Hurt Park (Atlanta)

Hurt Park is a small park in downtown Atlanta in the triangle between Edgewood Avenue, Courtland Street, and Gilmer Street. It is named after banker, real estate, and streetcar developer Joel Hurt. When Hurt Park opened in 1940, it was the first public park in downtown Atlanta since the 1860s and represented one of the great achievements of Mayor William B. Hartsfield's first administration. The park was part of a 1937–1942 "transformation of [the city's] aging Municipal Auditorium and the surrounding area into a civic center that befitted Atlanta's rising status as a convention center".[1] The park and its fountain were funded in part by the Woodruff Foundation and were designed by the noted landscape architect William C. Pauley.[2] The park was one of downtown Atlanta's principal attractions during the 1940s and 1950s.

Hurt Park
Location	Atlanta, Georgia
Coordinates	33.754165°N 84.385582°W / 33.754165; -84.385582
Created	1940 (1940)
Owned by	Georgia State University (GSU) and City of Atlanta
Operated by	GSU
Public transit access	Atlanta Streetcar - Hurt Park Station MARTA - Bus 99
Website	events.gsu.edu/hurt-park/

The park contains the "Fountain of Light",[3] which used to light the water in different patterns and colors:

An electric fountain with seventy-eight bulbs from one hundred watts to fifteen hundred. It plays for twenty minutes at a time, giving numerous changes of pattern and color before it repeats its rainbow symphony. It was built at a cost of seventeen hundred dollars, and designed by Atlanta sculptor Julian Harris and presented to the city through the Emily and Ernest Woodruff Foundation.[4]

The fountain is still present in the park, but without the light show. The park is included as one of the stops for the Atlanta Streetcar, which became operational around late 2014.