PRINCETON: Planning begins on renovation of Mary Moss Park

By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
A playground at the corner of John and Lytle streets will be renovated starting next spring, according to the town on Wednesday.
The information about when work will begin came at a public meeting to gather input on how the community wants to see Mary Moss playground, also known as Mary Moss Park, looks.
“This is an exciting time for us,” municipal recreation director Ben Stentz said at the outset of the meeting, at which residents later voted for features they would like to see.
He recalled how he used the playground growing up in Princeton, calling it an “important space.”
The municipality has around $1.1 million available for the renovation, most of which consists of a $767,660 county grant that was originally obtained for an artificial turf field. Whatever the town does not spend can be redirected to other recreation projects.
“We don’t think we’ll use it all,” Councilwoman Jo S. Butler said Wednesday of the grant, “but a lot of work has to be done.”
She said the town hopes to have some concept drawings to present to the public at a follow-up meeting, scheduled for May 3.
One part of the renovation will be to remove a small wading pool that Ms. Butler said is in bad condition and needs to be filled and drained daily, as it has no filtration system. Removing the pool is not popular with some, however.
April McElroy, a Princeton resident, recalled she, her children and her grandchildren all used the pool over the years. She also pointed to its historical significance, as the only pool in town that Princeton’s black community could use.
For his part, Mr. Stentz said his “hope” was for the playground to have some aquatic feature as part of the renovation.
The playground is named for Ms. Moss, a woman who lived in the neighborhood and was like a mother-figure to many local youth, said long-time Princeton resident Willie Mae Tadlock at Wednesday’s meeting.