COGdesign Cosponsors Community Workshop on Mystic River
Saturday, June 28, 2003 -- The Blessing of the Bay Community Design Workshop began a critical conversation about the future of a very beautiful but overlooked green space on the Mystic River in Somerville. At the end of this very successful day of talking, learning, walking the site, and finally drawing and modeling proposed new designs, all the participants – community members, boaters, landscape designers, environmentalists, artists, and activists – agreed an important step had been taken in shaping the future of the site.  Co-sponsoring the event were the Boys and Girls Club of Middlesex County and Groundwork Somerville.
Views of the Blessing of the Bay boathouse, the only public building on the Mystic River and currently being used by the Somerville Boys and Girls Club, and its surrounding landscape

This has the potential to be a remarkable place. Today, you will see broken benches, trash captured by chain link fences, weeds, asphalt pads, few trees and shrubs, and very limited use. This degraded landscape could be a vibrant and healthy green space in a dense urban neighborhood; it could offer many uses to residents of the surrounding communities of Ten Hills and the Mystic Housing Development. It could be an urban oasis for the wider community.

Working together in teams, workshop participants were invited to share their ideas on how to improve this place, how to connect it to the surrounding neighborhoods and hiking trails, and how it could become a year-round community asset.

With the support of a grant from the MA Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) Urban Forestry program, COGdesign is creating a booklet which will document the community workshop.  Workshop designers are continuing to refine the design concepts for further review by community members, the Boys and Girls Club, Groundwork Somerville, and the DCR Planning Department which is launching a master planning project for the Mystic River basin.   
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