Brent

Hungarian Garden

Today’s photo is of the Hungarian Cultural Garden which is located off East Blvd in Cleveland. This garden was completed and formally dedicated in 1938 and is just one of the beautiful gardens located in this area. For more information:

http://culturalgardens.org/gardenDetail.aspx?gardenID=14

Today’s Quote: “The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget”. – Thomas Szasz


Jan 10 2012

Sunrise in the Italian Garden

Brent

Italian Garden

Today’s Photo: Sunrise in the Italian Garden

This photo was taken early one morning about a year or so ago. If you have never spent any time here you are really missing something. Here is some more information:

http://blog.culturalgardens.org/index.php/category/italian-garden/

“A garden must combine the poetic and the mysterious with a feeling of serenity and joy” – Luis Barragan


Nov 17 2011

German Cultural Garden

Brent

German Cultural Garden Cleveland

Today’s Photo: German Cultural Garden

From the CCG website:

“Second Cultural Garden to be constructed, after the Hebrew Cultural Garden in 1926. German-American Karl Wolfram was instrumental in creating the Cultural Gardens and in developing the German Cultural Garden. Like the Hebrew Garden before it, the first German cultural figures to be recognized were poet-philosophers (Goethe, Schiller, and Heine), musicians (Bach and Beethoven) and writers (von Hutten). The German Cultural Garden expanded their honored cultural heros to include artist Durer, dramatist/critic Lessing, educator Froebel, physical culturist Jahn, and scientist Humboldt. In the 21st century the Garden recognizes “Balaskapelle” or traditional, German, brass band music with its annual Conrad Mizer/Karl Wolfram concert in the Garden with regional German-American bands and singers. Conrad Mizer was a 19th century German emmigrant who first started “Fruhschoppenmusic” or public park concerts in the area and then went on to be one of those instrumental in the founding of the predecessor organizations of the Cleveland Orchestra.”

For more info:

http://culturalgardens.org/gardenDetail.aspx?gardenID=13

Today’s Quote: “A person hears only what they understand” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe


Sep 28 2011

The Fountain at the Italian Garden

Brent

Cleveland Italian Garden

 

Today’s Photo: The Italian Garden

This is a photo of the fountain located on the upper level of the Italian Garden. The Italian Garden was on October 12, 1930 before a crowd of 3000 local Italians. It is just one of the over 30 gardens that make up the Cleveland Cultural Gardens.  The gardens are located along M.L.K. Blvd and East Blvd, not far from Wade Oval.

I am ashamed to say that I didn’t know this wonderful place even existed until a few years ago. I love walking though the gardens and looking at all of the statues, plants, flowers and fountains. They tell a story of all the different immigrants that came to America and to Cleveland. Some of my own ancestors that came from Germany, Switzerland, and Ireland were living in Cleveland by the 1840’s. In fact my grandmother lived in a house on the corner of Ansel Rd. and Ann Ct., right across from the gardens and the Hitchcock Center for Women. She said the center used to be a seminary and she would walk in the gardens when she was a teenager. All Clevelanders should visit the gardens at least once, they are beautiful and will make you proud of Cleveland and all the immigrants that helped built this city.

For more info on the
gardens please go to the website:

http://culturalgardens.org/default.aspx

Or visit on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Cultural-Gardens-Of-Cleveland/178974030093