DEL.ICIO.USBotanical garden reopens; admissions go to victims’ fund
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Monday, December 22, 2008
The Atlanta Botanical Garden reopened Monday morning, with officials vowing to put admissions proceeds through the end of the year into a fund to help victims of Friday’s skywalk construction accident.
“The Atlanta Botanical Garden is a place for healing,” executive director Mary Pat Matheson said at a press conference just before the 9 a.m. reopening.
Mike Morris / mmorris@ajc.com
Mary Pat Matheson, executive director of the Atlanta Botanical Garden, spoke at a news conference before the garden reopened. She said the skywalk will go forward.
Whether because of cold morning temperatures or the pall of last week’s accident, no visitors were in evidence in the hour after the garden opened.
The garden had been closed since Friday morning, when the collapse of part of a new skywalk attraction killed one construction worker and injured 18 others. Several remain hospitalized.
Matheson said the garden intends to go forward with the skywalk project — which had been on track to open this spring — but gave no details on how it might be changed or when it might open.
Matheson and Bill Pinto, president of Hardin Construction, said admissions money through Dec. 31 will go to victims via the Jonquil Fund. In addition to admissions proceeds, donors can contribute through Wachovia Bank, they said.
“We think it’s fitting after this tragic accident to repoen the garden so that our volunteers, our staff, people that are on the construction site, our families and our commnity can come back and enjoy this garden, a place of serenity and a place of healing,” Matheson said, following a moment of silence.
She called Friday an “amazing and horrific moment for all of us” and praised the work of emergency crews that extracted the injured workers from a jumble of concrete and steel.
Inspectors from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration also return to the garden Monday to continue their effort to find out what caused part of the elevated walkway to collapse.
The collapse killed construction worker Angel Chupin, 66. Ten workers were still hospitalized Sunday, including six in intensive care at Grady Memorial Hopsital, a hospital spokeswoman said.
Chupin’s employer, SDC Concrete, is a small Kennesaw firm working on the botanical garden project as a subcontractor. Company president Charles Naser said Sunday that not all of the injured workers were his employees, but wouldn’t give a number.
“These families are all very frightened, very scared about what’s going to happen to them,” Naser said. “We’re not a large company. This is just devastating.”
The Canopy Walk is part of a $55 million makeover at the Piedmont Road botanical garden. Billed as the “longest pathway of its kind in the country,” the 600-foot-long walkway will rise to 45 feet, allowing walkers a view of the treetops in the forest next to Midtown’s Piedmont Park.
Friday was supposed to be a milestone for the project. The garden had invited the media to attend the first pouring of concrete that morning. The pouring had just begun when a portion of the walkway and surrounding construction scaffolding collapsed.
Hardin Construction is also putting up a new parking building and a visitor center in addition to the walkway.
“We will not be doing any construction on Monday of any kind,” Hardin spokeswoman Barkley Russell said Sunday.
Russell said no one knows how long OSHA will stay on the accident site. “They have six months to file a report and that’s the best we can tell you.”
Hardin will bring in an independent inspection team after OSHA is finished and the company is allowed on to the accident site.
The park has several holiday activities already planned, including a botanical St. Nick and a holiday high tea.
— Staff writer Cameron McWhirter contributed to this report.
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