John Ball Park

Cross the Grand River west out of downtown Grand Rapids and the land starts to climb toward the ridge where John Ball Park spreads across the hillside along Fulton Street near I-196. The park is the reason the neighborhood has its name and its shape. When John Ball died in February 1884, he left the city 40 acres for public use — a parcel city records had already been calling the 'Ball Forty' as far back as 1869. The city began improving it in 1890, a small menagerie took hold soon after, and that seed grew into John Ball Zoo, with its hillside enclosures, zip line, and paths. Near the entrance sits the bronze figure of Ball himself, seated on a granite bench with two children, sculpted by Pompeo Coppini and dedicated in August 1925. Away from the park, this is a west-side grid of older houses on a rise above the river, the kind of close-set frame homes that filled in around a 19th-century industrial neighborhood. Lincoln Park adds basketball courts, playgrounds, and open lawn, and the Mines Golf Course sits improbably atop a historic gypsum mine. The commercial edges lean on long-running local spots — Vito's Pizza has been going since 1973 — and Grand Valley State University's Pew Campus brings its buildings into the eastern edge of the area near the river. Fulton Street and the nearby highway make downtown a short trip, while the zoo and the hillside parks give the neighborhood an unusual amount of green for a place this close to the city center. For the neighborhood association and its garden, storytimes, and programs, see the John Ball Park association page.