In the late 1960s, Fort Worth citizens began to discover the possibilities of relating the city to the Trinity River, and in anticipation of the U.S. Bicentennial of 1976, proposals were advanced to honor the 1849 founding of Fort Worth. Halprin studied various locations in the city, and his 1971 CBD Sector Report recommended the creation of a 112-acre Heritage Park at the confluence of the West and Elm forks of the Trinity immediately northwest of the courthouse bluff. A half-acre plaza on the bluff west of Paddock Viaduct marked the approximate site of the original fort and served as a place of respite and meditation on Fort Worth’s heritage.
Halprin’s plaza consists of a series of orthogonal “rooms” that casually step down the bluff and weave together a counterpoint of horizontal rills and vertical water walls. A water pavilion at the southeast corner of the plaza serves as “source” and creates a cognitive reference to the river below. Watercourses are gradually channeled to the northeast corner of the site where, much like Johnson/Burgee’s deep pool in his Water Gardens (FW16), the water disappears. Within the “rooms” oak trees are organized in both formal and informal manners. An allée along the west edge of the plaza serves as a shaded entrance court for the three western entrances. Cantilevered walkways on the north provide generous views of the river below and the Fort Worth stockyards in the distance.
The plaza, poorly maintained for many years, was closed by the city in 2007. In 2010, Heritage Park Plaza was listed in the National Register of Historic Places as a significant modernist landscape. Ruth Carter Stevenson again gave funds so that Philadelphia landscape architect Laurie Olin might make recommendations to repair, restore, and reopen Heritage Park Plaza. Fundraising and design efforts are ongoing.