Graham, Donna
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From: Steve Barry‘
Sent: Saturday, December 04, 2021 9:39 AM
To: Graham, Donna
Subject: Fwd: Please read: Message about the Barker Property
CAUTION: This email came from outside of the organization. Do not click links/open attachments if source is
unknown.
Please forward this email to the Board of Aldermen. This was initially sent to my alderman, Alderman Klee,
and the Aldermen-At-Large. Thank you.
My name is Steve Barry. My wife Kim and I are raising our two teenage daughters on Wellman Avenue, where
we’ve lived since 2005. My wife and I both grew up in Nashua. After several years in the more urban Boston
area, we decided to move back to the north end. We made this decision, in part, to live near the woods of
Greeley Park.
When my girls were young, we took them to the park often. My girls called Greeley Park “Woo-hoo Park,” due
to the sounds that the mourning doves made when I took them there. The girls love the park. When they were
younger, of course, they’d play on the swings, play soccer, and ride their bikes.
Lately, though, the Park plays a different role in our lives. The peacefulness and solitude of the forest has taken
on much more importance. We often go for walks after school. It is quiet and peaceful. The girls talk about
their days. Sometimes, we’ll see deer, pileated woodpecker, or other wildlife there. We walk on the path
through the woods that abuts the fence bordering the Barker property.
That area is the only safe, wooded area near our house. How precious is that? In a time when we’re looking to
get away from our screens — or even our houses when we’re quarantined — that forest has been an absolute God
send. I run on that path and walk our dog through there several times each week. Sometimes, we’re there every
day.
If the woods of the Barker property are cut down, Greeley Park will cease to be a Park as we know it. Instead,
it will become a road between two neighborhoods.
It will still have swing-sets. But it will not have solitude. It will lose its soul.
I cannot overstate how important the park — and particular, the forest ~ has been in shaping my daughters’ love
of nature. They founded the “Green Teens,” an environmental club at Pennichuck Middle School. And now
my oldest, Taylor, represents Nashua North High School on Nashua’s Energy and Environment
Committee. When asked to draw something important to her while at Pennichuck, Taylor actually drew a
picture of Greeley Park. This picture now hangs downtown by the Adult Learning Center.
If we lose this forest, it would be an unspeakable loss. We’ll lose an oasis of solace in our increasingly
turbulent times, in a city that grows louder by the day. Tomorrow’s generations will lose the chance to connect
with nature. Please act to save this true gem of our city. Greeley park — and how many people truly feel about
this city — won’t be the same if you do not.
