A series of entries designed to capture the ongoing adventures of NINA! See how we came to be where we are today, and follow along as we enter the new century of social media!
Page: 63After, there were performances on a temporary stage, and of course, people continued playing in the park. This was a terrific job and a terrific partnership between Hartford’s Department of Public Works, the Friends of Sigourney Square Park, and the Asylum Hill Neighborhood Association. The park is a major asset in Asylum Hill, and it’s marvelous to see it polished and so well used after all of the effort put into it over the last two years!
The actual speehifying involved prayer, certificates, dancing – all put together by the stalwart and intrepid president of the Friends of Sigourney Square Park, Luwannia Johnson-Martin.
People from all around the neighborhood started arriving well before the ribbon cutting.
The park improvements are in place, and Sigourney Square Park is open for the summer! The Friends of Sigourney Square Park held a ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the completion of the $700,000 capital improvement project at the park. Near completion: as you can see in the photos, the new grass is still being planted, but we all agreed that it was especially important to get the playscape and the splash pad open for the kids in the neighborhood as early this summer as possible.
Our morning started with municipal officials and neighborhood volunteers walking the park. Mark Tamaccio, Hartford DPW, brought his grandchildren – that’s him taking the photos at the slide in the splash pad.
The rooms are taking shape. Shots are from the first floor and from the front bedroom on the second floor.
Gardens are still going strong. These shots are from 107 Ashley, 98 Ashley, and 102 Huntington – and yes, that bamboo is real. Ask me sometime on a tour to tell you about the pandas.
A few last minute touches – very exciting that the park is back!
Things are coming along at 199 -- the painters are painting, the floorers are flooring, the carpeters are carpeting, and the carpenters are carpenting.
The remnants of Tropical Storm Andrea dumped a lot of rain on Hartford during the end of last week, maybe as much as two inches, and unfortunately Kent Pizza sustained significant damage as the rain caused the ceiling in the restaurant to collapse. That’s sort of a long story, but the basics are that a ventilation shaft went straight up to the roof, giving the rain an unimpeded path right into the kitchen.
While that’s bad news for Kent Pizza, it’s good news for our project. We’re working with the owners to renovate their space rather than later, as originally scheduled. Since they’re closed anyway, this is working out all the way around, and we should be able to keep them closed for a much shorter period of time than originally planned.
A look at last year's gardens, this year.
