The Park That Named It: Inside Delaney Park Itself
Seven and a quarter acres at 1055 Delaney Avenue — Duckworth Park until 1959, and still the front yard of the neighborhood that took its name.
3 minute read
Every neighborhood in Orlando has a park. Very few are named by theirs — or name it back. Delaney Park, the 7.25-acre city park at 1055 Delaney Avenue, is the reason the surrounding brick streets carry the name at all, and it remains what it has been for generations: the front yard of Delaney Park the neighborhood, and one of the oldest parks in the city.
Duckworth first, Delaney since 1959
The City of Orlando’s own listing tells the short version plainly: Delaney Park is one of Orlando’s oldest parks, and it was originally called Duckworth Park before the name changed to Delaney Park in 1959. What the listing cannot convey is the continuity. The park has outlasted the streetcar era, the land boom, the hospital’s growth across Orange Avenue and several generations of the same families returning with their own children. In a city that reinvents its attractions every decade, a green that simply persists — same oaks, same diamonds, same neighborhood wrapped around it — is a genuine rarity.
What the 7.25 acres hold
The city’s description is a blend, and the blend is the point: oak-shaded areas, ball fields, open space, playgrounds and picnic facilities, with tennis courts alongside. This is not a manicured showpiece park or a sports complex; it is a working neighborhood green that does several jobs at once. The ball fields host Delaney Park Little League, the volunteer-run baseball and softball league established in 1954 that still plays its seasons here. The playgrounds are split by age — one set of structures for children 2 to 5, another for ages 5 to 12 — which is why the park anchors our Delaney Park family guide. The tennis courts draw regulars; the picnic facilities and grills draw birthday parties; the open lawn under the oaks draws everyone else.
Practical notes, because this park rewards knowing them: parking is limited and lives on the side streets, per the city, so arrive the way residents do — on foot or by bike, through the brick streets. The surrounding blocks are residential and quiet, and the park behaves accordingly. Restrooms and water are on site, and the fields are rentable through the city, which means an occasional tournament or event may hold a diamond you expected to find empty.
The second green: Al Coith Park
Immediately adjacent, at 901 Delaney Avenue, sits Al Coith Park — the neighborhood’s quieter second green. The city lists it for open space and oak-shaded areas, tagged with an outdoor fitness station, and a 2016 city parks project document places it directly beside Delaney Park, across from the Beardall Senior Center, noting how heavily both greens are used by the surrounding blocks. Where Delaney Park is programmed — games, practices, playgrounds — Al Coith is the exhale: rolling open grass, shade, a fitness pod, and room to walk a dog or stretch a morning routine. Locals treat the two as one continuous green, and so should you.
When to come
The park runs on neighborhood rhythms. Mornings belong to walkers and tennis players; afternoons in season belong to Little League practices; evenings belong to everyone, when the canopy holds the day’s heat off the lawn and the brick streets around the park fill with strollers and dogs. Weekends in spring are game days, with the particular small-city theatre of volunteer coaches, folding chairs and snack-bar runs. If you want the park at its most itself, come then. If you want it at its quietest, come early on a weekday and have the oaks mostly to yourself.
Delaney Park is pinned, with the lakes and the tavern, on the Orlando Top Spots Map. Pair a visit with the lakes walk east to Lake Lancaster or the brick-streets walk through the surrounding blocks — the park is the natural start and finish of both. Seven acres is not much land. In Delaney Park’s case, it has been enough to name a neighborhood, raise its ballplayers and shade a century of ordinary Orlando life, and that is exactly the scale at which this part of the city still works.
Orlando Citizen by email
The weekly edition, in your inbox
One email, every Saturday: the week’s edition of Orlando Citizen — the week’s stories, rankings and winners, gathered in one place. Free, and you can unsubscribe at any time.
Related Stories
Editor’s Picks
Spotted an error? Tell us — corrections · How we rank