Photo: Carl Stevens/WBZ NewsRadio
BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — The annual tree lighting returned to Copley Square Park on Monday.
The Boston Parks and Recreation Department hosted the first Christmas tree lighting in three years. The event also served as the grand reopening for the park after being closed since 2023 for renovations.
“Copley square park is a place for everybody,” Zachary Chrisco, the lead civil engineer at Sasaki, told WBZ NewsRadio. “It’s a place where you can have small events, big events, you can come for lunch, come as a resident and relax.”
His company is the architectural firm that designed the new Copley Square Park, that cost a total of $18.9 million to build.
The park reopened in stages, with the new fountain and lawn area being revealed on Monday's celebrations.
While there were some criticisms about replacing the lawn with a concrete plaza, Chrisco said that it was intentional to allow more efficient clean-up for citywide events, like the weekly farmer’s markets.
“The city can recover quickly from those events,” he said, adding that the lawn used to get beaten up after events during the summer.
WBZ NewsRadio’s Carl Stevens (@CarlWBZ) reports.