Medina asked to change name of State Street Park
File photo by Tom Rivers: Members of the Medina Lions Club decorate State Street Park for the Christmas holiday on Nov. 29, 2014. The Lions put lights on Christmas trees and set up a Nativity scene at the park every year.
MEDINA – The Village Board is being asked to change the name of State Street Park to recognize the Burroughs family.
Before it was State Street Park, the land was a grand estate with a magnificent Victorian mansion owned by the Burroughs family, Chris Busch, chairman of the Village Planning Board, wrote in a March 18 letter to Mayor Mike Sidari and the Village Board.
Silas Mainville Burroughs was a member of Congress who lived in Medina. He died at age 49 on June 3, 1860.
Before Congress, he worked as an attorney in Medina, was a member of the State Assembly and was a brigadier general in the New York State Militia for 10 years.
His son was a prominent businessman who founded Burroughs & Co., which is now part f the pharmaceutical giant, GlaxoSmithKline. Silas Mainville Burroughs, the son, died at age 48 on Feb. 6, 1895 after getting pneumonia on a cycling trip. He left $20,000 to Boxwood Cemetery, which used some of the funds to build the Medina sandstone chapel in his honor at the cemetery.
Busch said this is a good time to change the name, considering the upgrades to the park. A new pavilion/bandstand has been built at the park, and the World War I artillery/memorial is being restored. Many new trees are also being planted at the park, and other improvements are being considered as part of a Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan.
Busch said the park is the “jewel” of Medina’s park system.
“It is the ardent opinion of the Municipal Planning Board that, taking into account the architectural history, Burroughs family history, the current developments of the site, along with Medina’s burgeoning role as a historic destination, that it would be altogether right and proper to forever memorialize and promote the historic significance of the place by changing the name of State Street Park to Burroughs Park,” Busch wrote in his letter to the mayor and Village Board.
Village Trustee Todd Bensley, who is the village historian, said at Monday’s board meeting that the board needs to take time to consider the request.
“We haven’t had time to discuss it,” Bensley said.
