With the temperature in the mid-40s and sunny Wednesday, the City of Bridgeport’s Parks and Recreation staff was able to put a lid on a project that started more than two weeks ago. As of yesterday afternoon, all of the holiday decorations were officially in place.

“We were able to complete the last part of a few weeks of decorations so it’s wrapped up,” said P&R Director Don Burton, who may or may not have been aware of his pun. “(Yesterday) we worked at Bridgeport City Park. It’s not necessarily the biggest part of our decorating, but it’s the final touch that we put on decorations throughout the city.”

 

On Monday, Parks and Recreation workers handled one of the projects that is usually as tricky as handling the decorations along Main Street. And like Main Street, the issue is traffic related.

 

Workers spent a large portion of what was a sunny Monday putting decorations up and down the road that provides access to the Meadowbrook Mall. The decorating went off smoothly, but there are a few issues that are being addressed by Bridgeport Public Works, Burton said.

 

“Thanks to having really good weather, the decorations along the mall road went up much quicker than we anticipated,” said Burton. “We ended up getting everything up, but there are two or three electrical issues that we hope to have ironed out in the next few days.”

 

Due to the high volume of traffic during the holiday shopping season, along with using a bucket truck that has to sit out in one of the lanes of traffic, traffic control is required to make sure staff is safe. Burton said, once again, the Bridgeport Police Department stepped up.

 

“We had an officer there to help slow the traffic down and to provide safety for the men as they worked along the road,” said Burton. “We’re very appreciative for the police helping us in this manner.”

 

The lights come down not long after the start of 2017. Although taking them down doesn’t take nearly as long, it is a time consuming process that involves a large portion of the P&R staff over multiple days.