City vehicles have been spotted with growing frequency in the Bankside Grove section of Pope Park, with a major cleanup getting underway today. A few trees have been taken down in recent weeks, but today Mayor Bronin announced that DPW would be tackling the bulky waste that is often illegally dumped here, along with removing litter and understory vegetation.
According to the Mayor’s Office, this clean up is meant to “improve the attractiveness of the park along Park Terrace and enhance its ecological viability.”
DPW Superintendent Tom Baptist called this “an opportunity to replant helpful native species for the benefit of birds and other wildlife.”
Additionally, a busted up concrete stairwell will be removed. Its main contemporary usage is to transport individuals from Park Terrace to below street level, into a part of the park that plays host to intravenous drug use. The walking paths in the area will remain open, however. These typically serve students on their commutes to and from school.
Depending on the weather, this effort should be completed in roughly two weeks. The DPW will next be looking to make similar improvements in Keney Park.
Mary Cockram
Bankside Grove will be substantially better when the City is done. Thanks to the Friends of Pope Park who have already cleaned out a ton of trash under David Morin’s direction.
The Pope Hartford Designated Fund will be doing some planning for Bankside Grove over the next few months–anyone interested in participating should contact us, http://popepark.org/contact-us/.
Kerri Provost
Thanks for this info, Mary. Hopefully the maintenance will be ongoing.
Richard
I was up there yesterday and liked what I saw so far especially the grove of trees that has been created near the old sitting area. I am hoping that this will really be an improvement not the same “improvement” that we witness where trees have been cut back from Park Terrance and loads of wood chips have been dumped along the roadway. Spells ugly to me.
I wonder though if the birds and the varmints that live in these woods really think that what is/was growing there are invasive species to be cut out of the picture? Or is it a matter of us humans thinking we know what is best for the creatures? If we do then we would not be doing this project now, in the winter, however mild. Those trees cut down did they hold the home of a squirrel? Under the concrete steps torn up a warm burrow for Miss Skunk or Master Possum. Did the forester, the mayor, and the city crew think about this before they began to gentrify the area and create refugees in the animal kingdom? I suppose many folks love controlled nature but I prefer the wild, and woodsy a place to escape from the city. I prefer the unpredictable coming upon wild flowers, a healing herbs, a roaming animal, bittersweet and other dried plants for our winter bouquets, and to just sit in a small patch of woods as the snow falls and the mind is transported to somewhere else far away from the city streets. Nah only a dream! A clean up, a hair cut is needed and to be sure, chase the intravenous drug users to somewhere else out of the neighborhood. Let’s just hope that the city does not bury trees half way up their trunks like in the last improvement of Bankside grove which of course killed the trees.