RITTER PARK WALKING TOUR – CONFERENCE INSIDER LOOK

Ritter Park Walking Tour
Thursday, September 25
11:30 am – 2:30 pm

This year’s PAWV conference will feature a walking house and park tour. Huntington is known for having a great sampling of historic houses including Craftsman Bungalow, Early Classic Revival, Italian Renaissance, and many more. The tour will take the group around the neighborhood surrounding the famous Ritter Park, explaining the background on select houses that exhibit unique architectural features.

Ritter Park is a fine example of the City Beautiful Movement in West Virginia.  “The City Beautiful advocates sought to improve their city through beautification, which would have a number of effects: 1) social ills would be swept away, as the beauty of the city would inspire civic loyalty and moral rectitude in the impoverished; 2) American cities would be brought to cultural parity with their European competitors through the use of the European Beaux-Arts idiom; and 3) a more inviting city center still would not bring the upper classes back to live, but certainly to work and spend money in the urban areas. The premise of the movement was the idea that beauty could be an effective social control device”. (Citation HERE)

Enjoy the view of homes and the award-winning Ritter Park – which were influenced by this nation-wide movement.  Other examples of City Beautiful neighborhoods include Schenley Farms district of Oakland in Pittsburgh and Coral Gables in Florida.

The walking tour will include stops on Eighth Street and Thirteenth Avenue. Enjoy the view of Marshall University’s President’s House and the Wright House. There will also be a tour of Switzer Wallace Plaza and the award-winning Rose Garden in Ritter Park.

After the walking tour, participants are invited to join PAWV at a private residence near the park.  It is not within walking distance so we will need to drive there.

Total walking distance will be about 1.5 miles total. Wear comfortable shoes and bring an umbrella.  “A Room with a View” in Ritter Park is the location for tour registration and the end point of the tour. Refreshments will also be available. Parking available in Amphitheatre Parking Lot. Address for A Room with a View is 1310 8th Avenue, Huntington.

The 2014 PAWV statewide conference will be held in Huntington, WV from September 25 – 27, 2014.  You can register for the conference and learn more about it by visiting our EventBrite page.
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The conference has been financed in part with Federal funds from the National Park Service, Department of the Interior and the WV Division of Culture & History, State Historic Preservation Office.

Regulations of the U.S. Department of the Interior strictly prohibit unlawful discrimination in departmental Federally Assisted Programs on the basis of race, color, national origin, age or handicap. Any person who believes he or she has been discriminated against in any program, activity, or facility operated by a recipient of Federal assistance should write to: Office of Equal Opportunity, National Park Service, 1849 C Street, NW, Washington, DC 20240