Friendship Park: A Park by Another Name Just Wouldn't Be the Same

Editor, Stephen Kelly

The main entry plaza to Theodore M. Berry International Friendship Park in Cincinnati, Ohio features a mosaic of dry pressed, bevel-edged brick pavers (Whitacre-Greer) meant to depict the diversity of skin tones among humans. The landscape architect chose a blend of colors called Caribbean, cinnamon, mahogany, Cimmerian and ivory. The design won a Brick Industry Association "Paths of Glory" award. Other features are Se'lux pole lighting, concrete seats, entry pylons featuring interpretive text of the life of Theodore M. Berry, Cincinnati's first Africian-American mayor, and eight flag poles?EUR??,,????'??+one flying the Stars and Stripes?EUR??,,????'??+and seven international country flags representing Cincinnati's seven sister cities: Munich, Germany; Nancy, France; Kharkiv, Ukraine; Harare, Zimbabwe; Gifu, Japan; Liuzhou, China; Taipei-Hsien, Taiwan.
Photos courtesy of EDAW, Alexandria, Va.

"If you ever lose your mind, I'll be kind
And if you ever lose your shirt, I'll be hurt
If you're ever in a mill and get sawed in half, I won't laugh
It's friendship, friendship?EUR??,,????'???"?EUR??,,????'??+Cole Porter

Cincinnati?EUR??,,????'??+Three Ns, One T

Cincinnati, located about at the mid-point of the 981-mile Ohio River, sits in the southwestern corner of Ohio, its outskirts spreading into Northern Kentucky and southeastern Indiana. It was originally called Losantiville, supposedly an amalgam of four languages translated as "city opposite the Licking River" (L=Licking River; os=mouth (Latin); anti=opposite (Greek); and ville=city (French).

The commander of Fort Washington named it Cincinnati in 1790 after the Society of Cincinnati, an organization of Revolutionary War officers with the motto Omnia relinquit servare rempublicam?EUR??,,????'??+"He relinquished everything to serve the Republic." The "he" was Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, a Roman farmer who in 460 B.C. was appointed consul to lead Rome, which was in peril of defeat by the Aequi army. Roman troops prevailed and after only 16 days of dictatorial power, Cincinnatus left office and returned to farm duties. Later in life (438 B.C.) he again held dictatorial power for a brief time during another Roman crisis.

ABOVE & BELOW: The entry sign sculpture to Theodore M. Berry International Friendship Park consists of eight individual steel blades with the park's name inscribed in eight languages. The blades are arranged in spirals, revealing the languages as you move around the sculpture. The park has winding walkways, an earth/grass sculpture in the form of two interlocking hands, a pavilion, commissioned sculptures, a serpentine sitting wall, themed gardens representing Europe, Africa, Australia, Asia and the Americas, a bike trail and interpretive signage.

Photo courtesy of Human Nature, Inc.

Cincinnati has a few interesting distinctions: The city's Over-the-Rhine neighborhood has the most nineteenth-century Italianate architecture in the U.S. and is the largest National Historic District in the country. Cincinnati was the first U.S. city to publish greeting cards (1850), had the first practical steam fire engine (1853) and the first professional baseball team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings (1869). It was home to Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, and curiously, the filming locale for "Lost in Yonkers" (1992).

Park History

In the 1980s, federal and city money went to acquire the Eden Park Waterfront, the future site for a new park. However, no funding was available to develop the site. In 1991 a group of design professionals, artists, educators and sister city representatives formed to promote a "peace park" and lobbied the Cincinnati Park Board to name the property International Friendship Park, to commemorate international understanding and friendship. By the mid-1990s, $4 million in state funding was acquired for the park design and construction. In 1999, the Cincinnati City Council matched the $4 million state-funding grant. Park commissioners decided to go with the International Friendship Park moniker.

Salvaged boulders populate the Garden of Australia. "Majestic' liriope is the groundcover on both sides of the walk, with fragrant honeysuckle and a goldentrain tree (right).
Photo courtesy of EDAW, Alexandria, Va.

Theodore M. Berry International Friendship Park

April is black history month, so it is fitting our April feature project, the 20-acre Theodore M. Berry International Friendship Park, situated along Cincinnati's downtown eastern frontage of the Ohio River, is named in honor of the city's first African-American mayor.

Theodore Berry was born in 1905 in Maysville, Ohio, a small town on the banks of the Ohio River. His father was a white farmer he met only once; his mother was deaf and communicated with him in sign language. As a child he sold newspapers, shined shoes, shoveled coal, delivered laundry, shelved books in local libraries and worked as a desk clerk at the "Black" YMCA in Cincinnati. He graduated from Woodward High in June 1924 as the school's first black senior-class valedictorian. His mother died two years later. He paid his way through the University of Cincinnati law school working at Newport, Kentucky steel mills and was admitted to the Ohio Bar in 1932. In 1938, he married and became the first black assistant prosecuting attorney for Hamilton County. He also was a civil-rights attorney for the NAACP and served as the president of the Cincinnati branch from 1932 to 1946.

The main park lighting is Ritorno RA (from Se'lux), which features high efficiency output, sealed optics, marine grade stainless steel fasteners and a die cast aluminum lamp/ballast chamber with twist lock components for ease of servicing.
Photo courtesy of Human Nature, Inc.

In 1942, Berry became morale officer for FDR's Office of War Information. After the war he continued his affiliation with the NAACP and served on the Ohio Committee for Civil Rights Legislation from 1947 to 1961. He won a seat on the Cincinnati City Council in 1949 and 1953 and chaired the finance committee.

