LEWISTON — Whether it has a new coat of paint, Kennedy Park’s historic bandstand gazebo will be ready for its unveiling Tuesday.
Heather Hunter, a member of the Bandstand Restoration Committee, said this week’s rainy weather had put efforts to repaint the historic bandstand’s roof on hold.
“I don’t know if it will get painted in time for the unveiling,” she said. “The weather has really thrown a kink in some of the progress, but it will get painted.”
The Restoration Committee scheduled the official unveiling for 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 6, at the bandstand in the middle of the downtown park.
“It’ll be ready,” Hunter said. “There may be some grounds work to do around it and some of the decorative embellishments may need to be installed, but it will be perfectly functional.”
The unveiling will be followed by a short performance by the Edward Little High School band, with food and refreshments from Pinky’s food truck.
Groundbreaking for the renovation began a year ago with a similar ceremony, but work didn’t begin until July, when workers from Hebert Construction began digging a new foundation a few feet from the old structure.
The gazebo has been closed and fenced off since 2010 because of safety concerns, including damage to the concrete floor of the structure, erosion on the brick supports, and wear on the wooden columns and the wood structure under the roof.
City officials and volunteers have been trying to come up with a way to renovate it since then but ran into problems with the structure’s floor height.
The Americans with Disabilities Act requires the city to build a wheelchair-accessible structure so everyone can use it. Ramps and elevators proved to be costly, so they made the structure 3 feet shorter than the old one and moved it several feet to the south.
According to the history of the gazebo written by local historian Douglas Hodgkin, the first bandstand was built in the park in 1868. The current gazebo was built in 1925. Since then, it’s been used for concerts, band performances and political rallies for local, Maine and national candidates.
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