What is "forest park"

Forest Park may refer to:

Forest Park is a public park located in the western part of the city of St. Louis, Missouri, in the United States. It is a prominent civic center and covers . The park, which opened in 1876, more than a decade after its proposal, has hosted several significant events, including the Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904 and the 1904 Summer Olympics. Bounded by Skinker Boulevard, Lindell Boulevard, Kingshighway Boulevard, and Oakland Avenue, the park is known as the "heart of St. Louis" and features a variety of attractions, including the St. Louis Zoo, the Saint Louis Art Museum, the Missouri History Museum, and the St. Louis Science Center.

Since the early 2000s, it has carried out a $100 million restoration of its facilities through a public-private partnership aided by its Master Plan. Changes have extended to improving landscaping and habitat as well. The park's acreage includes meadows and trees, and a variety of ponds, manmade lakes, and freshwater streams. For several years, the park has been restoring prairie and wetlands areas of the park. It has reduced flooding and attracted a much greater variety of birds and wildlife, which have settled in the new natural habitats.

Forest Park is a public municipal park in the Tualatin Mountains west of downtown Portland, Oregon, United States. Stretching for more than on hillsides overlooking the Willamette River, it is one of the country's largest urban forest reserves. The park, a major component of a regional system of parks and trails, covers more than of mostly second-growth forest with a few patches of old growth. About of recreational trails, including the Wildwood Trail segment of the city's 40 Mile Loop system, crisscross the park.

As early as the 1860s, civic leaders sought to create a natural preserve in the woods near Portland. Their efforts led to the creation of a municipal park commission that in 1903 hired the Olmsted Brothers landscape architectural firm to develop a plan for Portland's parks. Acquiring land through donations, transfers from Multnomah County, and delinquent tax foreclosures, the city eventually acted on a proposal by the City Club of Portland and combined parcels totaling about to create the reserve. Formally dedicated in 1948, it ranks 19th in size among parks within U.S. cities, according to The Trust for Public Land.

More than 112 bird species and 62 mammal species frequent the park and its wide variety of trees and shade-loving plants. About of rain falls on the forest each year. Many small tributaries of the Willamette River flow northeast through the woods to pipes or culverts under U.S. Route 30 at the edge of the park. One of them, Balch Creek, has a resident trout population, and another, Miller Creek, supports sea-run species, including salmon.

Threats to the park include overuse, urban traffic, encroaching development, invasive flora, and lack of maintenance money. Occasional serious crimes and more frequent minor crimes occur in the park.

Forest Park in Springfield, Massachusetts, is one of the largest urban, municipal parks in the United States, covering of land overlooking the Connecticut River. Designed by the renowned landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, Forest Park features a zoo, aquatic gardens, and outdoor amphitheater, in addition to typical Olmsted design elements like winding wooded trails, and surprising, expansive views. The site of America's first public, municipal swimming pool, currently, during the holiday months Forest Park hosts a popular high-tech lighting display, known as Bright Nights.

Forest Park is a park in the New York City borough of Queens. It has an area of , containing 165 acres of trees. The park is operated and maintained by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.

Forest Park was a trolley park in the town of Ballston, New York. The park was built by the Schenectady Railway Company, owned by General Electric. It consisted of located at the south end of Ballston Lake along the company's Schenectady to Saratoga Springs trolley line, and was serviced by a dedicated stop. It opened in 1904 and closed in 1927. By 1908 the park was said to have attracted between 75,000 and 100,000 visitors every season.

The chief attraction of the park was its lake access. A small steam launch, the Comanche, offered 30-minute lake excursions. A number of rowboats and canoes were available for rent, and there were facilities for swimming. On shore the park offered a dance pavilion The park had a carousel, which is now located in Congress Park in Saratoga Springs, by way of Kaydeross Park. There was also a toboggan slide and a baseball diamond.

The park provided entertainment including a dance band for the pavilion, and hosted clambakes and picnics, often with fireworks after dark. A special trolley run, The Moonlight Special, brought people for dancing.

In addition to entertainment the park provided an area of lakefront, as of 1908, which was subdivided into small lots and leased to individuals who could then construct a cottage on it. The lessee paid an annual rent for the property but remained owner of any building. By 1927 when the park closed there were 113 lessees.

When the park closed it was listed as containing "an inn containing 10 or 12 rooms, a dance pavilion, a dining hall, ice cream parlor, log cabin, shooting gallery, restaurant and restaurant storehouse, boat house, ice house, pump house, dock, and on the east shore of the lake “the castle”."