Oh heretic that I am.

I drove up State Street from the Traffic Circle and took a brief gander (as I’ve been doing for a while, wondering what the heck it is going to look like) at the entrance to the Oak Hill Cemetery where Todd Freemont-Smith is building on the back of the Wheelwright property (see gobs of earlier posts, including the “Rape of the Ridge.”)

And you know what, I thought that the clearing of the woods and the view to the field in the back of the Ridge (which I think was deeded to the Essex County Greenbelt), was, yes, breathtaking. And I’m not being sarcastic here, or anything.

How about them weird apples.

That road to the Oak Hill Cemetery with it’s tangle of trees always seemed very spooky and uninviting to me. And (Whatever help me), I think that opening up that space makes it much more inviting, a whole lot less spooky, and might (heretic I go again) possibly make “upper” State Street a much more inviting “gateway” to the city.

Emails of protest and horror to the Newburyport Blog are unnecessary. I can already hear the very loud “howls of betrayal.”

What also struck me was what an unbelievably difficult hilly terrain that property has, and how difficult it would be to build anything. It’s one thing to see it on maps, it’s a whole different thing to see it “revealed” with all the trees cut down.

So I am actually curious (yes, can you believe it) as to what the project is actually going to look like.

I do have these two plans, dated March 2007. I don’t have anything more recent, but they would give at least an overall “picture” of the project.

Overall plan, March 2007

Detail of plan, March 2007

Mary Eaton
Newburyport