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Historic Salem, Inc. helps out with Fort Lee Cleanup
Saturday, September 21, 2002

About fifteen volunteers (including new faces from across the City, Beverly and Marblehead -- this is turning into a regional preservation effort) turned up on Saturday, September 21 to aide in the latest chapter of this ongoing preservation project. The city sent employees and equipment from from various departments including the Cemetery and Shade Tree, Parks and Recreation the DPW.

The Mayor, mayor's aide (Tom Philbin), and the head of Parks and Recreation (Doug Bollen) all came down, as well as two guys from the "open space" department - Dave Cronan and Mike Albert. The city brought down a backhoe/front-end loaded, John Deere mini-tractor, chainsaws, and a bunch of other equipment.

The mayor went at it for quite a while with a chain saw, and intends to go back again soon. He seemed to enjoy it (maybe a little too much!!). Michael Williamson, co-organizer of the day's festivities, guessed it's a lot less stressful than being mayor. (So if the Mayor ever skips out for a while in the middle of a finance meeting, we're guessing that's where he can probably be found.)

John Clay from Parks and Rec. came down as a volunteer -- talk about your busman's holiday.

We concentrated on the north side of the hill and on the eastern part of the fort, including the granite stairs leading up to it. We got quite a bit done. The city will come down and chip what was cut. They'll also get the "boot camp" prisoners down there sometime soon for more clearing.

The front-end loader was put to good use in clearing the main path into a road of sorts, so that the chipper can be brought up -- which will save quite a bit of energy at this point in the project.

Mike Williamson, again led the volunteer charge while Tom Philbin did a great job in coordinating the city's effort. Liz Fleming shared her wonderful scrapbooks showing the restoration of Winter Island light as well as other construction, restoration and demolition projects in the Winter Island / Willows / Juniper Point neighborhoods. We hope to incorporate this unique record into our preservation resource center.

Overall a successful day, it's getting better all the time!!

PS: Take a drive by when you have a chance! And consider joining our merry
band the next time out!!!

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September 2002

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