Submitted by Bill Drake, Chairman Rink User Committee for Design and Planning, and member of the Board of Estimate and Taxation 2013-2023.
Thank you Tommy Keegan for your interesting letter to the Greenwich Free Press this week (KEEGAN: 50 Years Ago Rink Was Built “Out of the Way,” Tucked in the Corner and Everyone was Satisfied Nov 20,2024) Everyone in town owes you thanks for serving as a police officer and we owe your father thanks for being an excellent director of recreation. May I tell a family story which parallels yours?
In 1970-1972 when the Hamill rink was being planned and built, my uncle Phil Drake was the chairman of the Board of Estimate and Taxation. A lovely guy, now passed away. But he was a golfer and tennis player, not a skater. If he were here I would tease him that the Hamill rink’s many defects resulted from it being designed by finance people not skating people.
The planning was ….. basically awful. Within a mere two years of the Hamill’s construction it was recognized that the structure needed a roof and walls. The planning also omitted spectator seating, locker rooms, showers and bathrooms. The dimensions of the rink are smaller than a regulation rink. It was built unprotected where the wind blew so strongly that the figure skating club adopted the name Windy Hill Skating Club. They say a camel is a horse designed by committee. Like the camel, it appears that the Hamill is a rink designed by perhaps the Board of Estimate and Taxation.
As an indication of the lack of planning, below you can see the official page from the 1974 capital budget, a mere two years after the rink’s construction. The finance people and the
recreation people had a slap-the-forehead moment. The main item they omitted was hand written in at the last minute, where you can read “Building Major Alterations: Roof and Partial Enclosure for Skating Rink $205,000”.
When the rink was built no one could have foreseen that the Byram School would close seven years later in 1978. But the current location of the rink creates a major defect in the ball field. Its dimensions to right field are substandard due to the rink location. This prevents the use of this field by our senior Babe Ruth and high school age baseball teams.
This time around, First Selectman Fred Camillo created the Rink User Committee for Design and Planning. The Committee has broad representation including rink users, residents from the neighborhood and across Greenwich, from the Town Departments of Parks & Recreation and Public Works, the Board of Parks and Recreation, the Planning and Zoning Commission, Byram Veterans, the Board of Estimate and Taxation, and the Representative Town Meeting.
In contrast to the era of your father and my uncle, this time there has been extensive community input in the design and planning. The current plan will provide a properly sized rink and a full- sized baseball field, additional green space, availability of solar power, a walking path around the whole Eugene Morlot Memorial Park and permanent protection of the Byram Veterans’ Memorial Tree Grove.
Bill Drake, Chairman Rink User Committee for Design and Planning, and member of the Board of Estimate and Taxation 2013-2023.
See also:
Nov 20, 2024
DRAKE: Support the Town Project to Replace Hamill Rink and Build a New Baseball Field in Byram
Nov 12, 2024