2021 Update #23
Summer Fun on the Green, Remembering the Lazarus Family
The Highlights
Lazarus Park ceremony scheduled for Saturday, August 21
Labyrinth assembled in Printer’s Alley
Those high curbs on Main Street
Having spent last summer on the sidelines, St. Stephen’s Peasant Market and Middlebury’s Festival on the Green are ready to return to downtown Middlebury.
Peasant Market, a fixture on the Town Green since 1947, takes place this coming Saturday, July 31, between 9 AM and 1 PM. Here you’ll find a tempting assortment of treasures and bargains under the big tent on the Town Green as well as homemade baked goods, Mexican food, and other tasty treats.
Profits from the event fund the church's weekly free community lunch program and support local non-profits. More info here.
Then the 42nd annual Festival on the Green brings five consecutive nights of music to the heart of Middlebury starting next Monday, Aug 2.
This year’s all-Vermont lineup features Kenyan-born performance artist KeruBo’s ensemble; the Paul Asbell Quintet; Treetop Mansion (the new project of the Grift’s Clint Bierman and Peter Day); Beg, Steal or Borrow, Vermont’s hottest bluegrass band; and Low Lily, an American folk/harmony string trio.
Performances are 7 PM - 9 PM daily, rain or shine. More info here.
Lazarus Park Update
As construction winds down, the Town of Middlebury is planning to hold a ceremony dedicating the new park in Printer’s Alley to the Lazarus family, whose department store occupied this site for most of the 20th century. The ceremony will take place at noon on Saturday, Aug 21.
Following the dedication, Town Hall Theater, in partnership with Neighbors Together and Middlebury Underground, is planning a community-wide celebration as Middlebury emerges from four years of construction and a year-long pandemic.
A twist on the popular Foodaroo, “Fool-a-roo,” as its organizers have dubbed the event, will feature live music as well as sidewalk sales, Middlebury Money giveaways, and various treats and activities sponsored by the community members of Neighbors Together.
I’ll have more info on this as Aug 21 draws nearer.
In the meantime, it was a busy and productive week in Lazarus Park. On Monday, Landshapes assembled the stone paver labyrinth funded by the St. Stephen’s congregation. This part meditative, part playful space was put together, paver by paver, over the course of several hours, as shown in the two photos below.
Then on Wednesday, Landshapes planted nearly 200 perennials, including day lilies, black-eyed susans, cone flowers, and cat mint as well as various reed grasses. Another 200 perennials arrived on Thursday. Good thing we put a ground hydrant in the park to water all these plants!
As the week drew to a close, East Coast Signals was readying the electrical connections so that Kubricky can install the three light poles that will illuminate the new park.
Those High Curbs
Several people have reached out to me concerned about the height of the curbs on Main Street and Merchants Row. A standard curb height is about 7 inches; the curb reveal on Main Street in front of St. Stephen’s is several inches higher than that.
This will all be corrected as Main Street and Merchants Row in the center of town are milled the week of August 9 and then repaved the week of August 16. I’ll have more on timing and impact—milling will take place during the day, paving overnight—in next week’s update.
Are you having as much fun as I am navigating the obstacle course of manholes and potholes on our milled highways downtown? The folks managing this separate VTrans project have been frustrated by night after night of rain but are hopeful that Routes 30 and 125 and Court Square/Court Street can be paved next week . . . weather permitting.
Your Weekly Construction Update
In other construction activity this week, Waters formed and poured the concrete pedestal on which our Triangle Park fountain will sit and brought the fountain’s marble surround into the park, as shown in our next photo. The fountain itself will be set in place in Triangle Park in August.
Kubricky stripped the south cap wall forms and began backfilling alongside the Battell drive.
Lafayette continued installing the railing fence atop the cap wall on the north end of the project. Once that’s done, they will do the same on the south cap wall.
It was a quiet week up at the rail platform, as other project work took precedence. All the forms have been stripped from the 300-foot-long platform, as shown below.
Also visible in the photo are what are known as truncated domes. These "tactile warning systems" feature a unique pattern of cones that are easily detected by a cane or foot, alerting the visually impaired to the presence of a street or sudden drop-off.
Next week Waters will be installing new sidewalk between the National Bank's Seymour Street branch and The Depot/County Tire. Kubricky was prepping this area during the week.
Finally, starting Monday night and continuing in the evening during the week, Kubricky will be working on the driveway and curb in the National Bank’s drive-in branch on Seymour Street. This area settled when the steel sheets were driven in to support last summer’s construction and needs to be repaired. The ATM will be accessible by foot but not by car after 5 PM each evening until work is completed.
That’s all for today. See you downtown.
Please keep your comments and questions coming. Send me an email at jgish@townofmiddlebury.org and I’ll try to cover it in my next update.