At a rainy ceremony today, Chestnut Park became John F. Collins Park, renamed to honor the pocket park’s designer who passed away in 2011.
Collins designed Chestnut Park in the 1970s, as a serene pocket park amid the hardscape of Center City, slipped into the 1700 block of Chestnut Street. The park was built by Dorothy Haas after she visited Manhattan’s Paley Park, and decided Philadelphia should have a similar pocket park.
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