Community Ideas Wanted for Lawson Park Project

By Michael Coughlin Jr.

As the Gazette reported previously, Lawson Park did not receive around $500,000 in Community Preservation Act (CPA) funding for planned renovations. However, that is not stopping those in the Egleston Square community from looking for ways to liven it up.

“We’re just looking for things to activate Lawson Park. It’s a pretty little park, and we just need some other human energy to brainstorm ideas,” said Carolyn Royce during the Egleston Square Neighborhood Association’s monthly meeting on Monday, Mar. 6.

“Also to help planning a lot of those things wouldn’t take a whole lot of money, but it would be fun and put good energy into the park.”

Royce mentioned some previous ideas that have been broached, like having a tour of the gardens around Egleston that either ends or begins at Lawson Park. She also talked about bringing an event to Lawson that included trading plants and seedlings.

Other ideas included history tours of Egleston, concluding with serving lemonade at the park and even figuring out a way to get temporary art to the park.

“Something just interesting there that would just be fun to maybe have a contest and pick out somebody, some temporary art piece that could go in there that was just going to last for a year or so, or six months,” said Royce.

A resident, Peter DeCotis, shared one idea, saying, “Food is always a good thing, like ice cream carts or tacos. You can have something each day or whatever or taco Fridays or whatever – something like that.”

Magda Drici, who has been working with Royce to develop ideas to activate the park, mentioned things like working with small businesses in the area and selling some merchandise at stands.

Drici also said, “We’re thinking of a couple gardening events, which we often do clean-up and gardening, maybe a Juneteenth celebration coupled with the reading of Frederick Douglass’ speech.”

Drici also alluded to the fact that she was thinking of doing a children’s clothing and toy swap.

As spring and some warmer weather rapidly approach, it is clear that both Royce and Drici are looking for ways to make the park a fun place for people to gather.

For those who might have some ideas to liven up Lawson, the friends of the park have a public Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/LawsonParkBoston and an email at [email protected].

“Our whole point with renovating Lawson Park was to make a space that would be more amenable for people to use. So, just thinking, what else can we do,” said Royce.

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