elcome to the
town green. Connecticut is proud to claim more than 170 town
greens. Be they tiny churchyards, rural parks, or urban plazas,
these "living artifacts" are an invaluable heritage resource. They
are icons of history, tradition, and community that may do more to
identify the state as part of New England than any other element of
the landscape. Early Colonial greens and their many modern
incarnations are a powerful presence in every county and region.
They not only preserve a legacy of architecture and town planning,
but also cultural institutions and reassuring ritual„from
high school graduation to band concert„that are all essential
to the Connecticut character.
As park, town square, memorial ground, and
civic plaza, the green is a public landscape that belongs to
everyone. To experience the green is to experience
Connecticut.
The town green means
history
One of the only relics of the Puritan
past to survive in its original location, the green„or
common, as it is also known„is the oldest continually used
element of town planning in America. The practice of setting aside
"common or undivided land" for communal ownership was transplanted
to the Massachusetts Bay Colony by English settlers during the
period of the Great Migration in the 1630s, and adapted to the
geography and specific needs of new settlements throughout
Connecticut.
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