Sunday, November 22, 2009

Splendid Saturday- Open Spaces

Our last stop of the day was Battleground Park. Similar to our trip to the YMCA and the new public library downtown I have spotted memories in this park; a field trip in elementary school and maybe a bike ride with my dad. As I wandered around looking at the monuments they did not have a revolutionary feel to them. I wanted to think they were built and put up soon after the war ended but they are huge and do not look that old. This site reminded me of my trip to Verdun, France where I visited the bunkers from the first World War. The land was not flat from the bombs that went off displacing the dirt. The site of that battle is protected from development because the importance of those events needs to be remembered and memorialized. I believe the city of Greensboro was not founded on the battle site for this same reason. This battle was a turning point toward America's victory. I liked the presentation of the main statue with the horse, but the rest seemed a little to scattered for my taste. I liked the layout for a basic green space park for lounging around or reading a book, but I thought the statues and memorials needed to have more structure in having a specific path that took you from one monument to the next in a specific order. I also found it interesting that parts of the park were open fields, but other parts were paved paths through wooded areas. Is this because that is how the battle site was in 1781, or has some of the space been cleared for the memorial purposes? I remember as a child picturing the formal fighting happening in the open field and the Native American style fighting the settlers picked up being in the woods.

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