Downtown Trenton Walks Two Park: Cadwalder to Stacy

My third Trenton Walks tour in three weeks took me on a 3.7 mile journey from the Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr. Cadwalader Park across Route 29 to the lesser used Stacy Park.

Cadwalader Park has the distinction of being the only public park in New Jersey designed by the famous Frederick Law Olmsted, as well as the last urban park he designed. It has the characteristics of other famous parks designed by Olmsted (New York City's Central Park and San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge come to mind) including a circular drive, a pond, lawns, and groves. 

We met in front of Ellerslie Museum. Walked past the gazebo where I go roller skating some, and won Lovers Lane where we passed Trenton Mayor Reed Gusciora hanging out while a softball game was taking place and families were enjoying the perfect weather. As I passed a group of teens one commented to her friends "there are a lot of white people here." I couldn't help but laugh. I did not mean to embarrass her, and apologized. Two hours later as we walked back to our cars a subset of the group asked if they could join us.

We used a footpath to cross over Route 29. Less than a century ago the space was a canal. On the return walk we passed houses, many boarded up, others in obvious disrepair and mused if the canal had been allowed to stay instead of giving way to the mighty car, these homes would be sitting on waterfront property and be worth a small fortune. Instead they face the drone of the highway.

Stacy Park runs the length of Trenton along the Delaware River. If it were not for Route 29 and the lack of parking, this park would have been packed on this low humidity summer day. Instead our group of 20 white people were the only people, with the exception of a couple of cyclists zipping through. 

For me the highlight of the walk was The Shaky Bridge. Built from 1904-1911 by Roebling and Sons it is a 1/11th model of the Niagara River Suspension Bridge (1857-1896) and was used to show that suspension bridges are safe. It was recently touched up to its present day glamour.

Most of the group walks are only an hour. At 2.5 hours, this was an anomoly.