Organizers expect Little Silver’s Memorial Garden to be completed by December. (Photo by Dustin Racioppi; click to enlarge)
By DUSTIN RACIOPPI
For the first couple of weeks of October, members of Little Silver’s Shade Tree Commission would gather daily to watch the yellow bucket trucks and fork lifts turn dirt and move materials around the tract opposite Prospect Avenue from the fire department.
“We’d meet there for coffee every morning,” said Linda Goff, the commission’s chairwoman, “just to make sure everything was done right and going smoothly.”
So far so good, Goff reports. And by the beginning of December, she expects the long-awaited Memorial Garden to be unveiled to the public.
“Probably in time for the first snowstorm,” she joked.
Work, which started at the beginning of the month, is about half complete, with a concrete pathway laid down, a reflection pool in the center of the property and benches surrounding it.
The completed gardens will feature a large clock, flagpole and additional benches that can be purchased and dedicated by borough residents. The memorials honoring war veterans and victims of September 11 currently at borough hall will be relocated to the gardens, Goff said. The site will be backdropped by a series of small gardens donated and maintained by residents.
“It’s not going to be a formal or fancy kind of thing, just more like a natural habitat,” Goff said.”We want it to be natural, with a lot of creativity from the community.”
Heading down the final stretch and seeing the memorial come together adds excitement to a frustrating couple years in trying to get the idea into action, Goff said. The commission had been working on the plan for about three years, but a series of revisions dragged out the process. Then getting the funding, through a matching county open space grant, further delayed the process.
But, Goff said, “it’s finally a reality.”
“It’ll evoke a really positive reflection for people,” she said.
Pictures and updates on the memorial can be found here, on the borough’s website.
