Adopt a Square

Lorain supporters this year jumped at the chance to “Adopt a Square.” It is the new program to have residents and businesses claim some of the open squares in the sidewalk of Broadway in downtown Lorain.

The program is in its first year. It is a collaboration of the Lorain County National Council of Negro Women, the Lorain Arts Council, the Invest Lorain grassroots business promotion group, with help from Lorain’s Public Property Department.

The squares are openings in pavement that formerly had plants or trees.

The organizers mapped 51 squares on Broadway. The project used an online program for participants to sign up and claim a square. By mid-May, all 51 were accounted for.

“I figured if we would have 20, maybe even 25, I would have been thoroughly impressed,” said Invest Lorain Director Melissa A. Gnizak.

“I think we’re elated at the response that Lorain showed toward this program, just absolutely elated,” said Sylvia Duvall, program director for the Lorain County National Council of Negro Women. “It’s just heartwarming.” Planting formally kicked off on May 20, although not every square was completed that day.

“And they’re supposed to come back and water it,” Duvall said. After the rains of May 19, that probably won’t be necessary for a few days, she added.

Residents can vote for their favorite square and the winner will be announced later this summer.

The Lorain Street Department produced signs stating the block gardener “believes it’s hip to be a square in Lorain.”

On May 20, Toni Shaw and Dotti Washington took the sign for their organization, the Lorain Club of the Negro Business and Professional Women’s Club Inc., to stick in their square in front of 637 Broadway.

“I do the hostas and the succulents because you don’t have to put them in every year,” Washington said with a laugh.

In the 800 block of Broadway, sisters Christine Carlson and Sarah Shannon worked on a square for Shannon and one for her fiancé, Greylyn Burk. Assisting was Shannon’s future sister-in-law, Bronwyn Burk of Lorain.

Shannon attended the Lorain Historical Society’s “charrettes,” or grassroots planning meetings, this spring and found her inspiration when she heard about the squares. She recruited Carlson, who has an agriculture and horticulture degree from Ohio State University and works as a professional grower in Columbia Station.

They used marigolds, a columbine flower and shoots that Bronwyn Burk clipped from a 50-year-old yucca plant at her mother’s home. “These are the perfect city square plant,” she said, predicting they will grow to be enormous.

They hope people driving through town will see Lorain as a nice place to be, because it is.

“I love this town so much,” Burk said. “I hope there’s more opportunities like this.”

Cindy and John Gargasz have been scouting Lorain locations for a possible business. In the meantime, they adopted a square on the other side of Broadway in the 800 block.

John Gargasz tilled the soil and Cindy Gargasz planted flowers and silvery dusty miller. That decorative plant was a favorite of her mother, she said, and the plants are not perennials but tend to come back year after year.

They spent $132 on topsoil, mulch and flowers and brought decorative brick borders for their plot.

“The city is well worth it,” Cindy Gargasz said.