Park Bathrooms Taking Shape

By Steve Bigham

The Dickinson Park bathroom project is finally moving forward more than two years after being started, and it looks like it might be open for business by mid-summer. The cement structure, which is about halfway completed, withstood Saturday’s violent storm, which swept through the park.

But as the bathroom begins to take shape, people are now beginning to question the wisdom behind its location between the tennis courts and the pavilion, making it a focal point from the Elm Drive entrance to the park. The building is situated so the entrances to the bathrooms face the pavilion. People eating at the pavilion will be able to watch people go in and out of the bathrooms.

The area around the pool is equipped with portable bathrooms, but no permanent facilities. The walk to the new bathrooms will be a long one for kids in the pool. There are no plans to build bathrooms on the nearby Amaral property, which by next spring will be home to two new baseball fields. A path (about a third of a mile long) will be built to allow access to the new bathrooms.

Parks & Recreation Director Barbara Kasbarian said the bathrooms were originally slated to go up near the northern end of the pavilion. However, a town commission rejected the proposal because it was deemed too wet.

“Most of the park is in a flood plain so it makes it difficult,” Mrs Kasbarian said.

These days, the bathroom project is being handled by Public Works Department members Milton Adams, Bob Calabrese, and Rob Toth, who were forced to improvise on the project in the early going because they were given the wrong plans for its construction. Finally, the correct directions arrived and the job is now moving along smoothly.

This week the three men, along with summer helper Vinnie Nitopi, were seen mixing cement and pouring it into the walls.

For the bathroom project, the highway department was called on to bail the town out. Originally, the bathrooms were supposed to be constructed by an outside firm. However, contractors backed out, in favor of larger jobs, on two different occasions. Finally, the town turned to Public Works Director Fred Hurley and his crew to finish the job.