Summer 03

Many Friends shared in our recent Athenaeum bene-fit fundraiser, Art at the Athenaeum on May 31. Take a look at our centerfold for a photo-recap of this outstanding event! Co-chairs Jan Harrington and Heather Roy, Director of the Artana Gallery in Saxonville, are thrilled with the success of the day. The evening auction was a very profitable fund-raiser, and the daytime children’s art exhibit was very well attended. Art is such an important feature in our community – the galleries, the Saxonville Mill Studio Artists, and the many beautiful sources of inspiration.

It’s hard not to notice that the Historic Danforth Street Bridge is getting its fair share of attention this season. In fact, it’s on vacation at the time of this printing! In this issue, George Dixon shares with us the culmination of many years of hard work by both our organization and the Town of Framingham.

Friday nights have been a lot of fun for us at Concerts on the Green (see photo, page 7). You never know who’ll be dropping by to volunteer at the Friends of Saxonville table!

Whether we’re looking back to appreciate our past, standing in the present to appreciate our environmental assets, or looking forward and plan-ning for our community benefit, The Friends of Saxonville remain a vital and integral part of the Saxonville Community. We hope you will share this newsletter with your friends and neighbors – and en-courage their membership in our organization!

It’s Summer in Saxonville...

Inside this issue:

• Danforth Street Bridge Restoration Project

• School Days

• Art at the Athenaeum

• Cochituate Rail Trail Update

• Concerts on the Green

• Tree Planting at the Athenaeum

…..and so much is going on in our Village! Per-haps the first thing you’ll notice as you look at this newsletter is its somewhat new appearance. Jean Boli, who served as our newsletter editor for many years, has recently resigned from this job although she and husband Todd remain loyal Friends of Saxonville. Charlene Frary, a current Board member of Friends of Saxonville and our Secretary, has agreed to serve as editor for this quarterly publication. Charlene welcomes your ideas, your comments and all articles that you may wish to share. Please mail items for the editor to:

Charlene Frary

870 Old Connecticut Path

Framingham, MA 01701

Or email her at CFraryRltr@aol.com

Summer 2003

Article and Photos by George Dixon

Construction on the Danforth Street Bridge is finally under way! The Town has contracted with Colonial Steel Company to completely refurbish the bridge this summer. This work is being done under a "Save America's Treasures" grant from the National Park Ser-vice and matching funds from the Town of Framing-ham, the Massachusetts Historic Commission, and the Friends of Saxonville. The first step is to disassemble the bridge and truck it to an off site shop. The pictures at the right show this process: The first step was to remove the railing. This picture shows Alan Carpenito from Colonial Steel standing next to the decorative railing. Then they had to remove the steel decking and create a structure to support the sewer pipe that runs under the bridge. The next two pictures show this work. Finally they removed the two side trusses and loaded them on a special truck to haul them to the shop. In the shop they will replace some parts and to refurbish the rest. This will be painted and brought back for re-assembly and installation. We're expecting to have a fancy new looking wooden decked bridge by fall!!

Historic Danforth Street Bridge

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While working on this project, one of the young engineers from Lichtenstein

Engineering used the Danforth Street Bridge as the subject of a prize-winning design

project. He is seeking old photographs of the bridge, and we have been unable to

locate any on our own. If you have such a photo in your collection, please contact us.

School Days by Cynthia Buscone following year. However, I was one of the lucky ones. Two friends from Worcester commuted by bus everyday and gave their time to gain experience. The town reim-bursed them for the bus fare. My classroom was on the second floor (over the gym) in the old wooden building. This has been known by many names but Eileen Cunningham, Marion Clink and I al-ways thought of it as the Country Club – it had a joyful atmosphere and we all loved teaching and were so com-patible. The classroom was so spacious. There were forty adjustable desks and chairs bolted to the floor and as much open space for a reading circle, library table, playhouse, and room for games and activities. There was a low stage area at the front for plays and talent shows. The piano was well used and great for the toy orchestra. Not too long ago, a member of one of my early classes told me that he had always wanted to play the cymbals but he usually got the rhythm sticks. I told him I was sorry but he was sixty-five years too late! At that period in time, the children had little access to colorful books. So, since blackboards surrounded the room, I drew pictures of the characters in the stories I was reading. I well remember doing the Seven Dwarfs and Mickey and Minnie Mouse. Seeing the expressions on their sweet faces made the effort all worthwhile. The depression had cut the school budget to bare bones and teachers had to use their ingenuity. Challenging seat work was made of oak tag and put in envelopes which had to be updated frequently as little pieces would be misplaced by little hands. The ten years in the Saxonville School were the happiest of my thirty-three year teaching career. The children were so loving and unspoiled. They were appreciative and eager to learn. It’s hard to believe that many are now in their late seventies. I hope some of my students will remember me kindly, for I have so many warm memo-ries of them. In my mind, the Country Club is still stand-ing! - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Please make your school day memories a part of this window on the world of school in Saxonville! To share your recollections simply drop a line or an e-mail to the address below, or if you’d prefer to be interviewed in person or by phone, just call and we can make arrange-ments. Cynthia Buscone 107 Holliston Street Medway, MA 02053 cbuscone@aol.com (508)533-8958

Saxonville! Saxonville! Best school in the land!

