The wind blows hard as Mark Crossland and his crew assemble the last of 18 Christmas trees in Ocean Park. Mr. Crossland and Alisson Brasil tie a rope in a knot at the end of a pole, mount the pole in the ground, cable the rope down, and start wrapping Christmas lights around the six-foot tree.
The guys zip-tie the string to the ropes, and splice each light to prevent burn-out. It takes the crew about a week to fill Ocean Park with the trees, which for now look a bit naked in the sunlight.
The storm fencing had been circling Ocean Park for days. No Parking signs had seemed to breed in the seaside streets of Oak Bluffs. By Sunday, cops and volunteers in yellow T-shirts also appeared to have multiplied, and then came the music-lovers (at least for the day), by the thousands, bearing folding chairs and friends from out of town, kids and coolers jammed with sandwiches, gourmet salads and chilled bottles of Sauvingnon blanc.
The unmentionable odor that wafts from Ocean Park from time to time is being confronted by the town of Oak Bluffs. Whatever it is that is seeping to the surface, the state Department of Environmental Protection is not amused. Recently, wastewater commission chairman Hans von Steiger was quoted in the Gazette as saying, “Remember we are dealing with below-ground here. We can guess, but we don’t know what’s down there.”
Frank, Peter and Heidi Dunkl produce Chilmark Spring Water, the Island’s own bottled water. But this winter, the siblings’ attention went beyond water.
They’ve been working on one of the Island’s most revered 19th century buildings, the old bandstand at Ocean Park in Oak Bluffs. From their plant at the Martha’s Vineyard Airport Business Park, they’ve worked on five new oak replacement posts.
The new posts are critical pieces for the troubled 19th-century building.
The annual Possible Dreams Auction, the Island’s signature summer charity event that has sustained Martha’s Vineyard Community Services for more than three decades, is heading back to the seaside and will take place this year in Ocean Park in Oak Bluffs, allowing the event to expand its capacity as the economy hammers philanthropy across the country.
Auction organizers will announce the venue change today.
Oak Bluffs wastewater superintendent Joseph Alosso said this week the town may need to spend $350,000 to dig up a portion of Ocean Park and replace several failing septic grids, partly to satisfy orders from the state Department of Environmental Protection. The landmark park has been plagued by problems with effluent seeping to the surface.
Plans were unveiled this week for a new leaching field near the wastewater treatment plant off Pennsylvania avenue in Oak Bluffs. Plans for the site, known as the Leonardo property, call for two open sand pits to be built approximately 160 feet wide by 160 feet long.
Drawn by environmental engineers Stearns and Wheleer, the plans show two separate leaching beds with a four-foot wide gravel walkway in between surrounded by a chain-link fence. Treated effluent would be pumped directly from the wastewater treatment plant.
Did you know fireworks date back to seventh century China when they were used to scare away evil spirits? But that was just for the wealthy. The masses didn’t get their boom-boom on until the 14th century, thanks to the Ming dynasty’s populist embrace. Fast-forward to today and a beloved dynasty of another sort, the Oak Bluffs Fire Department, which is hosting its annual fireworks blastoff at Ocean Park in Oak Bluffs.
