Bloomsbury Park

Bridge at Raleigh's Bloomsbury Park. As towns became cities and citizens longed for the open spaces and trees of preindustrial communities, recreational parks became a part of the urban landscape. Pullen Park, a gift of eighty acres from businessman Richard Stanhope Pullen in 1887, became a site where Raleighites could picnic, boat, skate, and enjoy nature. Bloomsbury, also at the end of a trolley line and built in 1912 by the Carolina Power and Light Company, was advertised as the Electric Park Amusement Company and provided diversions associated with amusement parks today, such as roller coasters, penny arcades, and merry-go-rounds. A carousel, built by the Dentzel Carousel Company of Philadelphia (1903-9) and featuring the handcarved animals of Salvatore Cernigliaro, was among the most popular features of Bloomsbury Park. The carved animals, whose glass eyes were produced in Czechoslovakia, are older than those in the Smithsonian Institution. The carousel was moved to Pullen Park in 1921, and, now restored, it remains the park's central attraction.