Marion (Byrnes) Burke, the author of this edition’s school column, is 91 years old, and “still loving life!!!” She was prompted to write her recollections for the column by her cousin John Neal, as her perspective is unusual... that of stu-dent (she marched into the brick Saxonville School on the day it opened) and later as a teacher in the old wooden building. She reports how happy and excited she is with the goals of the Friends of Saxonville and what a “flood of memories” the arti-cles bring back, most notably the one of the ice harvest, be-cause John Mc Mann was her “wonderful grandfather”! Here is her school story: - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - My family lived at the top of the curved Danforth Hill and opposite Danforth Park. My mother was a homemaker; my dad was a printer in the Dennison Co. I had an older brother, Kippy, and a younger sister Ruthie. It was such a warm and friendly neighborhood. I transferred from Framingham to the sixth grade of the Saxonville Grammar School. It was a very old school with dark, dismal rooms. However, I had the most wonderful teacher, Miss Mary Eagen who truly brightened our lives. She was my favorite and years later she married my un-cle, Hugh McCann. How lucky can you get !!?! Saxonville Junior High School opened the following year and I entered the seventh grade. What an exciting time! The new building was like the Taj Mahal with bright, airy rooms and the auditorium with chandeliers and blue velvet draperies and stage curtain. What a sense of pride was felt by everyone in the village. I remember marching into the auditorium for assemblies as if I were in a military academy with the school orchestra playing. Mr. Ruddy, our principal, was always at the entrance to make sure we were all in step. There was even a cooking room and a sewing room. What a bonanza! As I recall it took about three weeks of lessons to learn to make cocoa. It seemed as though we cleaned the stoves most of the time. It took me a whole semester to make a case to hold needles. I realized very early that I would never be a chef or a seamstress! The one facility lacking in this beautiful school was a gymna-sium. We used a room in the primary building at the back of the new building. Although it was limited in space, we had many fun games of basketball. Little did I think that a few years later I would be teaching there. Fast forward a bit. After graduation from Framingham Normal School in 1931, I received a contract to teach the second grade in Saxonville for the annual salary of one thousand dollars. Due to the depression, that was cut to nine hundred dollars the

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Art at the Athenaeum

In early Fall of 2002, Hearther Roy, Gallery Director of Saxonville’s Artana, and Jan Harrington, Vice President of The Friend of Saxonville Board, began designing a dream, soon to be christened Art at the Athenaeum: Discover Saxonville 2003!. Saturday May 31, 2003 was to be the designated date for this event, whose “watch words” were simplicity, focus, and most important FUND RAISER-BENEFIT for the restoration of our Athenaeum Hall.

PAINT THE TOWN of Framingham was to be the overall theme of the day, reaching out to both local youth as well as local and regional adult artists. Students and their instructors rose to the task with great enthusiasm During the afternoon of the 31st, one was able to view many and varied colorful Framingham scenes...including such sites as the Memorial Building, our Historical Saxonville’s Fire Station, and ‘tes’, the Nobscot Shopping Center! In an elegant white tent on the Athenaeum’s front lawn, students received Athenaeum but-tons and award ribbons, with the high school students agree-ing to auction off their work to benefit the Athenaeum’s future at our evening art auction. The afternoon was topped off with an opportunity to “design” your own sundae – Ice Cream So-cial.

The evening program, supported by a multitude of local businesses, brought us Skinner Auctioneer, Stuart Slavid of Framingham, to auction off original art, with 60% of the funds going directly to the Building Fund and 40% going to the con-tributing artists. A silent auction presented numerous local artists’ renditions of Framingham locations. Saxonville Chef, Jim Pelham, served gourmet appetizers to get things started,

and the finale brought us his glorious desserts. Joseph Weinberg provided jazz guitar background music. All of the above took place in an inviting set-ting designed by Larson March Design Group, with the Framingham Garden Club, and Garden in the Woods.

