Overview
I grew up in the inner city of Rochester in the 1960s and '70s, near Brown Square Park, which remains located in the shadow of the Eastman Kodak Company's global main office on State Street.
A Closer Look
Adjacent to Kodak's headquarters, Brown Square Park is located at 251 Verona Street on the site of the original Brown Brothers' Tract. Brown Square Park was designed by the firm of famed landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted.
Summers at Brown Square are especially memorable due to the terrific Puerto Rican Festivals that used to be set up on its grounds, along with the park's pool.
The Brown Square Park pool was like a "cement pond," per TV's The Beverly Hillbillies, a round concoction made of cement and black tar, with a big fountain spurt in the middle.
Conclusion
The Brown Square Park fountain pool, which has long been gone, was only three feet deep at its center, and although its tar-laced spaces and rough cement floor would frequently cause swimmers to scratch their knees, for an inner-city kid in the 1960s and '70s, it was a little piece of Heaven.
[This article is a work of nonfiction based on actual events directly experienced by the author.]
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