At the center of the park is a colossal earthwork representing a pair of outstretched hands in a gesture of friendship. The lawn ripples are the fingers of the hand. A trail of stone pavers (Porphry USA, Inc.) leads to the palm of the hand, marked by a salvaged boulder. Porphry, a volcanic rock, is a durable paving and facing material, mined and manufactured by Odorizzi Porfidi in Italy and Argentina.
Photo courtesy of EDAW, Alexandria, Va.

Berry became Cincinnati's vice mayor in 1955, lost re-election in 1957 but returned in 1963. The following year, Berry created Cincinnati's first Community Action Commission, which drew the attention of the new Office of Economic Opportunity in Washington, D. C. In 1965, President Johnson appointed him head of OEO's Community Action Programs, which included Head Start, Jobs Corps and Legal Services. Berry returned to Cincinnati in 1969 and was appointed to the city council in 1971, then elected mayor in Dec. 1972.

In 1990, Berry spoke to members of the Cincinnati Bar Association, an organization that had rejected him decades earlier because of his color. In the 1980s and 1990s, Berry worked to increase the political clout of black voters in Cincinnati. He died October 15, 2000.

There are many options for lighting flag poles. The landscape architect selected pole-mounted, two piece die cast aluminum, reflector-housing lighting (Bega 8331MH) with integral yoke mounting flanges and separate cylindrical ballasts.
Photo courtesy of Cincinnati Parks

Landscape Architects

"The project was a model of multidisciplinary collaboration, including a great architect, a team of environmental graphic designers and several artists. Everyone contributed to the overall design, and EDAW did a wonderful job as team leader," explains Christopher Manning, ASLA, a principal with Human Nature, Inc. of Cincinnati. Human Nature did the ground sculptures and garden design (themed gardens). An earth/grass sculpture in the form of two interlocking hands is one of their eye-catching designs.

The color concrete braided paths course the linear park intersect every 50 feet to provide moments of social interaction in keeping with the theme of international friendship. The paths are colored, scored concrete.
Photo courtesy of Human Nature, Inc.

The lead landscape architect for the park project was Dennis Carmichael, FASLA, a principal of EDAW in Alexandria, Va. Mr. Carmichael received his degree from SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry at Syracuse and is the immediate past-president of the American Society of Landscape Architects.

The park's mile-long greenway was an initiative of the city to reorganize its relationship with its seven sister cities around the world through the Sister Cities Association (SCA) of greater Cincinnati. The sister cities are a recurring them in the park. The flags of the sister cities fly at the east end of the plaza. The sister cities are Munich, Germany; Nancy, France; Kharkiv, Ukraine; Harare, Zimbabwe; Gifu, Japan; Liuzhou, China; and Taipei-Hsien, Taiwan.

As one garden merges into the next, it is marked by a bronze plaque and a granite medallion (Cold Spring Granite) by Seibert Design and Kolar Design. The seatwalls, accented with Calamagrostis x acutiflora "Stricta,' create group seating niches with granite pavers underfoot.
Photo courtesy of EDAW, Alexandria, Va.

The focus of the park design was international friendship within garden settings, with space for gatherings, festivals and performances. The form of the park is a pair of intertwining pathways that course along the Ohio River, marked intermittently by gardens of the continents: Europe; Africa; Australia; Asia; and the Americas.

The Plaza of the Sun features a sundial of 150-year-old English oak sculpted by Welsh artist David Nash, commission by the park board. The totems are positioned at points of solar equinox and solstice. The surrounding scored colored concrete is interspersed by radiating "sunbeams" of brick pavers.
Photo courtesy of EDAW, Alexandria, Va.

"The plants were selected to create a sense of those places. Some were inspired by natural landscapes from abroad and others by designed landscapes," explains Christopher Manning, ASLA, of Human Nature. "Holding all of this diversity together is a palette of native plants from the Ohio Valley, including several large trees which were preserved and the riparian slope along the edge of the Ohio River."

Photo courtesy of Bega

The garden of Africa, for instance, features broad sweeps of grasses to suggest a savannah, while the garden of Europe features formal clipped hedges.

"The park connects at each end to other segments of a continuous city-wide necklace of riverfront paths," explains Dennis Carmichael, FASLA, of EDAW. "The intertwining nature of the pathways is meant to bring multiple opportunities to interact with fellow park users at each intersection. The two main park entries coincide with roadways that link to adjoining neighborhoods."

The park's north entry is marked by a concession building faced in native limestone. Left: "Densiformis' yew; a preserved cottonwood tree with "Chicago Lusterre' arrowwood viburnum around it.
Photo courtesy of EDAW, Alexandria, Va.

He notes the park was designed to create as little impact to the riparian landscape as possible. All understory plantings on the riverbank were left intact except at the two entries to open view corridors. The park pathways are scored concrete, which allows for imprinting of flora and fauna indigenous to the various gardens.

Part of the original design for the park was a participatory fountain at the main entry. When a donor could not be found in time for phase one construction, EDAW created a bid package that included all necessary utilities subbed out and available for incorporation as the fountain is funded in the future. Currently, the site of the proposed fountain is treated as a lawn and annual flower display. With that scope reduction, the project was bid within budget.

The island flora is autumn joy sedum, Russian sage and a goldenrain tree in background. To the left of the forward column of people is oakleaf hydrangea and porcupine grass.
Photo courtesy of Human Nature, Inc., Cincinnati.