Volunteers Work to Prepare Haverhill’s Gale Park for Arrival of New Fountain

(Additional photograph below.)

Volunteer electricians are working at Haverhill’s Gale Park in preparation for the installation of a new, three-tier fountain at the site between Kenoza Avenue and Mill Street.

Electricians Don Miller, Ken Artz and Ryan Miller, associated with International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 103, are pulling wires and installing new LED lighting. The project involves illuminating the soon-to-be installed new fountain, replacing existing outlets with GFI-protected outlets, adding outlets to reduce the number of holiday light extension, installing a new electrical panel with upgraded circuit breakers, replacing lighting at the World War I and Women Veterans’ memorials and adding LED lighting to “The Hiker” Spanish American Memorial.

Neighbors Dan Robertson and Lisa DeMeo, volunteer project managers, say “The new granite fountain is on its way and is expected to be delivered soon. August and September will be busy months at Gale Park as the fountain is installed, the WW I monument patio replaced, a new patio is added to the Women’s Veterans’ monument and general landscaping improvements are made.”

“The end result will be a park that the city can be proud of,” says Robertson.

Procopio Companies CEO Michael Procopio, whose firm is building a mixed housing, retail and park development near the Bradford train station, reached out to the IBEW to line up the volunteer electricians.

WHAV first reported four years ago on efforts to bring back the stately elegance of the one-time Carleton Fountain at the park. The original fountain was donated in 1892 by former Haverhill Mayor James Hazen Carleton. It fell into disrepair and was replaced by, in the words of Gale Park Neighborhood Association’s Kathleen Fitts, “a pile of rocks, held together by concrete, with a firehose in the middle.”

The City of Haverhill paid nearly $2,000 for fixtures and supplies and workers from the Department of Public Works prepared the site.

In March 2022, the project was presented as a “Possible Dream” at the annual Team Haverhill event. Since then, donations and two state earmarks have raised nearly $200,000.