Band Stand Location Debated-This Day in Norwood History-June 6, 1902

Possible Revival of an Old Issue Through Present Contingencies

The town of Norwood will undoubtedly have band concerts this summer, and thanks to the initiative given by the Woman’s Club the prospect is good for a beautiful and in every way suitable bandstand. A bandstand of handsome and attractive appearance is a really desirable ornament to a town if the town has some really suitable place for it. As a matter of fact, the town has at present no really suitable place.

There are almost as many objections to Chickering Square, or the Everett school lot near it, as to Hook Square. Hook Square is not, as we understand it, favored as a location for a bandstand by any excepting a few merchants doing business in the immediate vicinity. There may be a few others, but we expect these are very few, who would like to have the bandstand in Hook Square because that place is now and is likely to be for some time to come the practical business centre of town.

But sentiment is one thing. Questions of beauty and fitness of location are often quite another thing. We have never felt that the town did a really good job with Hook Square, They took off all the loam, cut down all the trees, and left the whole thing a dirty, barren, sandy waste, without green grass or shrubbery. It is in no sense suitable to the purposes of a common, this “Sandy Valley” set out in the middle of the road. The closeness of passing electrics and the dirty, sandy and unpleasant condition of the place doubtless influenced the musicians in their opposition to Hook Square a location.

There are almost as many objections to the Everett school lot. The lot itself is a handsome and desirable one, but its surroundings are such as to cause considerable objection on the part of those interested in neighboring public and private property. Near at hand are two large schoolhouses, the Methodist and Congregational churches, and the Morrill library. The grounds of these buildings are hardly improved by the accumulation of peanut shells, orange peels, et cetera, which always accompany a band concert.

Looking over the whole field, one is forced to the conclusion that the town has no place handy, convenient, and central for a permanent bandstand. We are in this dilemma forced to the conclusion that no harm would be done by a re-opening of an old controversy. The town’s need of a park has begun to present itself in a concrete form.

Some years ago when the Hoyle lot controversy was at its height, we did not favor the public park project. Conditions have changed a good deal since then. The town has been growing a good deal down Hoyle Street way. Houses, stores, and business blocks have come in, and the place, though by no means as central yet as it might be, is in many respects far more central than it formerly was.

Moreover, the town has given its decision. or decided to delay other matters which were pressing forward for settlement when the park agitation first sprang up. Sewerage is postponed for a time. So is the town hall matter. The old station controversy is over, and the chance for people acting together without prejudice or friction is much better than it was then.

The Hoyle property, what remains of it, presents a convenient location, not for an expensive park, which the town could hardly afford to have, but for a small common, which could at once be put into shape for public purposes, and on which a bandstand might be located. The town, we repeat, is in better condition to act and to act intelligently than it formerly was on this matter. Conditions have changed and the scheme for a small public park has become an apparently feasible one.

At all events, whatever objections may be offered, it can now do no harm to revive the controversy and to see whether we want to invest in a small public park or not. We have always felt that the park commissioners gave up the fight for their project rather sooner than was necessary. A longer and harder fight might have changed things. As things are now, we look to see a revival of the whole question through the dilemma which the location of a bandstand puts the town in. The citizens will have a chance to fully discuss the matter at a hearing before the selectmen next Monday evening.

It is suggested that an article relating to purchasing land for a park might be put in the next town meeting warrant.

(All articles were originally published in the Norwood Messenger unless otherwise noted)