Bandstand makes its move
Published 4:00 pm Saturday, August 2, 2003
Strike up the bandstand, they said.
Thursday evening, it was struck.
After several false starts, a town gazebo rolled down Madison Avenue from the BPA Playhouse to its new home on Winslow Green. After a coat of paint, the bandstand will be ready for music performances and other community events.
“It’s going to look good when it’s fixed up,” said Bill McKnight, a Winslow Green merchant and board member of the Bainbridge Island Downtown Association which helped coordinate the project.
The move completes a years-long odyssey for the gazebo, which originally sat at the corner of Madison and Wyatt, but was donated for public use elsewhere in the mid-1990s. It most recently sat behind the Playhouse, where it was used as a storage shed.
Earlier this year, at the urging of board member Paulette Jacobson, members of the Winslow Green owners association voted by a 3-1 margin to accept the bandstand on their property. A concrete pad was poured at the east end of the green, and the move was done free of charge by Bainbridge-based Skyler Construction.
“It’s a wonderful community gathering place, even though (the green) is ‘private property,’” Jacobson said. “People are here anyway, so why not make it more people-friendly?”
