Lock 3 is the riverside park and amphitheatre built around a restored section of the Ohio & Erie Canal, right downtown. The lock itself — number three of seventeen between Akron and Cleveland — is preserved with stone walls and gates intact, and a small interpretive area explains how the canal made Akron the centre of the Ohio rubber industry.
In summer the park is the city's main outdoor venue: a free concert series most Friday and Saturday evenings, food trucks, the Lock 3 Live music festival, and the National Hamburger Festival in August (Akron's hometown claim to inventing the hamburger is here taken very seriously). In winter the park converts into an outdoor ice rink with rentals available, plus the city's main holiday lights display.
Year-round the towpath trail leaves Lock 3 north toward the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, making this the most convenient downtown access to the longer Ohio & Erie Canalway Trail.