My View of Life on the Dock
Reblogged from Gloucester Police Facebook
The Blynman Bridge is currently closed due to damage from a boating accident. Emergency services are on scene and MASS DOT is enroute to assess the extent of the damage and make repairs. Please avoid the area for the time being.
If you stop to think about how many projects Gloucester’s DPW is pulled into that they may not have spearheaded but must deliver and complete, all the while doing their essentials, it’s no wonder other Public Works look at what Gloucester’s DPW provide and think they do a model job.
For permanent infrastructural projects (see Stacy Boulevard series) it’s evident that form and beauty are taken into consideration as much as possible.
There’s a lot more green in the GHS Flood Control Project 2023 since the last photographs I posted a month ago. More plantings and landscaping coming will add even more appeal. New trees were laid this week.
“Construction went smoothly. With permanent infrastructure it’s tricky to balance form over function. Form is so, so important! To me. To the City. To the residents. I always try to strike a balance.”
Mike Hale, Dir. DPW, Gloucester, MA
Diagonals and lines are incorporated into the landscape elements and the zig zag, tapered wall itself which is wide enough–by design for its purpose–and that someone climbing, sitting, or walking on top is not hurt. Final rounds of hydro seeding should be finished by Friday. Crews are working on “small stuff and finishing touches”. Removal of equipment like the mini excavator are scheduled for Monday.
At this stage in the project, the grassy walk is wide and welcoming and the Annsiquam humming with activity. Two geese sauntered past unbothered. Maintaining public space and green additions are evident. The old preschool at the highschool’s playground equipment is enhanced and feels upgraded to a waterfront walk and park that’s as fun to visit as Cripple Cove. With 1000 less enrolled at GPS there’s ample room at GHS for relocating the preschool and school administration from Blackburn back into the highschool. There might even be room for the Pond Road or other city offices. They can make use of an enhanced amenity. When this community space opens there’s a full circle longer walk option around the school: from Dun Fudgin/Emerson, back of school, bit of Centennial to the riverwalk.
The public can resume access to the riverwalk along the ‘squam between the Cut and Dun fudgin’ next week. There are three ways to walk on: 1)to the right of the bridge tender from Stacy Boulevard, 2)from the high school (by the softball field), and 3)Dun Fudgin’. The bridge tender is city property; they lease it from the city. If you check out the progress before Tuesday, you can see the temporary fences and locked gates which will be removed.
**Managed and partially funded by City of Gloucester, DPW**
Managed: City of Gloucester DPW
Engineers: GZA GEO Environmental, Amesbury
Contractor: Charter Contracting Boston
Status: nearly across the finish line.
Progress: as of June 21, 2023 completion ETA is Monday June 26, 2023. Gates open Tues.
Project start (historic): pre 1900
Modern project start: on the ground January 2023
Funding Awarded by:
Bid Open and contract amount: 3.244M
Contract completion: 2023
Locations: Along ‘Squam length between cut bridge and dun fudgin
Priority: 1,439 linear feet of flood wall necessity, for safety and continued investment along an area the city has developed since the landfill late 1800s, and longer related to the Cut. Infrastructure project with quality of life benefits for residents and visitors. Rather than traditional loud pneumatic pile driving, special drive sheets were fabricated to offset the noise (essentially vibratory)
Temporary work site chain link fence: Required. The chain link fence is installed by the contractor to protect the work zone and define it better. Will be removed as soon as possible.
High Res plans here
Directly across the river, construction for another wall encircling the city’s wastewater treatment facility is nearly finished. That project includes deployable gates for overflow.
The city’s investments in infrastructure is not new nor its evergreen commitment to improvements.
Fiscal year 2023 the City’s proposed budget is 133.9M. The DPW budget is about 32.1M million. For comparison, the school budget is about 50M*, 60% more. If we want more services or faster, money is another piece of the form vs. function balancing act.
*50M base number excludes: facilities rental for preschool/admin at Blackburn, etc.; school choice out tuition costs; Essex Tech expenditure; new school project; and special budget supplemental request/loan orders (e.g. school portion of 2.15M IT)
DPW did not install the greenhead boxes in Gloucester. In the photos above you can see greenhead boxes added to the salt marsh here as well as the new ones behind Good Harbor Beach. The Commonwealth’s Northeast MA Mosquito Control installed 58 traps. Last year it was 20. There’s a history of mosquito AND greenhead control combined action plans by the state which I wrote about here when I saw the new Good Harbor ones. I will add to that list an article by Ethan Forman who wrote about Essex and Wingaersheek and the city considering reenrolling. See Gloucester Daily Times here. That article mentions board of health asking city council for greenlight for the greenheads (each box about $90 a piece and a 3 year contract).
I will try to find a map or list of site locations. In the recent past I remember them in the marsh behind Lobsta Land. Apparently there were a fleet of them in the 1980s. Do you remember seeing them in more places at that time or were you involved back then? I’d love to learn about any tallies and sites and compare with 2023.
