Thanks to Amore Coffee for their support. Amore hosts free homework help for all ages, led by retired professors, on Sundays from 4-6 p.m.
The City of West St. Paul is celebrating the grand reopening of Kennedy Park with a ceremony and celebration at the park today. Here’s a look back at Kennedy Park.
Kennedy Park: 1988
Kennedy Park: 2025
Here’s a look at the same location in 2025 as the renovation project is complete.
- The playground has been relocated from this area to the lower section of the park.
- The house on Winona Street visible in the background of the 1988 photo is still there, though it’s obscured by trees. The house adjacent to the park in the 2025 photo was built in 2003.
Here’s a look at the new playground:
Park Renovation and Community Engagement
The Kennedy Park renovation included several community engagement events, a mural project, and an art bench.
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I’m sure many of you remember fondly our childhood wild woodland back in the 50’s and 60’s. The ground where Kennedy Park now resides was then called ‘May Woods’. It was a wild place with two streams coming together in the bottom area, one from the west (opened up as it came under Dodd Road at Curtice St., and one stream from the south (rippling north along where Bidwell Street would’ve run). Makes me wonder what it was like 100 years ago. Open streams, woodlands, swampy bottoms areas (another being where Baker Playground now is) and of course farmlands. Before that, mostly woodland I would suppose. It was a fantastic wild play area for us kids back then. Nice to see that the east lots of ‘May Woods’ (privately owned and in St. Paul I believe) has been held out as wild. Thanks to those who have left this wild place.