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URBAN
LIFE FEATURE STORY
Small,
but Still a Park
Thornton Triangle survives for more than 90 years
by Felix Winternitz and Mandy Janes
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Sayler
Park’s Thornton Triangle is the smallest park in the
Cincinnati Parks system.
Photo By: Mandy Janes
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How small is
the smallest park in the Cincinnati Parks system?
So small that the organization’s Web site, www.cinci-parks.org,
doesn’t even have a map available like it does for other parks
in the system. So tiny that, outside of one piece of public art,
the Web site claims the park includes no features or amenities.
So miniscule that no upcoming events are listed at this park for
the entire year.
Welcome to Thornton Triangle, boasting as it does an incredible
.01 acreage.
Located on the West side where Gracely and Thornton avenues meet
River Road (U.S. Route 50) in Sayler Park, the triangle was acquired
by transfer in 1912 when the equally diminutive burg of Fernbank
was annexed by the city of Cincinnati.
The location is the epitome of the juxtaposition of residential
and industrial along this stretch of River Road. Nice Colonial homes
and a school sit along Gracely and Thornton, while trains rumble
past industrial plants next to the river. Planes roar close by as
they approach the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport.
The park contains a zinc and cast-iron fountain in memory of Fitzhugh
Thornton, donated by the Thornton family in 1912. The fountain represents
a Native American facing the sun (with his back to the industrial
developments) and was designed by the J.L. Mott Iron Works.
Score this one under the politically incorrect department. The Native
American sculpture gets the smallest park in Cincinnati. ©
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