In Your Neighborhood: North East+

The grass is always greener…especially when one side is a golf course and the other is a cemetery.

Northwood/Soldiers Field belongs to Hartford, but to drive there legally, you have to enter through Windsor. As you can see, those on foot can cross over — so to speak — from Keney Park.

Every so often, local media fixate on a few of Hartford’s cemeteries, with Soldiers Field being among them. A fairly recent look at the mess in Zion Hill included assumptions that the toppled gravestones were motivated by antisemitism. In truth, you would be hard pressed to find a cemetery where conditions were completely acceptable. Vandalism, erosion, storm damage, wear-and-tear to the roadways, and more leave most of these spots less than ideal.

Spending some time up in the North East neighborhood (and the Windsor/Hartford area of ambiguity) this past week gave me the chance to stop and listen. Horses neighing, roosters crowing, and squirrels rustling leaves and barking within Keney Park. A man calling to his buddy from across the pond. An emergency vehicle moving along Vine Street with its siren on.

View of Edgewood Street from wood’s edge

And then there were the smells of pine sap and ash.

Litter and illegal dumping have long been issues in the parks, but it was the late-November 2015 arson that has kept me out of Keney Park for a few months.

When I heard that someone intentionally set fires in a wooded area of the park, not far from the horse stables, I was livid. For all the coverage the actual fires received, there did not seem to be an “after” photos. I was afraid to see how much of the woods had burned.

Then, last month, there was a motor vehicle fire — arson — just south of the pond in Keney Park. Pieces of an incinerated vehicle remain.

Even with its rougher edges, it’s a peaceful spot. In my visits, I have either found other park goers to be friendly, or just ignore me entirely. Kids were throwing rocks into the pond. Neighbors, on foot, schlepped their clubs to the golf course. Families made use of the playground. It’s one of those spots I want more people to recognize and use, while at the same time wanting to redirect them to Bushnell Park or Elizabeth Park so that the general quiet in Keney Park does not change.