Rehabilitation of the Potter’s Terrace-AIDS Memorial Park at West Third Street and Potter’s Alley has begun. The park, owned by the Jamestown Renaissance Corporation, has been closed since 2019 due to issues with the wood structure as well as an 8-foot hole beneath the park. JRC Executive Director Frank Besse said they decided to fix the issue by filling in that hole,
“A fairly simple solution, but fairly complicated when you have its location intersecting with the alley and street there, the sidewalk and drainage issues, so that took some time to do. We went through the permitting process with the city and got the A-OK to start demo-ing the actual wood platform there and filling that in with dirt.”
Besse says the park will become a green space with some benches for now. He said there have been discussions about how to handle the AIDS Memorial that’s been part of the park since the late 1990s,
“So we’re trying to figure out what the best thing is to do there. We were talking about having some sort of piece of art or statue that commemorates what the site was. Also considering moving it to maybe a more appropriate location, but something that is respectful of the memory and the idea that it had back over 20 years ago when it was originally installed.”
Besse said those interested in being part of discussions about the AIDS Memorial may contact him at frank@jamestownrenaissance.org. He added funding for the rehabilitation of the site is being provided by the Gebbie Foundation.
Leave a Reply