About the project
The Jerusalem Foundation created Liberty Bell Garden to pay tribute to the ties between the people of Israel and the U.S. in 1976, the American bicentennial year. The park was planned as an extension to the Bloomfield Garden across the street, but in contrast to that garden’s tranquility, Liberty Bell Garden is a center for recreational activities. Ulrik Plessner designed the seven-acre park around a linear, north-south pedestrian walk parallel to King David Street from Jabotinski to Remez Streets, with a replica of Philadelphia’s Liberty Bell at its center.The park features flower gardens, plazas, sitting corners, playgrounds, a basketball court and an amphitheater, many of which have been developed since the park’s 1978 dedication. The park hosts theater, film, music, dance and art events and features the Train Puppet Theater. In 1999, the Jerusalem Foundation undertook a $2 million renovation project of the heavily used park and rededicated it as the Koret Liberty Bell Park. Several gardens, play areas and performance spaces have been renovated since. The Foundation has erected many pieces of public and play sculpture in the park over the years, including: Upright Motive No. 7, a cast bronze, totem pole-like piece by English sculptor Henry Moore; a corten steel sculpture of a twisting circular form by Israel Hadany (b. 1941, Israel); Capriccio, a bronze sculpture in a unique combination of mechanical and organic shapes by Canadian sculptor Sorel Etrog (b. 1933, Romania); Basins, a composition of three large basalt rocks by Dalia Me’iri (b. 1951, Israel); Jerry the Dragon, a concrete play sculpture that broadcasts tape-recorded stories from its mouth by Ulrik Plessner; Donkeys, a set of three play sculptures by Sharon Keren, who was inspired by childhood memories of seeing Arab shepards and their children riding on donkeys in the field that would later become Liberty Bell Garden (the donkeys were moved to the Tisch Family Zoological Gardens in Jerusalem in 2007),
