MERIDEN - Walking south along the sidewalk on Broad Street, in between a package store and an abandoned gas station, one is suddenly met with an old stone staircase descending downward to the grassy floor of a park. In the distance, you can see stone bridges crisscrossing a brook and century-old trees stretching up into the sky.

It was the spirit of the age, a kind of park-building craze, that brought Brookside Park and its adjacent cousin, City Park, into existence.

Though over the years both were reduced in size by Interstate 691, the two parks still succeed in their original purpose: providing a natural getaway in the crowded inner city.

Meriden and other industrialized urban societies of the late 19th century were booming. Cities were crowded, and men packed themselves into soot-filled factories to work. In an editorial in 1881, the Meriden Daily Journal wrote that locals were agitating for open space where they could stretch their legs, because there was, "nothing approaching a free breathing spot."

After the first urban public park appeared in Salford, England in 1846, western civilization went on a park frenzy, with philanthropists and governments footing the bill.

By 1885, 11 acres surrounded by Bunker Avenue, as well as Camp, Warren and Franklin streets in Meriden's urban core had been purchased and dubbed City Park. Grass and trees were planted and paths built.

Over the years, the swarm that once descended on the park lessened as people gained greater mobility though car ownership, said Meriden historian Dan DeLuca as he strode through its grounds recently. But "it's still a wonderful little park," he added.

On a recent warm day, hordes of neighborhood children were running through the water park installed by the Meriden Lion's Club in 2000, motion-activated jets soaking them as they bounced around the gated enclosure.

Neighborhood Resident Eric Cosme was walking through the park with his son, Xavier. He brought the toddler over to cool off on Wednesday and joined in himself.

"I think everyone in the neighborhood did," he said.

YMCA's Rec-Express program, which offers a summer-camp-like experience for children unable to afford sleep-away camp, also uses the park for games and other activities.

Besides the two acres taken by the state when I-691 was built in 1969, there haven't been any huge changes, Deluca said, though trees have been stripped over the years.

Pictures of the park from the early 1900s show a thick canopy of trees more akin to a forest than a park. Today, a thinner group of larger trees, some older than 100 years, according to Deluca, remain from the original planting.

A pond in the center of the park, complete with a fountain, was filled in at an unknown date, but the group of trees that once ringed it remain.

The band shell and pavilion are gone as well, as are the once-elaborate flower gardens. Gravel paths that appear in photos of the park in the 1920s have also disappeared.

After problems with crime and vandalism emerged during the late 1980s and early '90s, the park was cleaned up and reclaimed for families by the mid '90s. The renaissance was capped by the donation of the water park.

Walk from City Park across Bunker Avenue and you'll find yourself at the long, narrow stretch of Brookside park, philanthropist and industrialist Walter Hubbard's lesser known park, created in 1901.

When I-691 was built, 2.5 acres were taken from it, cutting off its Camp Street entrance and leaving about 11 acres that hug Harbor Brook as it meanders through the landscape.

Its grounds are Spartan these days, with not much besides the trees, grass and the brook, far shot from the state it was in when Hubbard left it to the city.

Early photographs show neatly-trimmed, rock-lined embankments, numerous flower gardens, a bathhouse -where, in an age before most enjoyed indoor plumbing, men and women could bath on alternating days -, small ponds, swimming areas, and other improvements.

By 1958, the park sported tennis courts, horse shoe courts, a baseball field, playground equipment. Park staff estimated that 17,000 children used the park annually.

Park Superintendant James Barry boasted of the unique riparian entertainment Brookside offered, telling the Meriden Record in 1958, "Brookside Park has never looked as well as it does this year, and it will be nicer in 1959."

It didn't last, Deluca said. By the late 1960s, with part of the park taken for I-691, Hubbard Park cemented itself as the most prominent park in the city, while Brookside and City Park did not receive as much care.

Even so, Deluca said the Park and Recreation Department has, in recent years, been diligent in making sure the grass gets trimmed and the park remains free of trash, which is a big improvement of how he remembers it looking 30 years ago.

Parks and Recreation Director Mark Zebora has made a conscious decision to keep Brookside on the plain side, he said, noting that playground equipment and the water park are available across the street at City Park.

"The proximity is too close in our opinion," he said.

For passive parks- or those without a specific purpose like a baseball field- the two parks get a fair amount of use, he said, and today are not any more vandalized than any of the city's other parks.

He noted that many of the same design elements Hubbard used at Hubbard Park can be found at Brookside, and to a lesser extent at City Park, where he paid for extensive improvements.

"There's a lot of Walter Hubbard in those parks," he said. "You can see the influence there."

aperlot@record-journal.com

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