Garden to sprout in Highlands

LYNN – A public garden will bloom at Cook Street Park next summer although it will be slightly smaller than originally planned.”I think it will be a positive,” said Ward 2 City Councilor William Trahant. “It’s baby steps, we’ll try it for a year and test it out.”Parks Commission Chairman Steven Babbitt said Tuesday that the commission already approved a plan for a garden but it was contingent on Trahant and Department of Public Works Director Manuel Alcantara smoothing out some final details regarding an abutter.Trahant said resident Lisa Connolly had some concerns with the original plan that called for two large gardens on the hilltop that overlooks the park’s main entrance. He said he met last month with residents and members of the Highlands Coalition, which devised the original plan. The result is a scaled back design that incorporates only one, smaller garden bed.Connolly said she appreciated that her concerns were acknowledged and that an alternative plan was offered.”The neighbors will take care of it,” Trahant told the commission during its regular meeting. “It’s just to get a positive presence in the park and some eyes on the playground.”The Highlands Coalition first broached the idea of a public garden after a student video of a brawl between two teenage females went viral on YouTube. The incident brought a blast of unwanted attention to the park and fed into concerns that gangs were making the park an unsafe area for kids.Historical Commissioner Katerina Panagiotakis Koudanis said her organization would like to inventory the park before any work got under way. The park is defined by a noteworthy wall that Koudanis said the commission suspects was built by the Work Progress Administration. Developed under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt during the Great Depression, the WPA employed millions of unskilled laborers across the country to carry out public works projects like establishing park lands.Koudanis also said she would like to see the playground area restored to its original “historic characteristic,” which would include utilizing existing garden beds in the area rather than establishing new garden beds in the open space above.”It’s a unique playground that we hope to restore to its original concept,” she said.Trahant said there were no plans to touch the walls or the staircases built by the same design. But he also said the playground is on a list to be refurbished and he doesn’t want to do anything with it until that happens.”The garden will not take anything away,” added Highlands Coalition member David Gass. “It can enhance the area and bring people back. Bringing people back is critical to any open space.”Chris Stevens can be reached at [email protected].