Bench Mysteriously Appears Near Fresh Pond Reservoir

A mysterious red granite bench, estimated to weigh 800 pounds, was placed in a Cambridge park Sunday morning, baffling joggers, residents and city officials alike.

"Everybody was surprised how it got there," Cambridge Police Det. Frank T. Pasquarello said yesterday.

A substantive excerpt from Virginia Woolf's novel "Orlando" is inscribed on the bench, which mentions both the author and title of the work, but not the bench's donor or for whom the bench was created.

The granite monument is set in a raised clearing at the tip of the Fresh Pond Reservation in north Cambridge, next to the Fresh Pond Reservoir and near the intersection of Fresh Pond Parkway and Huron Avenue.

The city's Water Department, which owns the park, announced yesterday that City Manager Robert W. Healy had decided to allow the bench to remain. The story was first reported in yesterday's Boston Globe.

Called "The Pines" by locals, the clearing is frequently crossed by joggers and bicyclists.

The bench was discovered Tuesday morning by police officers chasing after a man who reportedly exposed himself to a female passer-by in the park, according to Pasquarello.

Cambridge police then notified the water board, he said.

According to Michael A. Nicoloro, the Water Department's managing director, Donna Turley, an East Cambridge lawyer, called the water board yesterday morning saying she represented the donor of the bench.

"She let me know that [the donor] had delivered the bench and that it wasn't stolen or anything of that nature," Nicoloro said.

By noon, Healy and the Water Department had decided to accept the enigmatic gift.

"It was a beautiful gesture on the part of the donor. We of the city of Cambridge--Bob Healy and the Cambridge Water Department--we collectively accept the gift and we will do everything in our power to preserve it where it resides," Nicoloro said in a public statement yesterday.

Donor Anonymous

Turley refused to identify the owner or offer any commentary on the donor's motivations at a press conference yesterday.

Nicoloro said that Turley told him the bench was delivered early Sunday morning on a cart, and that she identified the material as red Indian granite.

Nicoloro speculated that the bench may have been assembled from three parts--the two legs and the top--and cemented together.

The water director said he is planning to secure the bench to the ground and possibly to shift its orientation slightly. "Kids are fairly creative when it comes to moving large objects," he said.

City officials and residents have agreed almost unanimously to allow the bench to remain in its present location.

"I'm delighted the water board has agreed to keep it here. It will attract people's attention to things they might not have noticed in their travels to the pond," said Jean M. Rogers, the department's chief ranger.

The City Council will have to formally adopt the bench as "a permanent part of the park," Pasquarello said.

The polished granite bench, which is four feet long, one-and-a-half feet wide and nearly two feet tall, has a white-lettered chiseled inscription.

"'She whispered, giving herself in rapture to the cold embrace of the grass as she lay folded in her cloak in the hollow by the pool.' Here I will lie," part of the inscription reads.

Woolf, considered one of the greatest 20th-century English novelists, used the stream-of-consciousness technique to depict daily life.

"Orlando," originally published in 1928, chronicles the life of an Elizabethan courtier from the 16th century to modern times. It was made last year into a movie starring Tilda Swanson.

Passers-by quietly contemplated the bench yesterday afternoon.

Noah R. Feldman '92, a Yale Law School student, lives two blocks away from the site but said he didn't notice its presence until he read yesterday's Boston Globe.

"It blended so naturally that I didn't think it was a surprise," he said. "This would be an ideal spot for a romantic tryst late at night."

"There was this lyrical magic in Cambridge," said Doris J. Engelman, a 35-year Cambridge resident. "It was hard to believe."

The enigmatic nature of the bench still haunts many Cantabrigians.

"It's a mystery. I think this was intended to be a mystery and maybe never to be solved," Nicoloro said.