Greek Garden

Laid out in the shape of a cross, the Greek Cultural Garden was formally dedicated on June 2, 1940. Dignitaries leading the ceremony included the Greek Minister to the United States, the head of the Greek Orthodox Church in the Americas, Mayor Harold Burton, and future United States Senator Frank Lausche.

Two Doric columns frame the garden’s entrance, opening into a plaza containing a reflecting pool, offering a perspective on a wall and pylons, which symbolize the wall of the Parthenon. Stone tablets on that wall and pylons are inscribed with the names of prominent Greek artists, philosophers, writers, and scientists: Solon, Ictinus, Callicrates, Phidias, Aristophanes, Pericles, Euripides, Sophocles, Aeschylus, Homer, Praxiteles, Zeuxis, Apelles, Myron, Lysippus, Scopas, Sappho, Socrates, Anaxagoras, Aristotle, Plato, Aristarchus, Demosthenes, Pindar, Archimedes, Herodotus, Xenophon, Thucydides, Euclid, Hippocrates, Ptolemy, Pythagoras, Polycletus, and El Greco.

Framing the symbolic wall are two paths that encircle it, leading to sandstone terraces, lavishly planted with ilex, coloneastus, myrtle, and sweetbay, with cedars and Lombardy poplars giving the impression of cypresses. Maurice Cornell was garden architect.