Rotary Club of New Philadelphia

 

 

                    The New Philadelphia Rotary Club

               P.O. Box 331, New Philadelphia, OH 44663

 

 

December 5, 2016

                                                           

 

 

 

The Storybook Lane Project

 

During the Christmas holiday season, thousands of New Philadelphia area families will enjoy a trip through Storybook Lane, a tradition dating back more than 60 years.  Storybook Lane is a display of 24 Mother Goose nursery rhyme characters at the city’s Tuscora Park.  Beside each of the brightly painted characters is a verse board so parents and grandparents can share the Mother Goose rhymes they enjoyed as children.

 

Storybook Lane’s origins date back to the mid-1950s when Vic Marsh, a prominent local businessman and his neighbors along East High Avenue in New Philadelphia built and displayed the famous nursery rhyme characters each Christmas season. The display was moved to Tuscora Park in the 1970s. Marsh’s daughter Ellie Kirk asked the New Philadelphia Rotary Club to undertake much needed restoration of Storybook Lane in 1993. Since then, Storybook Lane has been a project of the Club.  Community sponsors have contributed the thousands of dollars spent for on-going restoration and replacement of the character and verse boards.

 

This season, visitors to Storybook Lane will see new versions of Old Mother Hubbard and Sing A Song of Sixpence according to New Philadelphia Rotary member Tom Police, chairman of the Storybook Lane project committee.  Over the summer Police also restored the mechanisms to bring animation to Hey Diddle Diddle, Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater, and Sing a Song of Sixpence.

 

Police said the Rotary Club each year replaces several of the original wooden displays that have deteriorated over 60 years to the point they can’t be restored. Mark Watson of New Philadelphia has provided his artistic talents for more than 20 years, retouching faded paint, replacing damaged parts, and constructing entire nursery rhyme characters, carefully painted to resemble the originals.

 

Police says the new Storybook Lane characters are painted on aluminum clad boards, then clear coated and should last for future generations of children and families to enjoy.

 

“Storybook Lane is a real treasure enjoyed by thousands of families each year,” Police says. “The Rotary Club is thankful for the generous donors whose names appear on the Friends boards and as sponsors of the Verse boards. They provide the funding to keep the display looking beautiful, the cow jumping over the moon and the mouse running up the clock.”

 

Storybook Lane is lighted from 5 to 11 p.m. daily through New Year’s Day at Tuscora Park in New Philadelphia.  To GPS your way to the display, the address is 161 Tuscora Ave. NW in New Philadelphia, OH.

 

Contact the New Philadelphia Rotary Club at:  information@newphiladelphiarotary.com