For as long as the town has had some iteration of the Underwood Pool, a large grassy pit — known colloquially as the Golden Bowl — has existed at the base of the hill between the pool and Concord Avenue.
Decades ago, the land was deeded to the town with the restriction that it must be used for recreational purposes. In the early 1900s, Loring Underwood of Belmont constructed a pool on land donated by his brother, Henry Underwood, according to The Cultural Landscape Foundation. Nearly a century later, the pool was closed and rebuilt, reopening in 2015.
“It’s such a lovely place to see the community come together,” said Town Meeting member Paul Roberts. “On a 90-degree day, man, that place is really busy. [It was] a really great investment in our town.”
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On the hill above the pool is a playground, also a gift of the Underwood family. But just below the pool, along Concord Avenue, is a parcel of land with no dedicated purpose. Currently, it’s half-filled and being used for library construction staging. In past winters, the pit froze over, creating a makeshift skating pond. But on the whole, no formal use has ever been found for the Golden Bowl.
“I’ve always been interested in why we are not doing something with this piece of land, whether that’s turning it into a skate park or a pocket park, or a playground, or something,” Roberts said, advocating for the parcel to, at the very least, be filled in and leveled after construction is complete.
According to Town Administrator Patrice Garvin, a previous Select Board voted to return the pit to its original state after being used as staging for the library.
“If that’s to change, the Select Board will have to meet again with the Library Building Committee,” she said.
With the library nearing completion, residents such as Roberts are looking to see the Golden Bowl used to its full potential.
“I thought this is a really great opportunity to use that location to kind of uplevel this important piece of public land,” he said. “Why would we turn it back into … an unusable pit filled with goose poop? That doesn’t make sense from the community perspective.”
At a recent Select Board meeting, resident Dante Muzzioli said it would be worth considering the need for parking, given the two new buildings that will soon be coming online — the library and the new skating rink. Vincent Stanton, meanwhile, advocated for the Bowl’s potential use as a staging area for the community path project, if necessary.
“The path is squeezed in on a 44-foot strip of land north of the tracks, so there isn’t a lot of laydown area. I think some additional research might be in order, as we get closer to construction, whether that might be a useful area for some portion of the [Phase 1] Community Path construction,” Stanton said.
At least one known push is for the pit to be re-envisioned as a skateboarding park, Select Board Chair Elizabeth Dionne said at a recent meeting.
“I love the skatepark idea, I would 100% support that,” Roberts said. “I’ve seen some amazing skate parks, not only in places like Lexington, but Santa Barbara, California, where my sister lives, [and] Brussels. Skate parks are great; that would be a really huge asset for Belmont youth. I think that’s great; however, we’ve got a decision to make in the next two to three months, and I do think we should make a proactive decision rather than sleepwalk.”
