State Representative Seeks to Build Ski Tow on Arnold Arboretum Hill

Next year you won't have to go to Stowe, if State Rep. David S. Tobin (D. Jamaica Plain) has his way. All you'll have to do is grab your skis and ride the MBTA to the Arborway.

Tobin has introduced a bill in the Massachusetts General Court Estate legislature which would authorize the construction of a ski tow in the Harvard-run Arnold Arboretum by the City of Boston.

Tobin said yesterday that there is a large bare hill without any trees in the arboretum which would be ideal for a simple ski tow or T-bar. Such a facility, he declared, would improve the area, add to its value and "would not be abhorrent to the purposes of the arboretum nor mar its beauty."

Arnold Arboretum officials, who first learned of the bill yesterday afternoon, said that they would be "very much opposed" to it.

The arboretum's only treeless hill, Peters Hill, is being gradually replanted, one official explained, after being cleared of wild trees and shrubs. The hill looks hare because it is being replanted from the bottom up, he said.

Tobin admitted filling the hill without consulting either Harvard or Boston authorities, but said he had intended to wait until the General Court was conducting business. It convened earlier this month. The bill, will be read sometime this year in the House of Representatives and sent to its Committee on Cities for a public hearing.