May 28, 2023
Photos; on the ground show work in progress with views across and from Stacy Boulevard, the Cut (Blynman), Centennial, Gloucester High School (parking lot, Newell Stadium). Scroll down for before photos.
[*note on photos: click “i” to enlarge to view full size.]
A century+ of intervention.
photos: Dump and landfill atop the saltmarsh | misc. views 2018-2021 | signage and planting related to earlier flood mitigation project at/with the high school
They are all going in the same direction. Must be good food under the ocean.
The Boston Globe included Gloucester among its beautiful Memorial Day roundup in 1927. Inspired by Gloucester’s annual Fishermen’s Memorial service, a new addition was incorporated into Gloucester’s Memorial Day observances that year. Perhaps this gesture could return for future programs.
“This maritime place which some time ago adopted the custom of strewing the waves at an annual (Gloucester Fishermen’s) memorial service inaugurated another feature today.
“During the exercises at the Cut Bridge, in honor of the Naval dead, two seaplanes from Coast Guard Base 7 commanded by Commander Carl C. Von Paulson and Ensign Leonard A. Melka, circled over the outer harbor strewing flowers.
“Gloucester lost two airman during the WWI, Ensign Eric Adrian Lingard and 2d Liet. Maxwell Parsons. “Members of the G.A.R. Spanish War Veterans, Legion, and auxiliaries proceeded to Oak Grove Cemetery this morning where exercises were held after which the veterans moved to the Cut Bridge. Details from the servicemen’s posts had previously decorated the graves with flowers and foliage. The main exercises were held this afternoon in City hall auditorium, which was filled to its capacity…”
Boston Globe, May 31, 1927
In 1937, the Gloucester Playground Commission dedicated the Maxwell Parsons Playground in East Gloucester, the neighborhood of his youth:
Named in Honor of
Lieut. Arthur Maxwell Parsons
U.S. Flying Corp
Born Dec. 11, 1895
Died July 3, 1918
Inscription on the tribute plaque
Have you watched Atlantic Crossing on PBS Masterpiece?
Local airman, Eric Adrian Lingard, was part of a daring and brave crew that drove a German U-Boat from the shores of his home state during the July 21, 1918 attack on Orleans, off Nauset Beach.
In 2012, Fred Bodin shared this dynamite photo with Good Morning Gloucester
“On October 18th, 1918, Lingard’s plane went down in heavy seas due to engine failure, and he died of pneumonia 11 days later. The Lingard home is diagonally across Washington Street from the Annisquam Church, and was later the home of the renowned Crouse family (Sound of Music lyrics and actress Lindsey Crouse).”
Fredrik D. Bodin, Good Morning Gloucester, 2012
After suffering more than a day in rough seas off Cape Cod, all the while assisting another brother in arms, Lingard and others were rescued from the frigid deep. Later, he succumbed from pneumonia exposure [and/or 1918 flu epidemic, still present that late. For example, the “two brothers who co-founded the Dodge Bros. automobile manufacturing company contracted the flu in New York in 1919: John died at the Ritz hotel in January 1920, and Horace in December 1920 after a wicked year battling its complications.” Search “Notables- Flu Cases and the Arts” Influenza Epidemic 1918 of Gloucester]
Open space in Annisquam, Soldiers’ Memorial Woods, was given by Lingard’s sister, Olga, his sole family member.
NAME: Annisquam Soldiers Memorial Wood
-from Gloucester, Ma. Archives Committee
LOCATION: Washington Street, along Lobster Cove
CAMPAIGN: World War I
TYPE: Bronze tablet in granite stone
DATE DEDICATED: July 7, 1929
INSCRIPTION:
Annisquam
Soldiers Memorial Wood
In grateful remembrance of
John Ernest Gossom
Eric C. Lingard
Bertram Williams
who gave their lives for their country
in the World War
Lingard’s name can be found WWI | Harvard Memorial Church
Where is the hull of Seaplane HS 1695, decommissioned by then Sect. State FDR to Gloucester’s park commission? GMG reader Bill Hubbard commented on Bodin’s photo, surmising:
“Nice old photo, Fred. For years before and during WW-II, the hull of a similar plane was in the lower level of the Twin Light Garage on East Main Street. The garage was owned by the late Ray Bradly who lived on Rocky Neck. As kids, we often played around it and I remember Ray telling us that it had been a WW-I airplane – I believe it was an old Coast Guard bi-winged seaplane. There were no wings or rudder, just the hull which was shaped very much like the one in the picture. Not long after the end of the war, they dragged it out to the flats on Smith Cove and burned it.”
Bill Hubbard, GMG reader comment reply to Fred Bodin, 2012
Fred Buck selected Joan of Arc photographs from the Cape Ann Museum for the HarborWalk Joan of Arc marker. We liked this one. The parade retinue includes a truck carrying wreckage from Lingard’s plane.
