Marietta officials cut the ribbon on the new and improved Mill Street Plaza Tuesday. Pictured, from left, are Public Works Director Mark Rice, Parks and Recreation Director Rich Buss, City Manager Bill Bruton, and City Council members Joseph Goldstein, Andre Sims and Johnny Walker.
Keep Marietta Beautiful Executive Director Maggi Moss throws away a "ceremonial first piece of garbage" into a garbage can dedicated to late community activist Joan Ellars.
Marietta City Manager Bill Bruton speaks at a ribbon-cutting for the new and improved Mill Street Plaza in downtown Marietta.
Hunter Riggall
Marietta City Manager Bill Bruton speaks at a ribbon-cutting for the new and improved Mill Street Plaza in downtown Marietta.
Hunter Riggall
hriggall@mdjonline.com
Marietta City Manager Bill Bruton speaks at a ribbon cutting for the new and improved Mill Street Plaza in downtown Marietta.
Hunter Riggall
hriggall@mdjonline.com
New interpretive panels at Mill Street Plaza in downtown Marietta detail the history of the 1974 train derailment.
Hunter Riggall
hriggall@mdjonline.com
Marietta City Councilman Johnny Walker speaks at a ribbon cutting for the new and improved Mill Street Plaza in downtown Marietta.
Hunter Riggall
hriggall@mdjonline.com
Marietta City Manager Bill Bruton speaks at a ribbon cutting for the new and improved Mill Street Plaza in downtown Marietta.
Hunter Riggall
hriggall@mdjonline.com
A garbage can at Marietta's Mill Street Plaza was dedicated to Joan Ellars, a community activist who promoted recycling and led litter cleanups.
Hunter Riggall
hriggall@mdjonline.com
Marietta officials cut the ribbon on the new and improved Mill Street Plaza Tuesday. Pictured, from left, are Public Works Director Mark Rice, Parks and Recreation Director Rich Buss, City Manager Bill Bruton, and City Council members Joseph Goldstein, Andre Sims and Johnny Walker.
Hunter Riggall
hriggall@mdjonline.com
Keep Marietta Beautiful Executive Director Maggi Moss throws away a "ceremonial first piece of garbage" into a garbage can dedicated to late community activist Joan Ellars.
MARIETTA — City officials on Tuesday showed off the newly renovated Mill Street Plaza, a small strip of park land which abuts the train tracks downtown, just east of the Mill Street public parking lot.
The project, funded by $180,000 from the 2016 1% sales tax referendum, adds a new roof over a historic Glover Machine Works train engine, the plaza’s main attraction. The city also upgraded drainage infrastructure to address flooding issues, added new brick pavers and new landscaping. New interpretive panels will educate passers-by on the 1974 train derailment, which happened where the plaza now sits.
“This is one of those spaces that you really don’t think about a lot of times. It’s not a huge park, it’s not something that’s in the middle where the Square is, it’s not even Atherton (Square). But it is a special place,” City Manager Bill Bruton said at a ribbon cutting. “It’s a place that we’ve decided we want to make better, because it is an entrance to folks that are coming to the Square.”
In addition, a garbage can with a plaque affixed to it was dedicated to the late Joan Ellars. Ellars, a longtime community activist, served for more than three decades as executive director of Keep Marietta Beautiful, and died in 2020.
“When this lovely location was finished, we realized what was the perfect thing, and that is a trash receptacle to the goddess of garbage herself,” said Maggi Moss, who now leads Keep Marietta Beautiful. “If you knew Joan, you knew that’s what she called herself.”
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