Wörmann Garden
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This central park was created by the widow of a wealthy merchant in 1817. It is known affectionately as Vērmanītis - the diminutive of Anna Wörmann's surname that has since been Latvianized and turned into a toponym.
After opening a restaurant and planting exotic trees along with a rose garden, Anna Wörmann (Vērmane) left her idyllic property to the city, with the requirement that the garden never be divided or sold and always be accessible to the public.
A band shell (the current little amphitheatre being newer, from the 1950s) and a mineral water pavilion (later a cinema, then a centre for transport workers and now the musical centre Vernisāža) were soon added. Many a public event has been held here for almost two centuries.
Guarded by two lions, a monument to Anna now stands in a circular rose bed. On the Merķeļa sreet side, posing like the dandy he sometimes was, is a bronze of Kārlis Padegs, one of Riga's most fascinating, early 20th-century artists.
The park is enclosed between Elizabetes, Kr. Barona, Merķeļa, and Tērbatas streets.