ATHOL – The town’s Department of Public Works are putting the finishing touches on a brand new playground at Fish Park.
The playground, which is in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), was installed by Site Specifics, located in Rochester. DPW Director Paul Raskevitz said that the company has done a lot of work in central and western Massachusetts.
“The nice thing about Site Specifics is they sell a brand call Miracle Play Equipment,” he said. “It’s all American-made. They are, for lack of a better term, the Cadillac of play structures. They are the best.”
The playground equipment has been installed and re-seeding of the area around it has been completed. Construction of the handicapped-accessible parking lot will be done soon. The facility includes a rubber surface designed to prevent injury in case of a fall.
“It’s what’s called ‘fall protection’ – industry standard fall protection,” Raskevitz said. “There are multiple types of fall protection you can have on a play structure. There’s rubber chips, wooden chips….but this is by far the best because it’s very low-maintenance….that’s four-inch thick rubber.”
The new playground and protective surface were paid for with a $249,000 Municipal ADA Improvement Grant from the Massachusetts Office on Disability. Town officials had previously said that the funding was tied to a specific use and could not be redirected to another project.
The new playground followed months of public meetings, where residents were asked to give their opinions on the proposed new play structure. Many opposed the idea, as they preferred that the park remain an open area where kids could play. The site is a popular spot for sledding in the winter. Others wanted money invested in the park’s existing play structures.
“Keep what we have, improve on what we have and take care of it,” said resident resident Joel Shaughnessy at a public meeting on the proposal last November.
At that same meeting, then-Assistant Town Planner Heidi Murphy said that the playground was deemed unsafe by the state in 2021.
In response to a survey made available to the town last winter, residents raised a number of maintenance concerns at the park, including broken cement posts, trash, dog waste, graffiti, and wear on benches and other structures. The Sally Fish monument area and bandstand were frequently cited as areas in need of repair, and some respondents also pointed to limited parking as an ongoing issue.
Suggestions for improvements focused largely on repairing and updating existing features. Residents suggested restoring the bandstand and monument, adding new benches, improving the baseball field, planting shade trees and creating room for winter activities like ice skating.
On Jan. 27 of this year, the town’s Open Space and Recreation Review Committee recommended installation of the new playground and, at a meeting on Feb. 3, the Selectboard voted unanimously to move ahead with the project.
In 1857, Sally Fish donated five acres of land, which had formerly been part of a cow pasture, and became a playground for the neighborhood. The Athol school district took over the land and gave it to the Parks Department in 1920, when the name was then changed from Lower Common to Fish Park.
In the 1850s, the field was used by the town’s early baseball teams, and until the 1960s by Athol’s baseball and softball leagues. Tennis courts were also added in 1920 and 1927.