Cambridge City Council is planning to allow the Rescue Fire Company to keep its Train Garden in place at the old city hall on Gay Street, sources told Radio Chesapeake.
City Manager Glenn Steckman and other city officials will offer the arrangement to RFC this week, ahead of the city council meeting Monday March 9, when the Train Garden issue was scheduled to be on the agenda.
According to the plan, sources said, Rescue Fire Department will keep their current train garden space in the former fire engine bays at the front of the city hall building.
However, RFC will be required to find storage space elsewhere for the voluminous collections of model trains, buildings and supplies taking up several thousand square feet of space in the back of old city hall.
City officials intend to move forward with asbestos abatement and renovations to the 1926 building to make way for the return of city offices in the historic structure. The building has been vacant for 18 years.
The controversy over the train garden erupted last week after the city issued a statement that fire company leaders and city officials had agreed to move the considerable display out of the old city hall to make way for repairs to the building.
Rescue Fire Company representatives issued a public statement that they had not agreed to move the Train Garden. Fans of the train garden, a winter holiday fixture in Cambridge for over 91 years, took to the internet to raise concern and urge the city to keep the model train village where it is.
Cambridge resident Christina Brault showed up at the City Council meeting Monday with an online petition that she said had gathered more than 850 endorsements in just a week.
“I am completely in support of the Train Garden remaining exactly where it is. It's a historic building and the Train Garden is the longest occupant of the building and the fire department had been there for years. My father was the train garden chairman for a long time and I grew up helping with the train garden, so it means a lot to me," Brault said.
When Brault presented the petition to the council Monday, Mayor Lajan Cephas Bey told her she was confident that the situation would be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction.