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Showing posts from September, 2021

This blog is a project of Friends of Mary Allen (FoMA): friendsofmaryallen@gmail.com
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The Mary Allen neighbourhood is located within the Haldimand Tract: hundreds of thousands of acres along the length of the Grand River. The tract was defined in the 1784 treaty between the British and the Six Nations Haudenosaunee as reserved for the Six Nations and their posterity “to enjoy forever.” Non-Indigenous settlement of its northern half began c.1800, including what is now Waterloo Region. This land has been the territory of the Neutral, Anishnaabe and Haudenosaunee peoples since time immemorial. The Mary Allen Stories blog acknowledges this historical context and ongoing reality. Find out more, including more about treaties, in the sidebar under INDIGENOUS LINKS.




The Making of Mary Allen Park, Part 2

  written and researched by Deb Ferguson The Mary Allen neighbourhood had waited years for the development of the southern end of the land at the corner of Allen and Willow streets. Improvements had been made at the other end of the plot, closer to the train tracks, but residents were becoming cynical and thinking that maybe this change would never happen (see The Making of Mary Allen Park, Part 1 ). Click to enlarge. In 2012, the corner of Allen and Willow streets, adjacent to the first phase of Mary Allen Park. In 2010, when Melissa Durrell was knocking on doors during her bid for the job of Waterloo City Councillor for Ward 7, the question she heard most often was, “When can we get our new park?” So, once she was elected, one of her first priorities was to get started on the Mary Allen Park expansion. Politics, Public Input, and...yup, Parking (Again!) Councillor Durrell discovered that the Catholic School Board was interested in selling the land to the City, but it insisted th...