In the 1960s, Bellefonte Borough Council developed plans for a park at the site of the deteriorated McClain block.  The Talleyrand Park Citizens Committee formed in 1974.  Aided by donations and volunteers, non-profit and public agencies, and Bellefonte Borough, the Committee installed the first structures in 1976: a gazebo, pergola, and brick plaza, which were designed by Rob Fisher, the late Bellefonte sculptor.  The Committee subsequently facilitated other architectural and landscaping features. Notably, a grant in 1985-86 from the Pennsylvania Conservation Corps and the Borough of Bellefonte allowed continued landscaping and construction of foot bridges.  The Talleyrand Park Committee, which since 1976 has operated under the BHCA umbrella, continues to maintain and improve the Park together with the Borough of Bellefonte and the Bellefonte Garden Club.

     The Committee has added black wrought iron benches and picnic tables to the Park with financial support from The Centre County Community Foundation, the Borough of Bellefonte, and the Margaret Decker Private Foundation.  In 2007 the Gazebo was renovated with a new roof and other improvements, through a grant from the Central Pennsylvania Convention and Visitors Bureau.

The George Grey Barnard Sculpture Garden in the park was formerly a gas station.  The site was donated by Gulf Oil Corporation in 1978.  In 1983, the Committee installed the bust of Lincoln, cast from the original plaster head sculpted in 1917 by the famous Bellefonte-born sculptor George Grey Barnard (1863-1938).  Among his works were the Barnard groups of statuary flanking the main entrance of the State Capitol Building in Harrisburg.  The complete 1917 statue of Lincoln is now in Manchester, England, with a replica in Cincinnati. 
     In Europe Barnard purchased medieval sculpture and architectural elements primarily from French farmers as well as local magistrates who had incorporated into their properties works of art abandoned in the aftermath of the French Revolution.  That art was exhibited in his museum in Manhattan called The Cloisters.  Subsequently John D Rockefeller Jr. financed the building of a new Cloisters Museum that opened to the public in 1938 in Fort Tryon Park on the northern tip of Manhattan. It is the branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art devoted to the art and architecture of medieval Europe.  The Barnard collection formed the nucleus of The Cloisters Collection.

VIEW A WINTER GALLERY OF TALLEYRAND PARK BY MICHELLE MONTES

VIEW A HISTORICAL GALLERY OF THE AREA THAT WOULD BECOME THE PARK