PARK AND CEMETERY. 
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provement association that the South Framingham 
Board of Trade appointed a special village improve- 
ment committee, and it was to aid the association that 
a town meeting, attended by 1,500, not only appointed 
a park commission, but made Dr. F. W. Patch, the 
president of the association, chairman. 
When the great Boston and Worcester Street Rail- 
way was obliged to double-track its line, the plans of 
its engineer were so strongly opposed that the select- 
men rejected them. After repeating this experience, 
the managers discovered that a little village improve- 
ment association — “only this and nothing more”^ — had 
something to say about all questions of safety and 
civic beauty afifecting the town ; and so interviews 
were invited, and the next two public hearings were 
called by this same association. 
A large plan was stretched across the hall, drawn 
by the railway company’s engineer, but members of 
MEMORIAL LIBRARY, FRAMINGHAM, MASS. 
the association vigorously opposed it as being unsafe 
at one point and an injury to the beauty of the vil- 
lage. 
As indicating what the improvement association de- 
sired, one of its members, Mr. Charles M. Baker, out- 
lined on the map a plan securing more gradual curves 
and affording also opportunity for subsequent beauti- 
fying of the village. But this plan included the re- 
moval of two or three buildings. It meant increased 
cost to the railroad, and the managers were unwilling 
to be converted to the necessity of recognizing civic 
beauty as a factor to be dealt with. An appeal to the 
county commissioners followed, but the commission- 
ers decided that the improvement association was 
right in its contention, so that the outcome will or 
should prove a great incentive to improvement socie- 
ties everywhere. An incentive to so move as to win 
and hold the good will and co-operation of the com- 
munity; and then when questions affecting the town 
arise, the society has the influence of public opinion at 
its back. 
To the president of the association occurred the 
idea of adapting the old Town Hall, now little used 
for the town’s business, to the uses of all, as a “com- 
munity centre.” An article in the town warrant 
brought this question before the public, and the vote 
was almost unanimously in favor of the movement. ■ 
Since then the building has been duly leased for a 
term of ten years to the improvement association (at 
a nominal charge) and the association pledges itself to 
certain reasonable conditions. 
What is to be the outcome? The association is to 
expend about $4,000 in remodeling the interior, add- 
ing an entrance on the side toward the common and 
beautifying the general environment. The building 
will contain a large assembly room for meetings of an 
educational or social character, for dramatic enter- 
tainments, etc. There will be club rooms for the asso- 
ciation, the Grange and other organizations. Dining 
STATE NORMAL SCHOOL. FRAMINGHAM, MASS. 
hall, kitchen, cloak rooms, and in fact a well equipped 
building for the bringing together of all the com- 
munity in a fraternal spirit. 
The location is ideal, at one end of a typical New 
England common, circled by beautiful homes, and all 
seems to promise well for this crowning effort of the 
year. 
Soon after the association was formed, lightning 
not only struck and damaged a Sir Christopher Wren 
spire of one of the most beautiful churches in Fram- 
ingham, but defied precedent by striking it again. 
There were signs that the modernizing spirit would 
“improve” the damaged spire. The editorial commit- 
tee of the association became active at once, and to- 
day the spire is on the church in all its original grace. 
There is a pretty hill in Framingham Centre, wooded 
with pine trees. Some time ago, a rumor was spread 
around the town that there was a plan to buy the land 
and cut off all the trees. Near the knoll lives a mem- 
ber of the association, not a wealthy person as wealth 
goes even in Framingham. The place appealed to her 
