The Leslie Knope Promenade

You Schur They Won’t Say Knope?
The Leslie Knope Promenade, West Hartford

I’ve lived in West Hartford since 2001 or so. It has its pluses and minuses for sure. The quips and insults hurled its way are often more or less true, and no one is a bigger critic of the town’s decision-making than me. The powers that be want West Hartford to be a city so badly, so they build, build, build and develop, develop, develop with zero foresight or planning with regards to things like transportation, traffic, pedestrian safety, school sizes, etc. It’s maddening.

But once in a while, someone in our town government makes a good decision. Like when they agreed to accept a $10,000 donation from one Mr. Michael Schur, former resident, and Hall High alum. He is certainly one of the most famous and successful graduates of my son’s high school. Others you may or may not have heard of include the soccer playing Swaby sisters, Charlie Kaufman, Wavy Gravy, and Frank Luntz. So, you know, it’s a limited list.

Michael Schur, if you don’t know, has been a force in comedic network television. After graduating from Hall in 1993 and Harvard in 1997, he wrote for Saturday Night Live, was a writer and producer for The Office (in which he played Dwight’s brother Mose), and created Brooklyn Ninety-Nine and The Good Place.

Oh, and he co-created Parks and Recreation with Greg Daniels. Everyone one of his shows were smart and funny.

Schur grew up right behind Fernridge Park in the center of town, and used to spend his whole summers in the park. (It is a nice park with tennis courts, the town’s best pool, and all the playscapes and stuff you’d expect.)

When Schur learned about the fundraising efforts for a promenade at Fernridge Park – one of the final phases of an ongoing project to improve the park – he readily agreed to make a donation, at a level that came with naming rights. He was happy to donate the ten grand, as long as Leslie Knope’s name could be attached to the building. Or, as it turned out, the “promenade.”

(Which in and of itself is a bit of a joke.)

If you haven’t watched Parks and Recreation, the lead character is Pawnee, Indiana’s Deputy Parks and Recreation Department Director Leslie Knope (played by Amy Poehler), and she will do anything to support parks. The town – my town – leaned in on the whole thing.

If not for COVID at the time of the dedication,

“We were going to have a waffle truck,” Spigel said – a nod to Leslie Knope’s favorite food. And they were thinking about having a miniature horse at the event, a nod to the famed Li’l Sebastian, a notable character on Parks and Rec.

The plaque has a quote attributable to Knope: “Let’s embark on a new journey, together, and see where it takes us.” The Leslie Knope Promenade “is a key element of the park’s new design, a wide paved area that encircles the pool house in the center of the park, from which all of the spokes – the pathways – branch out through the park to neighborhood streets.”

One last thing in case you were wondering. Pawnee is the stand-in for West Hartford on the show, and neighboring rival Eagleton is Simsbury. Demographics and town standings have changed a bit from the 1970’s and 80’s of Schur’s youth, but here’s the relevant quote from the AV Club.

We wanted to do a story about Eagleton, because Eagleton was something we talked about in the writers’ room a lot and had never done an episode about. We had mentioned it a couple times, and we knew that there was this town next door. There was a town next door to my town growing up called Simsbury. Simsbury has, like, 9,000 people in it, and everyone there was incredibly rich and good-looking, and my town, West Hartford, which is a very solidly middle-class, or even upper-middle-class town, had a kind of inferiority complex about Simsbury. West Hartford was roughly the size of Pawnee, like, 65,000 people.

Of course, we all know West Hartford people are better looking than Simsbury people, so I think Schur’s memory is a bit muddled here.

But shout out to my town for going all-in on this silly thing and maybe Li’l Sebastian can make it to a rededication ceremony someday.