Letter: Bristol's Wood Street extension — 1980 version

Posted 7/25/19

I read with great interest the article in regard to the Wood Street extension . Halsey Herreshoff said he attempted to get it done in 1990. I’m sad to say he scrapped the idea because Save the …

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Letter: Bristol's Wood Street extension — 1980 version

Posted

I read with great interest the article in regard to the Wood Street extension. Halsey Herreshoff said he attempted to get it done in 1990. I’m sad to say he scrapped the idea because Save the Bay would not approve it, reason being the wetlands. 

That to me is sad, because sometimes it is not what you know, it is who you know. Why I say that is, I was in real estate a number of years ago and I had a listing of land off Church Street in Barrington. I had a buyer, but we could not get the approval to build. According to DEM, this was wetlands, therefore no sales. 

Halsey was right, he should have tried harder. The reason I say that is because that piece of land in Barrington has a house on it. I think the Town of Bristol should have not taken no for an answer. 

Now let me tell you my story of the Wood Street extension. In 1980, the Kinder brothers, Joseph and Ralph, had offered to donate the land on the West side of Naomi Street, in order that we might build the Wood Street extension all the way to Gooding Avenue. All the land was vacant at that time. The town could have built the road without a problem. Only one lot we would have to buy, and that is where the bank is now. 

Small-minded people with lack of vision was the reason we don’t have the Wood Street extension today. I brought my proposal before the Bristol Town Council. Mr. Hughie Holmes was totally against it. The fact was many of the rest the Democratic Town Council were in favor of it. I didn’t have a prayers chance in hell of going ahead with what I thought the town needed.

We lost the opportunity; the land on Naomi was sold years later for house lots. It is no longer possible to build the Wood Street extension all the way to Gooding.

This sad story goes back to 1980, not 1990. 

Today we wouldn’t have to worry about the Silver Creek Bridge repairs if we had the extension. We would have another way to go into town and out. 

Too bad Mr. Holmes and his fellow councilmen are not here anymore. If they were, I could tell them, ‘I told you so,’ the road is indeed needed.

Sarah T. Amaral
Bristol

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