Work begins on boxcar pavilion
By Linda Lemmon
Town Crier Editor
PUTNAM — Signs of spring — backhoes.
Construction has begun for the pavilion at the Gertrude Chandler Warner Boxcar Children Museum. Equipment cleared space for the concrete pad the pavilion will rest on. Museum Director Pat Hedenberg said workers intend to pour the concrete this week.
The pre-fab pavilion from Kloter Farm is made of white vinyl with a brown roof. It will be used for crafts, music, lessons and even town events, according to Hedenberg. The pavilion measures 14-foot by 20-foot and Woodstock Building Associates will be installing it.
April 30 and May 1 115 third-graders will descend on the boxcar museum. The museum and the Municipal Complex host the students each year.
Hedenberg said when the kids come, the buses run between the Municipal Complex (where they learn about Gertrude Warner and Putnam’s history at the library and Aspinock Historical Society) and the boxcar museum. If it’s raining there isn’t enough room for the students in the boxcar and the buses may or may not be at the museum.
The pavilion comes through the generosity of the Spirol Charitable Foundation which contributed $45,000 total. Originally Hedenberg went before the Spirol board last January. She asked for $50,000 for the replacement of rotted rail ties underneath the boxcar and the pavilion.
Board member Jim Shaw had asked Hedenberg “if she could dream, what would she love to see on the museum grounds.” The pavilion. They OK'd $10,000 for the rail tie replacement as it was urgent and asked her to come back later with details for the pavilion.
Last fall Hedenberg said she thought “What about landscaping?” The town asked what else should be there. Former Parks and Recreation Director Willie Bousquet made several suggestions. What about lights? So she asked Chaput Electric, which had donated electrical work when the museum was renovated, for a quote. He suggested adding a plug in case something might need to be plugged in. Then she got a quote for a 4-foot vinyl fence that would run along the top of the hill, between South Main and the boxcar. Then Bousquet suggested that crushed stone should be added along the fence so the fence would not be damaged by mowers. Jeff Rawson of Rawson Materials is donating that, just as Rawson had donated the stone used when the rail ties were replaced last year. And what about labor? Hedenberg asked NEPS Iron Horse for a quote.
When she’d gathered all the quotes, she appeared before the Spirol Foundation board and presented two proposals: One very simple including the pavilion, electrical work and vinyl picnic tables and the other with the dream items.
The board OK’d the dream proposal. Jeffery Koehl, president of Spirol and chair of the Spirol Charitable Foundation, told Hedenberg where to get the vinyl picnic tables as she was having trouble locating a source for those. The pavilion will be named the Fred Hedenberg Boxcar Pavilion after the late Fred Hedenberg, a longtime society member who made the boxcar museum happen. Aspinock Historical Society President John Miller thanked Hedenberg and Barbara Scalise for their hard work.
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