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STATEMENT OF PURPOSE AND CONCERNS

Mission

Friends of India Point Park is a group of citizens dedicated to protecting, improving, and expanding India Point Park in ways that uphold its integrity as an informal, natural open space. We support improvements that are consistent with the Park’s character as an unstructured refuge from the city.

What We Celebrate
We celebrate the quirky, free-spirited nature of the Park where forsythia and wild roses run as freely as children. We celebrate the different ways people enjoy the Park: strollers, runners, sun bathers, boaters, soccer players, sailors, dogs and their owners, Tai Chi enthusiasts, Brown rowers, spectators at special events, children playing on the swings and sledding on the hill, and others who find respite from the confines of urban life in the looser contours of a shoreline park.

We treasure the unpretentious character of the Park. While also used by people from other parts of the city, India Point is primarily a neighborhood park that should continue to reflect the diverse, unassuming Fox Point community it serves.

We treasure the Park for its historic heritage evoked by stone piers, wooden pilings, submerged wrecks, and the replica of the Continental Sloop Providence docked at the Park. We value its wide views of the city waterfront. And we revel in the Park's natural beauty: the sunrises and sunsets of its expansive skies, the graceful trees and unencumbered landscape, the swans, ducks, and seagulls, and the deep breaths of fresh air it affords.

Our Concerns

We are meeting with city and state officials to express our appreciation for their support for the Park and to discuss our concerns about the Park for today, tomorrow, and beyond. Here are some of them:

Current Needs of the Park:

    • increased public safety, including better police protection, especially after dark
    • more trees and bushes to better shield the Park from traffic (taking into account upcoming construction)
    • better maintenance to clear tidal refuse, block cars from parkland, etc.
    • resurrecting the old public access to the water off Gano St.

During Construction of 195:

    • disruption of the Park resulting from fencing, noise pollution, and the use and storage of heavy equipment
    • changes in Park boundaries and acreage
    • new traffic patterns leading to increased congestion; safety hazards for children, dogs, bikers, etc; and increased noise, air, and water pollution
    • landscape changes, such as construction of a highway runoff pond, and the design of walls, berms, and planting to separate roadways from Park walkways
    • parking for Park users
    • the design of the new footbridge over 195 and its impact on the sledding hill
    • leaving in place the picturesque, historic wooden pilings and sunken wrecks, which do not obstruct boats using Park docks.
Long-Range Plans:
    • limited commercial waterfront development that will have minimal impact on the celebrated informal, natural character of the Park and will not obstruct its expansive water views
    • linking the Park to city riverwalks and the Heritage Harbor Museum
    • design of public facilities for boating, biking, etc. to enhance, not detract from, the character of the Park.

For More Information We invite citizens who share our concern for upholding the integrity of India Point Park to join our efforts. For further information, please contact the Friends of India Point Park at the above address.

6/02

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