If you have ever attended the Armory Park Home Tour, you know that it’s a chance to explore our neighborhood’s most colorful treasures. The annual fund raising event highlights the thoughtful preservation and renovation of historic homes alongside the contextual architecture of newer homes, many of which boast green amenities such as solar power and water harvesting. And if you walk or ride your bike through the Tour, you get to enjoy some local whimsy along the way, the small details and expressions of neighborhood character that I like to consider the Home Tour “sideshow”: street art, murals, creative landscaping, quirky paint jobs, and yard signs promoting everything from humanitarian and political causes to modern cottage industries.
Armory Park is a true historic neighborhood, distinguished by buildings and streetscapes that confirm the continuity of the past – when the Armory was an armory, and building materials were scarce – with the present and future. Those of us who seek out a place like Armory Park to live, whether we own or rent our homes, are inspired to preserve and build on what we already have: a neighborhood that is at once lively and peaceful, walkable and livable. One Sunday afternoon each fall, the Home Tour offers a chance to slow down, meet one another and take a deeper look at our surroundings.
For those with an eye for gardening and plants, a Home Tour in Armory Park often reveals some really lovely yards and gardens, where we imagine people spending their time relaxing or playing. Some of the urban oases in Armory Park have taken decades to mature. Some happened by accident. Many are inherited, as remnants of the original gardens on historic properties that date back to before we were born.
Aside from weeds and the occasional pest, what’s not to love about gardening? Continue reading “Armory Park: Time for a Community Garden”
Armory Park Neighborhood Association 