Gloucester, Mass.- Great teacher at Gloucester High School, Shaun Goulart, creates a local history scavenger hunt trivia game for his 9th grade students that takes place weekly for 6 weeks. We’re taking the challenge one week after the students. Good luck!
ANSWERS TO SHAUN GOULART’S LOCAL HISTORY TRIVIA WEEK THREE
How did you do? Week three was all about some famous Gloucester FIRSTS and there were many locations. Stop here if you prefer to go back to see Week 3 questions only.
Principal Albert Bacheler CENTRAL GRAMMAR
PURITAN HOUSE built in 1810 by Col. James Tappan* is a historic house at 3 Washington Street and 2 Main Street. Also known as: Tappan’s Hotel, Gloucester Hotel (“Tappan’s Folly”), Atlantic House, Mason House, Community House, Capt Bills (1960s-70s), Puritan House & Pub (1977), Blackburn Tavern (1978-00s) *Tappan was taught by Daniel Webster
Excerpt from prior GMG post (read it here) about scenic tours by bike 1885: “And now let’s take our wheel for a short run along our harbor road to East Gloucester, and note the many points of interest on the way. The start is made at the Gloucester Hotel–the headquarters of all visiting wheelmen in the city–at the corner of Main and Washington streets; from thence the journey takes us over the rather uneven surface of Main street, going directly toward the east. In a few minutes we pass the Post Office on the left, and soon leave the noisy business portion of the street behind us, then, e’re we are aware of it, we reach and quickly climb the slight eminence known as Union Hill…” This brick building at Main and Washington now features Tonno Restaurant. Notice the chimneys and same stairs as when it was the Gloucester Hotel. The Blackburn Tavern sign was just marketing; this building has no connection. Blackburn’s Tavern is now Halibut Point restaurant at the other end of Main Street.
“RIGG’S HOUSE” 27 Vine Street (Annisquam) Thomas Riggs House purchased in 1661
oldest house on Cape Ann, Gloucester, MA
Look under the year on cenotaph surrounding Man At Wheel
Our Lady of Good Voyage – read more http://gloucester.harborwalk.org/story-posts/sp-20/
Subshop with a view- through Destinos window
1644! – 103 Centennial Drive – top of Centennial Drive near the train bridge
Last night’s moonrise over the Back Shore was spectacular. Click on the sequence above to see full size. I don’t know why the Moon has a “neck” in the middle photo, or what that reflective appearance is termed, but it was so interesting to see.
February’s Snow Moon was also a Super Moon. It was the the second of a trio of Super Moons taking place in 2019. The Super Snow Moon was also the largest of the three (closest to Earth). The third and final Super Moon of the year is taking place on March 21st.
Our Charlotte loves looking at the Moon, so when she popped up in bed at 5:30 in the morning and exclaimed Moon!, I bundled her up and off we went to see the Moon setting over the Harbor. I wrote last month that she loves looking up in the sky for the Moon, largely from reading her the story book Good Night, Moon, and now we are reading Buenos Noches, Luna, practicing for an upcoming trip to Mexico.
NASA: When a full moon appears at perigee (its closest point to Earth), it is slightly brighter and larger than a regular full moon—and that’s where we get a ‘supermoon.’ The phrase was coined in 1979.
Two hundred feet of canal gravity wall is being reconstructed, extending from the bridge tender’s house around where you see visible in the photographs. This section of sea wall was dry laid granite block. The ebb and flow of tides and wakes took an inevitable toll, pulling debris material–like migrating soil— out from behind the wall. Over time the blocks settled, sidewalks sagged, and ruptures framed views into hollow voids 15 feet deep. Weakened considerably, areas were cordoned off until funding (Seaport Advisory and Executive Office of Environmental Affairs) was secured. The bridge tender’s house is abandoned which is why there is a temporary structure across the street. The state will be rebuilding that at a later date; the control house and the bridge are MassDOT purview and “likely a number of years out until a final plan is done.”
The new sea wall is the “mack daddy of building construction” befitting such an iconic locale. DPW is reusing the same gorgeous rugged blocks and materials, but now there’s footing where there never was any. The historic granite face is tied to reinforced steel. There’s a concrete core wall. Mike Hale Director of Gloucester’s Department of Public Works said the City is mindful of retaining the aesthetics and history, pronouncing any new stone “modular, lego-like” build an anathema to the site and residents.
Thanks to DPW for forwarding these details with labeled drawings explaining the infrastructure behind what’s visible:
You can question my haphazard route, but it’s hard to question the picturesque nature of where we live. Amazing. Home to Manchester from Gloucester, via Magnolia.
I was down along the boulevard for a walk around 9:00 this morning and saw this. Only in Gloucester!
David Michael Photos-
Philip Scannell writes-
I have made this part of our National campaign against “RUST” guess where the Rusty Rail is ?
Good Morning Gloucester 