Restoring Middlebury's Village Green

Middlebury's Village Green was established around 1790 on land donated by village co-founder Gamaliel Painter. In 1849, construction of the Rutland and Burlington Railroad through Middlebury truncated the green, leaving a triangular piece of land at its western point where the Allen Block stood. Constructed around 1821 by Samuel Sargent, the Allen Block was a two-story, gable-roofed brick commercial building facing west down Main Street and housed many businesses and offices over time, while a public well with an iron pump stood on the lot. After the fire of 1891 destroyed the Allen Block, the land remained vacant until 1908, when Joseph Battell and the Century Club formally established Triangle Park. The original three-tiered cast iron fountain installed that year and topped with figures of cranes was removed in 1938 after complaints that wind-driven spray dampened the interiors of open cars parked nearby. By the 1960s, Triangle Park had fallen into disrepair, but Doris Bowker and the Middlebury Garden Club revitalized it in connection with the approaching 1976 United States Bicentennial. The current fountain urn, cast in the same foundry and from the same patterns as the 1908 original, was discovered in the gardens of Middlebury philanthropist Jessica Swift, purchased and donated to the town by Tony Neri, Tom Langevin, and Neil Kvasnak, then temporarily removed during tunnel construction and restored before reinstallation. From 2018 to 2021, the Middlebury Bridge and Rail Project replaced two 1920s-era bridges crossing the rail line on Main Street and Merchants Row with a tunnel, reconnecting Triangle Park with the Village Green. The stone seats in Triangle Park are historic ashlar blocks installed in the 19th century as abutments for the railroad trench.

Middlebury, Vermont · United States