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No sooner had Joe Blumberg moved into Whitney Center with Betty Lou, his wife of 68 years, than he found himself on the steering committee of the Six Lakes Park Coalition. He was asked to take the role by the facility’s vice president, Ken Sandberg, because he was already the co-chair of the senior living center’s Conservation and Nature Committee. The Olin Corporation, current owner of the 102-acre parcel, fenced the property in such a way to allow access to a small piece of it for Whitney Center’s 325 residents. A small path runs along the fence, partly paved and partly dirt.
Joe says he and his wife walk a mile and a half daily, either outside or inside. Asked if a lot of his neighbors take advantage of the path overlooking one of the area’s eponymous lakes, he says, “I wouldn’t say a large number because of the age and condition of a lot of the people... But certainly, those who can, do walk it because it’s beautiful. In the spring, summer and fall there are swans swimming there and that’s fun to look at.” On a recent visit to the overlook, we walked – and slid – on a snowy trail that had been trod by dog walkers.
Greg Seaman, Joe’s co-chair on the Conservation and Nature Committee, joined us. He notes that there’s a great blue heron rookery adjoining the property, where residents who take a short walk down Leeder Hill Drive can see the large birds building their nests and raising their young in the spring.
Greg, who’s 87, has lived at Whitney Center for the past five years. He still goes on five- or six-mile hikes around the state every weekend with a longtime group of friends, some of whom also live at Whitney Center. “It would be nice to have an option right nearby, too,” he says, “and nice to have some paved paths, because some people want to go in wheelchairs or just have easier walking. In Connecticut, hikes are mostly rocky and full of roots, and as we age, some of us would like something simpler.”
The residents of Whitney Center always show up in a big way for the public Six Lakes meetings, which have drawn about 100 people at each event to learn more about the status of the planned cleanup and to express their views about what they’d like to see there as we move toward creating a park. To fill up their bus, Joe says, “We put posters on the bulletin boards and also use email” to keep people informed. There’s a lot of interest from those who would like to walk the property as well as those who would just like to look at it through their windows.
What is Joe’s vision for Six Lakes? “I want to see mostly paths… I’m a birder and we have a group that goes birding in the spring, and I would love to have access to the park to be able to find additional birds. Also, I think this land is important because of climate; this is the most wooded area in southern Hamden, and the trees clean the air and absorb carbon dioxide.”
The Six Lakes steering committee estimates that it could take years to create a park on the property. “I certainly hope it will come through,” says Joe, “and that I’ll be still alive when it does. In five years, I’ll be 96.” |
