Parks and Recreation
The city operates nearly 20 parks and preserves, the largest of which is the 56-acre (23 ha) Fred Fuller park along the Cuyahoga River, named after a former Kent Parks chairmain. The park includes the Kramer Fields baseball and softball complex, which contains four fields, two of which are lighted. Several of the parks along the Cuyahoga River are on or near areas of historical significance. Franklin Mills Riveredge Park, which follows the Cuyahoga River through downtown Kent, passes through a large portion of the Kent Industrial District along with Heritage Park and includes sites related to the Pennsylvania and Ohio Canal. Adjacent on the south is the John Brown Tannery Park, on the site of the former tannery John Brown operated with Zenas Kent in the 1830s, while Brady's Leap park, adjacent to the north, is at the location of the famed leap over the Cuyahoga River by Captain Samuel Brady circa 1780. The parks and recreation department, in addition to operating and maintaining the city's parks and preserves, also operates a recreation center on the city's south side and offers several sports, arts, and education programs at various locations in Kent. The department also sponsors events throughout the year including Art in the Park, an ice-skating party, hayrides, and Santa's Arrival. The Kent City School District operates an indoor pool at Theodore Roosevelt High School that is available for public recreational and instructional use outside of its use by the school for athletics and physical education. The pool hosts swimming lessons and serves as a home venue for the Hudson-based Hudson Explorers Aquatic Team, a competitive swimming program for ages five and above.
As of 2012, the Portage Hike and Bike Trail was under construction or in planning, with several phases already completed in Kent. In August 2012, as part of several redevelopment projects in downtown Kent, Kent State University began construction of the Esplanade Extension, which will connect the university's portion of the Portage Hike and Bike Trail, known as the University Esplanade, to downtown Kent. Construction is also ongoing on the portion of the trail in northern Kent, which includes a new pedestrian bridge over the Cuyahoga River, and is scheduled to be complete in December 2012. The trail, when fully complete, will connect with the hike and bike trails in neighboring Summit County and will link Kent with nearby communities in Portage County. The city is also home to the Tom S. Cooperrider-Kent Bog State Nature Preserve, located in the southern edge of Kent. It is one of the most intact bogs in Ohio, with the southernmost and largest stand of tamarack trees in the continental United States.
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Famous quotes containing the words parks and, parks and/or recreation:
“Perhaps our own woods and fields,—in the best wooded towns, where we need not quarrel about the huckleberries,—with the primitive swamps scattered here and there in their midst, but not prevailing over them, are the perfection of parks and groves, gardens, arbors, paths, vistas, and landscapes. They are the natural consequence of what art and refinement we as a people have.... Or, I would rather say, such were our groves twenty years ago.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Towns are full of people, houses full of tenants, hotels full of guests, trains full of travelers, cafés full of customers, parks full of promenaders, consulting-rooms of famous doctors full of patients, theatres full of spectators, and beaches full of bathers. What previously was, in general, no problem, now begins to be an everyday one, namely, to find room.”
—José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955)
“Playing snooker gives you firm hands and helps to build up character. It is the ideal recreation for dedicated nuns.”
—Archbishop Luigi Barito (b. 1922)