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Vol. 4, No. 9
Thursday, October 24, 2002
Contents | Wellington News | Home
Contents | Wellington News | Home
Spooky stories for Halloween will be told by Melody Lee at Wellington Park on Saturday, October 26 from 5 to 6 pm. Melody is a local resident on Henshaw Terrace as well as an English and drama teacher at Somerville High School. She will be telling two stories: "The Dead Man's Hand", an Italian folk tale, and "Vasilissa the Wise", a Russian folk tale. They each run about 20 minutes in length. Please note that the event is appropriate for ages 6 years and up. Younger children may find the tales a little too spooky. Attendees may wish to dress warmly, bring a flashlight and blanket or chair to sit upon. Cider and cookies will be served.
In case of severely inclement weather, we will move the venue to the Newton Community Service Center at 492 Waltham Street (possibly the gymnasium). If this occurs, a person or sign will be posted at Wellington Park to redirect attendees. We can easily walk to there from Wellington Park. We would appreciate any volunteers to help with this event. It should be just getting dark around the end of the event since Daylight Savings Time is still in effect on Saturday.
A notice about our Spooky Stories was published in the Newton Tab and the Franklin School Connection this week so we may have attendees from other parts of the city. If you notice anyone seemingly driving about confused on late Saturday afternoon (perhaps by the orthogonal nature of Henshaw Street or other local street anomalies), please help direct them to Wellington Park. For those who come from afar, Wellington Park is on Kilburn Road, which is the extension of Henshaw Street off River Street. Kilburn is one block east of Cherry Street (at Henshaw Street) in West Newton. The event is sponsored by our organization, Citizens for Wellington Park (617-969-6222, wellingtonpark@aol.com).
If this event works out, we may arrange other story telling events at the park or nearby. Our story teller, Melody (617-527-0939) would be eager to hear of any local tales, legends, or stories that could be adapted for future tales.
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Newton Community Service Center will have a Halloween Fair for pre-school children and toddlers on Saturday, October 26 fro 10 am to 1 pm. The event will feature a giant mega-maze (in the auditorium), games, door prizes, and pumpkin decorating. NCSC is at 492 Waltham Street (the former Davis School) behind the CVS parking lot. This is a great local event for young children! For more information, please call 617-969-5906, ext 123. NCSC is also our sponsoring non-profit organization, which helps us tremendously by administering our Wellington Park Fund.
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As reported in our last issue, sometime on Saturday, October 5, the play structure at Wellington Park was vandalized with graffiti. Primarily the tube slide was spray painted with black paint inside and out. Special thanks are due to Bob Mobilia and Max Senter who quickly went to work that day with paint thinner to try to remove what they could. Subsequently, the police were notified and they responded by immediately sending an officer over to take a report. Photos of the graffiti were taken as well. Shades of CSI-Newton!
The Parks and Recreation Department responded as soon as they were notified and removed most of the remaining graffiti. One of Newton's police youth staff, Officer George Claflin, investigated the case and the crime has been solved! Three boys were involved and admitted to the deed. While they could have been taken to court, we agreed to the following plan. The boys would participate in cleaning up the remaining graffiti under supervision. They would also pay restitution, possibly to the Newton Parks and Recreation department in compensation for their cleanup efforts, and in addition to the Wellington Park Fund to at least purchase additional graffiti remover for our organization and for Parks and Rec.
A very important point here is that any vandalism should be reported immediately to the Newton Police. Unless it's a true emergency situation, the business number to call is 617-552-7240. If you forget, just look up the number in the blue pages of the West directory under Newton, City of - . Otherwise please let the Park Committee know about it at 617-969-6222 (d/e) and we will contact the police department about it.
Contents | Wellington News | Home
Small acts of graffiti that are uncorrected can lead to more! It is requested that, while not permanent in nature, chalk not be used to write on the play structure. This writing being seen could lead to the perception that it is okay to write on the structure with more permanent writing implements. Please restrict chalk drawing to the court areas. They make a very large writing surface that the rains periodically erase.
Another practical request is to not smoke in the play structure area. As reported last time, there were a fair number of butts found and removed in the enclosed play area. This could pose a danger to small children who will pick up anything. It goes without saying, please don't litter. The bags placed at strategic locations throughout the park can be used for pickup of litter (as well as dog waste). The common technique is to use the bag as a glove and then turn it inside out.
For some reason, two of the three trash cans in the park have vanished leaving only one on Kilburn (north) for disposal. An inquiry has been made to Parks and Rec. who were going to check with the department that picks up the barrels. We recently found some manufacturers of barrel tops that would work with our barrels. One of the cans at NCSC uses a cover product by Rubbermaid. We will look into getting these for use on our barrels. Ann Dorfman recently also found a source of small recycled plastic sign bulletin boards. Something like this would make sense for our park for posting events, newsletters, etc.
We were recently approached by the Newton Historical Society for a letter of support for their CPA (Community Preservation Act) grant application for restoration work at the three city historic burying grounds. West Parish Burying Ground is only a block from Wellington Park at River and Cherry Streets and dates back to the earliest days of Newton. Most local people may be unaware of its historical significance. We hope to cosponsor, with the Jackson Homestead and the Historical Society, some historical walks within the grounds in the future perhaps next Memorial Day.
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Paul Ruzynski (River Street) and his faithful well known beagle Abbie have recently departed the area for warmer pastures to Mount Pleasant, South Carolina where he will be opening up and managing a new Tweeter store. On their recent moving day morning, a gathering of about thirty friends and canines had a small farewell gathering at the park. This is a good example of the kind of community a well used park can foster. Paul promises to stay in touch by email and insists on keeping up his costly subscription to the Wellington Park News. (just kidding - it's free).
Anyone interested in fostering better relations between dog owners and non dog-owners at Wellington Park is invited to join our Canine Affairs Committee which was formed last spring. Please contact Robin Rouse (robin_rouse@us.ibm.com). Some time in the near future, an aldermanic committee will be considering some dog related issues (dog parks, restricted off leash hours, etc). A possible association of dog owners in Newton may be formed. If you are potentially interested in a neighborhood chapter of such a city wide dog association, please contact Joyce Traister (joycetraister@rcn.com).
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Wellington Park News is an email publication of Citizens for Wellington Park. If you would like to receive it by email just send a request to wellingtonpark@aol.com. The Wellington Park News email edition is the fastest and easiest way for to keep in touch with you.
Others may be reading it on the park entrance clipboards. If you wish to subscribe, just send an email or call (617) 969-6222 and leave a message. Or if you wish to be removed from the list, let us know the same way. Email addresses change often, so, if you used to get this newsletter and now don't (since you may be reading it on a clipboard), send us your new email address.
If you send email to us, please try to put in the "Subject" something relevant about your email (e.g. "want to subscribe, help with the Parkfest"). Due to being posted on the web, our email address gets a substantial amount of junk spam email, most of which is deleted before reading. Normally we do not send out mail with attachments (a common source of viruses). If we do on rare occasions send an attachment (e.g. a park diagram), we will alert you as to its detailed content in the body of the email.
It comes to you from the address dolanpond@aol.com since that account has an AOL "bulk mail" permit. Replies can be sent to either dolanpond@aol.com or preferably to wellingtonpark@aol.com.
And of course, check out our web site www.wellingtonpark.org. Back issues of Wellington Park News are available online. Hope to see you at the park soon!
Contents | Wellington News | Home
Contents | Wellington News | Home