Eisenhower Park, Bounded by Touro Street, Thames Street, and Washington Square , Newport, Newport County, RI

Honorable Mention Recipient - 2017 HALS Challenge: Documenting City or Town Parks
Significance: Eisenhower Park lies within a vernacular landscape of national significance.

Newport was one of the British Empire's most prized seaports of the eighteenth century. Newport today is often referred to as the "last remaining wooden city in North America" because so much of its seventeenth-, eighteenth-, and nineteenth-century architectural fabric survives in its original Colonial and Federal era context, unlike New York, Philadelphia and Boston. Infill of period construction over the centuries has respected the massing and streetscape placement of previous eras, maintaining the integrity of the original historic fabric and character.

Originally known as the "Parade," Washington Square is a wide swath of urban public space between the Colony House and the Brick Market, with Eisenhower Park situated in its center. This one-acre triangular public park has evolved over the centuries, especially with installations of beautiful period statuary, fountains, cast iron fencing and a bandstand in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. For over several decades annual public celebrations with patriotic overtones have taken place in and around the Park. After being known as Washington Square Park for more than a century, the site was renamed Eisenhower Park in 1960 to commemorate the thirty-fourth President's choice of Newport as his summer residence.

In 1995 Eisenhower Park was listed in the National Register of Historic Places status as part of the Newport National Historic Landmark District. The significance of this small triangular city park lies in the fact that as a vernacular landscape it reflects generations of American use. This space has remained extant throughout Newport's development, and thus, as a city park, it continues to bear political and socioeconomic testament to events from before the founding of the United States to the present day.
Survey number: HALS RI-2
Building/structure dates: 1783 Initial Construction
Building/structure dates: 1960 Subsequent Work
Building/structure dates: 1806 Subsequent Work
Building/structure dates: 1885 Subsequent Work
Building/structure dates: after. 1870- before. 1879 Subsequent Work
Building/structure dates: 1977 Subsequent Work
Building/structure dates: after. 1925- before. 1929 Subsequent Work
Building/structure dates: after. 1930- before. 1939 Subsequent Work
Building/structure dates: 1828 Subsequent Work
Building/structure dates: 1941 Subsequent Work
Building/structure dates: 1986 Subsequent Work
Building/structure dates: 1960 Subsequent Work
Building/structure dates: 1880 Subsequent Work
Building/structure dates: 1907 Subsequent Work
National Register of Historic Places NRIS Number: 68000001