History & Design:

Since 1967, the Romanian Cultural Garden has been the nation’s only urban garden dedicated to Romanian-American cultural heritage. The green glade surrounded by evergreens and maples is the hillside setting for a bronze statue of George Enescu (1881-1955), considered Romania’s greatest musician. Enescu was a composer, violinist, pianist, conductor and teacher. Boris Carageo in Romania sculpted the statue of Enescu, who often performed with the Cleveland Orchestra.

Romanians, like other Eastern European communities, came to Cleveland in the late 1800s and early 1900s looking for work in the factories and steel mills. Many of them came from the Transylvania region. The first Romanian churches and cultural groups in all of America made their home here.

Initially, the garden was sponsored by a coalition of Romanian churches and lay heritage organizations. One of them, St. Mary’s Romanian Orthodox Cathedral, was the first Romanian parish in the United States.

There are plans to restore and upgrade the Romanian Cultural Garden. Design plans call for a tiered plaza and a focus on nature. The sustainable design includes a bioswale and a rain garden.