Group 6: Neighborhoods- Liberty Wells

For our Neighborhoods Walkabout, our group visited the neighborhood known as Liberty Wells. This neighborhood includes the homes directly surrounding Liberty Park (see map).

Liberty Wells is an eclectic neighborhood. Each house has its own style, with personal touches.

Often houses that were side-by-side, with similar architecture would look drastically different through color, small design changes, landscaping, and personal details. This can be seen particularly in this picture. These homes have virtually identical builds, simply mirrored. However, because of slight changes, like color, roof pitch above the porches, and window details, they have entirely different characters.

By block, houses tend to have similar profiles and mass, whether it be bungalow, or victorian or colonial inspired. No house is more than 2 stories tall, and most are just one. Houses are grouped closely together, with long, skinny lots. After noticing many "For Rent" signs and looking at the mail boxes, we realized that many of the homes had been subdivided into apartments. Most homes are far from the street, with the sidewalk closer to the homes than to the street. While some houses did have fences, most did not. A combination of sidewalk proximity to the houses and fenceless yards created a welcoming, communal environment.

Liberty Park is framed by four busy streets. Due to traffic, they are all very wide, with multiple lanes in each direction. However, as you branch off into the neighborhoods, the roads become increasingly small and intimate, we even found a dirt road. There is a high amount of car traffic. In the park itself, there are many people walking for sport by themselves, with children, or with dogs. In the neighborhood itself, the foot traffic decreased, but we still saw people out walking around.