ATHOL — Local officials, civic leaders and neighbors convened at Fish Park on Tuesday for a ribbon-cutting at the new playground there, months after children and families started visiting it.
There are still some finishing touches needed to complete the project, but people showed up to officially add the new, fully accessible playground to Athol’s inventory of recreational amenities.
On hand for the ribbon-cutting was former Assistant Town Planner Heidi Murphy who, with input from Planning Director Eric Smith, Town Manager Shaun Suhoski, and others, wrote an application for a state Municipal ADA Improvement Grant that provided the $249,000 needed for the playground. The facility became a reality despite pushback from some of the park’s neighbors. Many said at community meetings in November and December of and at various municipal meettings that they they wanted the park to remain an open area for outdoor play. Others wanted the money for improvements to the playground that was replaced.
“I’d like to see achievements like this made in all of our communities, especially of this kind, because everybody should have access to play,” state Rep. Susannah Whipps said prior to the ribbon-cutting.
Admitting she sometimes stops and plays the park’s xylophone, Whipps added, “It’s all sensory. You’ve got so much going on here. And it’s a place where everybody is welcome, which is what we should aspire to anyways. It’s open and available and here for everybody.”
The playground, which is now in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), was installed by Site Specifics, of Rochester. DPW Director Paul Raskevitz told the Athol Daily News in an earlier interview that the company has done a lot of work in central and western Massachusetts and sells a brand called Miracle Recreation.
“It’s all American made,” he said in July. “They are, for lack of a better term, the Cadillac of play structures. They are the best.”
In addition to a variety of interactive attractions, the playground also boasts a spongy, rubber surface designed to prevent injury during falls.
“There are multiple types of fall protection you can have on a play structure,” Raskevitz explained. “There’s rubber chips, wooden chips … but this is by far the best because it’s very low-maintenance … That’s 4-inch thick rubber.”
“We want to thank our former assistant planner, Heidi Murphy, who was instrumental in getting the playground built,” said Smith, who emceed the ribbon-cutting. The ADA Improvement Grant program is overseen by the Massachusetts Office on Disability, he explained, while thanking Whipps and state Sen. Jo Comerford for their support and efforts on behalf of the project.
In 1857, Athol resident Sally Fish donated 5 acres of land, which formerly served as a cow pasture, and which went on to become a neighborhood playground. The Athol school district obtained the land and gave it to the town’s Parks Department in 1920. At that time, the name was changed from Lower Common to Fish Park.
The field was used by the town’s early baseball teams in the 1850s and by Athol’s baseball and softball leagues until the 1960s. Tennis courts were added to the park in 1920 and 1927.