The imminent $10 million plan to replace Walden Pond’s enormous beach bathroom with a bigger one, and 100 feet of paved path with 400 feet of boardwalk and road, is antithetical to a nature reservation, national historic landmark, and the birthplace of modern conservation.
In a place where any building would be an eyesore — Walden’s main beach — we have the time, money, and means to build a minimal bathroom in the footprint of the current one, burying it invisibly in the surrounding hill. (See the T, the Jiangmen Neutrino Observatory, etc.)
The proposed building would be very good-looking for a bathroom, but its only concessions to the place are that it would be brown and solar-powered. (“Eco-friendly” architecture is better than non-, but if someone cuts you down and wears your bones, never play with them.) The building would be a good-looking eyesore with a view with opaque windows.
The park also needs to directly warn visitors about eutrophication and tell them not to urinate in the lake.
A wheelchair courtesy shuttle, like ones used at other parks and venues (Tanglewood, MacArthur Beach) would provide “more universal” accessibility for visitors with mobility issues than a boardwalk — anyone who could get in a vehicle could use it. Keeping the existing path would save about 50 trees — many over 75 feet tall — the view of Walden’s eastern shore, and about $4.5 million. In a land of cars and roads, moving people over ~100 feet of slightly sloped pavement is not an issue.
Walden is the most pristine it has been in the 163 years since Thoreau died. Thirty-six years of loving it hasn’t diluted the disappointment that it looks like a municipal reservoir. We have an extraordinary opportunity to preserve and experience this legendary place as an unspoiled forest.
Ben Kissinger
Elizabeth Ridge Road, Carlisle
