Fresh looks for fresh air

This illustration depicts the future Abolition Row Park entrance at the corner of Seventh and Spring Streets.

by Michael J. DeCicco

What should people expect to be different when they head to local parks this spring? The answers are more exciting and hopeful than many may think possible.

In New Bedford, while most of the public park maintenance will be routine, some work definitely will not be.

Construction is starting this spring on Abolition Row Park, on Seventh Street across from the historic home of abolitionists Nathan and Polly Johnson.

When the new park opens in the summer of 2022, it will feature landscaping and gardens surrounding a gazebo and a statue of famed abolitionist and lecturer Frederick Douglass. The life-sized memorial to him will portray him at the age when he first arrived as an escaped slave at the Johnson house. There’ll also be informational panels describing Douglas’ significance to the City of New Bedford and the Underground Railroad movement.

This year’s Phase One of the construction project will install the garden and fencing and the perimeter. “A year from now, the work will be completed, including the statue by noted African-American sculptor Richard Blake, who has crafted other Douglass sculptures in the past,” Park, Recreation, and Beaches Department Director Mary Rapoza said.

Construction will also be continuing on a new Bowling Green at Hazelwood Park in the South End, she said. The original green dates back to the 1920s, but right now it’s merely lawn. The work on the new greens began in the fall, with the assistance of the national sports organizations, USA Bowling and USA Croquet. The work will conclude with a grand opening next summer.

In New Bedford’s north end, Brooklawn Park’s new Daniel Ricketson Nature Center off of Irvington Street will open in time for spring school vacation, Rapoza said. Natural exhibits and drop-in educational programs will be available inside, and outside there’ll be guided nature walks along the nature trails coursing through the park.

The center will officially open on April 17, Rapoza said. But there’ll be a soft opening sometime before then.

Meanwhile, she said, other park maintenance is continuing as usual. So are the usual spring and summer park programs, from soccer, football, and volleyball to karate.

Across the harbor

In Fairhaven, park and beach maintenance this year is also business as usual for Board of Public Works superintendent Vincent Furtado. He said his crew is already busy pruning trees and trimming bushes at the town’s parks and beaches.

All that’s new is that there’ll be more cleaning than in past years and season passes will be more restrictive, Furtado said. But all of Fairhaven’s parks and beaches will be open, just under new COVID-era restrictions.

“We’ll be doing maintenance to the same level, just redirected to what we are required now this year to do,” he said.

Fairhaven’s biggest change might be that the town recreation center, at 227 Huttleston Avenue, was closed for a time due to a water pipe break.

Recreation Department director Warren Renshausen has reported good news, however. The Recreation Center recently re-opened and will remain open even while it undergoes major rooftop and air-conditioning upgrades – work that will start in mid-April.

At the opposite end of the South Coast, Marion’s public parks and beaches too will be serving up pretty much business as usual, said Parks and Recreation Director Jody Dickerson.

We’ve taken all the precautions we can and will be offering as much as we can

“The parks and beaches will be open,” Dickerson said. “The Board of Health has been very supportive. Things will be as normal as they can be. We’ve taken all the precautions we can. It will be offering as much as we can.”

For instance, all of the department’s summer programs at Silver Shell Beach are still on the schedule, including swimming, tennis, and golf. “Even yoga for adults and swimming lessons,” he said. And there’s even plans in the works, he said, to expand some of its summer programs, albeit under COVID-era protocols and restrictions.

Even Bicentennial Park will still be hosting the Marion Arts Center’s annual Summer Kids Program, “Arts Start,” and, on July 10, its annual Arts in the Park event.

For the latter, there’ll be fewer vendors and plenty of hand sanitizer and other restrictions, said Marion Arts Center director Jodi Stevens. But she proudly noted what’s new this year at the park itself.

The Art Center events will be held in the shadow of the park’s new Elizabeth Taber statue, which honors the Marion native who helped build six of the town’s most iconic buildings: the town hall, Tabor Academy, the Music Hall, the Elizabeth Taber Library and the Marion Natural History Museum.

New Bedford sculptor Erik Durand, whose other work has included the Fisherman’s Family statue at New Bedford’s state pier and the Squid sculpture in front of the city’s Whaling Museum, created the bronze, life-sized image of Taber sitting on a granite bench with a book in one hand, symbolizing her career as a teacher, and a pipe in the other, which historians note Taber was always seen smoking. The statue was unveiled at the park in October 2020.