Downtown Parklets 'The Latest Place To Be' In Melrose

PARKLETS, MELROSE — That's a nice dateline.

The city on Friday officially opened the new and improved parklets downtown in a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by city officials and community members who helped see the vision through.

"Welcome to the latest place to be!" Mayor Paul Brodeur said before cutting the ribbon with the help of Pedestrian and Bicycle Advisory Committee Chair Jonah Chiarenza.

The wooden modular downtown parklet is the first of what is hoped to be more permanent ones in spots across the city.

"I'm excited to see more of these," DPW Director Elena Proakis Ellis said.

The parklets offer a place to eat, drink or hang out in a downtown area lacking for such commonspace. They were funded by grants and largely put together by volunteers.

Much is not yet known about the parklets: How long the downtown one will stay out (possibly until winter before it's moved into storage) and how many may pop up when and where. For now, it's the culmination of a lot of work by a lot of people.

"Thank you very much for the city being open to receive our very forward suggestions of what we'd like to see in our city and make it a dialogue so we can figure out what we want to see and what you want to see and we can come together to make that a reality," Chiarenza said.

The Ped/Bike Committee thanked the following people for helping see the idea come to fruition:

Emily Lammert, Ryan Bagwell, Cindy Chabot, Chris Dinan, Jennifer Johnson, Jeremy Garczynski, Craig Molway, Dan Krechmer, Joe Nerden, Maddie Nerden, Deven Erickson, Krista Poulin, Sean Allen, Caitlin Beatty, Alex Schmidt, Finn McSweeney, Ryan Williams, John Abdulla, and Bruce Herrmann.

Read more about the parklets here