Mem Drive Reopened for Pedestrians

Stollers, rollerskaters, and bicyclists returned to play on Memorial Drive yesterday after a series of court actions almost closed "the people's park" on Sundays for the rest of summer

Since 1977, a mile and a half of the thoroughfare alongside the Charles River--known as Riverbend Park--had been closed to automobile traffic from 11 am to 7 p.m on Sundays

But the owner of the Growers Market, a wholesale garden store at 889 Memorial Dr., won a temporary restraining order May 17 against the Massachusetts District Commission (MDC), a state agency which maintains Memorial Drive, for its weekly blockade of the stretch in front of the store.

Growers Market owner Frederick Ewen claimed that the blockade caused the other roads around his store to become congested on weekends from May to October, causing a public safety hazard

Injunction Junked

Last week lawyers for the MDC, citizens groups, and the City of Cambridge got the preliminary injunction dissolved, opening Memorial Drive to pedestrian traffic once again

Riverbend Park is jointly run by the MDC and a local preservationist group called the People for River bend Park Trust.

Ewen reportedly dropped his motion for a trail and agreed to a compromise last Tuesday because of "intense adverse Publicity" surrounding the case.

Last month's restraining order prevented planners for the ninth annual Cambridge River Festival which was canceted on May 18 due to bad weather, froth scheduling a raindate. The garden store proprietor has reportedly offered to reimburse River Festival organizers for the several thousand dollars lost because of the cancellations.

The Riverbend Park citizen group recently collected more than 1400 names on a petition is support of the Memorial Dr. closing.

In addition, State Rep. Peter A. Vellucci introduced a bell in the Massachusetts Legislature which would keep the park open to pedestrian traffic once a week on a permanent basis.

Parties in the suit are currently trying to settle the case out of court by obtaining Harvard-owned land behind the Growers Market to reroute traffic, according to Christopher P. Dacis, a lawyer for the Riverbend Trust. Growers Market has a 15-year lease with Harvard Real Estate the University body which manages Harvard's property holdings in Cambridge.