Park Street Festival

The Park Street Festival was designed to celebrate Frog Hollow and its residents, but it attracted all sorts of people: it could be expected to draw in over 20,000 guests. The whole two miles of Park Street would be dedicated to vendors, performers, and more. For example, here, at the intersection of Lawrence and Park Street, stood one of the two stages on which bands entertained guests at the Park Street Festival of 1986. The festival ended by the 1990s.

The first Park Street Festival was held in 1977 on Sunday, June 5th. It was organized by the Hartford Areas Rally Together coalition. The festival always had a cultural component which changed along with the changing demographic of the neighborhood: from French-Canadian, to Portuguese, to Puerto Rican, and more. The basics of the festival looked much the same throughout the years, but its scale grew leading into the eighties. Unfortunately, in the four years leading up to its cancellation in 1990, the festival stood on an unsteady financial foundation. The Park Street Festival lives on today in its influence on Hartford's Puerto Rican Festival.

“Park Street Festival Route 1986,” Frog Hollow Oral History, accessed March 12, 2022, https://action-lab.org/frog-hollow-oral-history/items/show/9.

Rosemary Blinn, “Park Street Festival July 20,” Frog Hollow Oral History, accessed March 12, 2022, https://action-lab.org/frog-hollow-oral-history/items/show/8.

Waldman, Hilary. "Neighborhood Ponders Celebration's Demise: Apathy Kills this Year's Park Street Festival." The Hartford Courant (1923-), Jul 17 1990, p. 1. ProQuest. Web. 11 Mar. 2022 .