More pavers, perhaps ramps
By Linda Lemmon
Town Crier Editor
PUTNAM — Work continues at the Veterans Park — on all fronts — with the goal some significant progress by Memorial Day.
Last week Harvard H. Ellis Tech Masonry students returned to install 140 pavers. This week they will head back to the park to install about 600 pavers which represent the veterans found in town cemeteries including Aspinwall, Munyan, Grove Street, Nancy Drive and more. Robert Challinor Jr., chair of the Veterans Advisory Committee and spearhead of the park project, said another 600 pavers representing veterans found in St. Mary’s Cemetery will be installed at the park next year.
When some rehabilitation of the newly discovered Day-Bowen Cemetery in East Putnam is done, “there will be more pavers for veterans there to add to the list,” Challinor said.
At the Veterans Park last week, pea stone was placed on top of processed gravel in the now-expanded Court of Honor. Ellis instructor Andrew Hawes said 17 students are learning how to install a proper base and then how to properly install pavers. When that is done, he said, polymeric sand is swept across the pavers. With the addition of water, that sand, which contains some cement, locks in the pavers.
On order is a hefty black chain that will enclose the Court of Honor.
Two bronze plaques, which have been in the works for more than a year, are finished and will be installed on the two WWII granite monuments. More than 1,400 names are on those plaques.
The stone wall that was under the vinyl fence along the back of the park, bordering with the synagogue, was removed, replaced with loose stones. Challinor said that wall was “catching trash.”
That will come in handy on another phase the group is working on: Building two ramps, one on each side of the vinyl fence. Ellis Tech Masonry Department head Elliott Hayden was there last week, with 15-plus students, measuring for the concrete ramps. Because the synagogue owns the fence area, Challinor will put together a presentation for the synagogue. He hopes permission might be granted in time for the ramps to be installed in the fall. He added the park group intends to have a sign created for the synagogue parking lot — that parking is courtesy of the synagogue.
Hayden said the distance for the ramp at the edge of the fence closest to Church Street is 23 feet and the slope is 20 inches so that will mean that the ramp’s pitch will be gentle, less than 1 inch per foot. “That look like it will work,” he said.
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Left: Elliott Hayden measures for a ramp. More photos Wed. night on our FB page. Linda Lemmon photos.