Bandstand makes its move

Strike up the bandstand, they said. Thursday evening, it was struck. After several false starts, a town gazebo rolled down Madison Avenue from the BPA Playhouse to its new home on Winslow Green. After a coat of paint, the bandstand will be ready for music performances and other community events. “It’s going to look good when it’s fixed up,” said Bill McKnight, a Winslow Green merchant and board member of the Bainbridge Island Downtown Association which helped coordinate the project.

Strike up the bandstand, they said.

Thursday evening, it was struck.

After several false starts, a town gazebo rolled down Madison Avenue from the BPA Playhouse to its new home on Winslow Green. After a coat of paint, the bandstand will be ready for music performances and other community events.

“It’s going to look good when it’s fixed up,” said Bill McKnight, a Winslow Green merchant and board member of the Bainbridge Island Downtown Association which helped coordinate the project.

The move completes a years-long odyssey for the gazebo, which originally sat at the corner of Madison and Wyatt, but was donated for public use elsewhere in the mid-1990s. It most recently sat behind the Playhouse, where it was used as a storage shed.

Earlier this year, at the urging of board member Paulette Jacobson, members of the Winslow Green owners association voted by a 3-1 margin to accept the bandstand on their property. A concrete pad was poured at the east end of the green, and the move was done free of charge by Bainbridge-based Skyler Construction.

“It’s a wonderful community gathering place, even though (the green) is ‘private property,’” Jacobson said. “People are here anyway, so why not make it more people-friendly?”