Vintage photos of Richmond Park skaters and skiers have brought the community together as they look back on the memories.
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — At Richmond Park on the city’s west side, people have been making memories for decades. Although times have changed, pictures from the past still bring people together.
Barbara Schut was 6 years old when she moved to Grand Rapids. She learned to skate at Richmond Park, which was just blocks away from her childhood home.
Earlier this week, photos of her skating as a child came across her Facebook feed. The pictures were compiled by a community member from the Grand Rapids City Archives and Records Center.
“The Richmond Park pond and the hill are still there, and that just touched my heartstrings because it brought back all the friends that I still have and how we are really connected,” Schut said. “Going through the years makes it important to remember each other and care about what happened to each other through the years. That’s so special.”
She said seeing the photos brought memories back from her childhood, spent skating with her friends at the park.
Vintage photos at Richmond Park
Tony Wright, the city’s archives officer, said Grand Rapids was lucky to have proper preservation of its long history.
“By keeping those items we can digitize them and put them online so people have access to all of these great photographs and bring back great memories,” Wright said. “Some of these pictures have no information on the back as far as who took the picture, the location of the picture or even the people in the picture. So we use social media to get the who, what, when, where and why of all of these images. And people here in Grand Rapids have been a huge help with that.”
Schut said he would meet friends face-to-face at the park instead of talking to each other through messaging or phone calls, and that he wanted to see future generations doing the same.
“Let’s vote for things that give the parks the money to keep these places open for our kids, for our grandkids,” she said, “so they can have some of those memories and meet people that way as well.”
You can see all of the photos from Richmond Park and many more from all eras of Grand Rapids history by going to the city’s archive page here.
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