LUMBERTON — The City of Lumberton held a ceremony Tuesday to commemorate the naming of the Elm Street Pocket Park, a park that has been built in an alleyway on the 300 block of North Elm Street, and officially unveil a sculpture within the park which recognizes the Lumber River’s proximity and significance to downtown.

“Beautiful pocket park, it makes downtown easier to maneuver, it gives a light feeling to walk through it and makes you want to come back to downtown Lumberton,” Lumberton Mayor Bruce Davis said. “This is just a big addition and I’m very proud of it.”

The park space is approximately 100 feet by 50 feet, and includes greenspace, a mural painted by Scott Nurkin in 2019, and the newly-erected sculpture by Bob Doster.

“It’s lovely to have a green space, a cool space downtown,” said Dencie Lambdin, chairman of the Main Street Lumberton Advisory Board. “Part of my vision and Main Street’s vision is that at some point in time we’ll begin to have regularly scheduled events here. I can imagine music, art, children, and we’ll just see how that comes together. Putting the park together has been the challenge, and now that it’s all set and ready to go, we look forward to being able to use it for fun things downtown.”

The sculpture, titled “Fish of the Lumber River,” includes an archway, which has numerous fish up and down the side and top of it, as well as four sections of a knee-high wall, which also includes images of fish and features a wavy design to emulate the flow of the river. One of the wall sections also has a horizontal piece that can be used as a bench.

The sculpture is the result of a collaborative effort between Doster, a nationally-acclaimed sculptor for over 50 years, and community leaders including Main Street Lumberton.

“Our river is just a block and a half away and runs through the heart of downtown and the heart of Robeson County, and we wanted something that would work nicely with the mural on the wall, we wanted to keep that sense of a river flowing,” Lambdin said. “So when we talked with Bob, I wanted an arch because I think that invites people to come into the park, and I wanted some sort of fence in here. Well I’ll tell you, I never envisioned a fence that looked like this.”

The fish on the sculpture are bass, catfish, brim and perch, all fish indigenous to the Lumber River, Doster said.

“The river would be dark, so that’s why we used the corten (steel), so it’s the more earthy color,” Doster said. “And tried to suggest ripples with it and then put the fish on it, both positive and negative fish.”

The park was constructed on land donated to the city by the late Dick Taylor and his wife Lenore, who was present at Tuesday’s event. Construction on the park began in July 2022 and was completed in early 2023.

Tuesday’s ceremony commemorated the official naming of the park as the Elm Street Pocket Park; a plaque on site reads: “In recognition of Dick and Lenore Taylor for their donation of this property to the city of Lumberton in honor of his parents, Mona and Jack Taylor.” It sits adjacent to the back of the Taylor Insurance Agency building on East Third Street, and half a block from the Dick Taylor Plaza.

The addition makes the park even more aesthetic, on top of the previously-added mural and greenspace. This is all part of a larger vision to make downtown Lumberton more presentable, and therefore attractive to visitors and potential new businesses.

“Part of what we see is bringing people downtown, both community members as well as visitors, and that will help investors understand how important it is to begin to spend the dollars necessary to put in retail stores, to add some more restaurants,” Lambdin said. “The walkability of downtown is wonderful as compared to many downtowns, so I think if we get things looking good and offer opportunities to bring people down, that will spur investors to get involved in redevelopment.”

Lambdin says additional improvements to the Elm Street Pocket Park may be in the works, including potentially adding sunshades or umbrellas for relief during hotter times of year.