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This is Jenna Barry at Medford Public Library in Medford, Massachusetts. The date is December 5, 2024. I am here with former Mayor Michael McGlynn, and he's going to tell us about Playstead Park. Playstead Park was interesting because many of the youth leagues had overflows of kids

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between the baseball, the basketball, the soccer, uh, and they were looking for more stor uh more storage, more field space and. As we looked around at the different parks and we saw the old creek that used to run through the baseball field at Playstead where if

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you were at home plate. And you hit a home run. And the left fielder went running to catch it. There was such a depression there, the difference in height. It was 13 ft. So you could not see the player anymore. You don't even know if they

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caught the ball, they didn't catch the ball. And for years, people said something's got to be done about that. And the soccer leagues that we had built one soccer field there and they needed another one. So, at the time, we didn't have any money. So I

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put out the call for anyone who wanted to volunteer. Chuck Doherty, who lives on Reuben Street, came in. He has a little construction company, and he said, I can culvert that book for you. And then we can make another field there and at the same time

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it'll straighten out all the problems with the baseball field. So I said fine, that'd be great. And He came in and he said the first thing we're gonna need is the pipe that's gonna cost you some money. I said, I don't think so because for 5

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years I've been looking at this pipe that's stored up behind the Stoneham pool anytime I go to Friendly's to get an ice cream. So I went to the MDC and I asked them if um. They needed that pipe and why it was there. And they said,

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no, we'll turn it over to you if you want it. He took all the pipe. He brought his equipment. They covered it the the brook. The second field was there. And then the baseball field. Tufts University stepped in and said, hey. Let us make it level

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for you. Let's put in a new fence. We'll put in some new uh stands there. They did that. Then through another agreement. Uh, we had with a cable company. Uh, excuse me, Billboard Company, they came in and said. Um, One of the things that we will

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do is build a new. Play area at Playstead Park, which, which they did. And then when the cop in his local 218 saw that they had built that and Tufts had built the the the uh baseball field, uh, Chuck made the soccer field come through. They

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said we want to build structures on a volunteer basis so families can sit under there on the days with this the strong sun. And then Metro Media uh fiber, a company which is no longer a business, was bought out by a bigger cable company. They wanted

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to put in new cable from Winchester Um, all the way to Arlington and come by Playstead Park. And I said, of course, that that'd be a good thing, but what we would need you to do. Is, uh, put it under the sidewalks, so it wouldn't be

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in the. vicinity of any problem with anyone else and they said, well, there are no sidewalks at the park. I said, well, if you put in the sidewalks. Then you'll have the sidewalk to put the pipe, uh, the uh fiber under. And we had a public

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private partnership. Everyone was a public-private partnership, where something that would have cost us millions of dollars to build. Cost us a total of about 40,000 and the project was called AA2218B for everybody union or initials who were involved in the project, and I don't know who

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came up with today, but it was AA2218B. That's awesome.