Successful as Art at the At The Athenaeum became, it could not have been so without the contributions of Artana’s Gallery Director, our fifteen member compe-tent and creative event committee, the Town of Fram-ingham (particularly our Building & Grounds Depart-ment Head), local monetary and in-kind donors, and “last but not least”, many, many event attendees. THANK YOU – our focussed, fundraiser benefit grossed between $18000 and $19000. We have a very happy Athenaeum today!

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Reported by Jan Harrington, Event Co-Chair

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The Framingham section of the Cochituate Rail Trail (CRT) has been under development for the past two years and much has been accomplished. This multi-use trail will follow the abandoned Saxonville Branch rail line, and will extend 1 1/2 miles from Route 30 (near Home Depot) to the Sudbury River in Saxonville. The property is currently owned by two state agencies, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) and the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority (MTA). In September 2001, the Town of Framingham created the Framingham CRT Committee to oversee the development of the trail. The Committee has hosted 12 workdays so far and the rail line has been cleared of brush and trash. Removing 30 years of tree growth and illegal dumping is quite an accomplishment, and we would like to thank everyone involved in-cluding the Town, the MTA, and over a hundred volunteers from all over the region. Currently, the Town is seeking a long-term lease from the MBTA and the MTA before making further improvements to the trail and opening it to the public. The MTA and the Department of Environmental Management (DEM) have awarded grants to the Town for early trail development. A signalized crossing of Old Connecticut Path will be constructed and two small bridges over Cochituate Brook will be repaired. Once the trail has been opened, the Town will seek additional grants as well as private donations in order to make further improvements.

Update – Cochituate Rail Trail

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The lease negotiations have been under way for some time now and we are hoping to see progress in the near future. The section of trail owned by the MTA (from Route 30 to the MassPike) may open this fall. Several individuals and groups from MetroWest have asked the MTA to donate the entire property to the Town or to the DEM. At this time, the MTA in-tends to grant the Town an easement for trail use and sell off the remainder of the rail line. We invite you to attend our Summer Clean Up on Saturday, August 23rd (see below for details). The clean ups are a lot of fun, and it's a great opportunity to see the trail. The Framingham Cochituate Rail Trail Committee is seeking new members to help with this exciting community project. Members must live or work in Framingham, preferably close to the trail. If you are interested, contact Mara Yale at 508-877-1556. To contact the Framingham CRT Committee, or to join our email list for news, updates, future clean up an-nouncements, etc., send an email to: CRT-Friends@rcn.com For more information about the Cochituate Rail Trail visit: www.millermicro.com/crt.html Thank You, The Framingham CRT Committee

Seeds for Growth

Thanks to the Framingham Garden Club, a stunning new Dog-wood tree has been planted on the front lawn of the Athenaeum. The hole was prepared and subsequent watering was donated by Knox Trail Boy Scout Troop 21.

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Board of Directors

Friends of Saxonville _

Jim Barry, President Jan Harrington, Vice President

George Dixon, Treasurer Charlene Frary, Secretary

Tom Sydell Brett Peruzzi

Cliona McAllister Susan Silva

David Longden

FUNDRAISING

Each of the Friends of Saxonville’s five initia-

tives require funding on some level. With the Athenaeum requiring major funding and all of the other initia-tives’ minimum maintenance needs on the horizon, Friends are diligently exploring ways to financially pre-serve, protect and enhance our Saxonville community. Grant pro-posals for both capital expenses and capacity building are now being writ-ten. A drive to increase membership will be underway shortly. Please do what you can to support our common financial plea.

Fun, Music, Food, and FRIENDS!

Looking for a good time on a Friday night? Join us at Concerts on the Common this summer! Thanks to the efforts of Friend

Deb Cleveland and Framingham.Com, we have a presence at the Concert - providing

balloons, selling our T-shirts, hats and woodcuts, and making new FRIENDS.

Volunteer with Us!

Contact Deb at info@framingham.com or phone - 508-877-8863

Friends of Saxonville PO BOX 3236 Framingham, MA 01705

VISIT US ON THE WEB! WWW.SAXONVILLE.ORG

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Street:________________________________ Email:____________________________

Town________________________________ Evening Phone:_____________________

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Friends of Saxonville Membership Form

The mission of the Friends of Saxonville is to educate the public about the special identity of Saxonville, an historic neighborhood of Framingham, Massachusetts, and to preserve, enhance and protect its cultural, environmental and historical qualities.

CONTRIBUTION $_____________(Minimum annual dues are $15) I am interested in:

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PAID Permit No. 159

Framingham, MA

(detach and return to Friends of Saxonville, PO BOX 3236, Framingham, MA 01705)