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By STEPHANIE McFEETERS @mcfeeters
Last modified: Thursday, February 18, 2016
NORTHAMPTON In a small cemetery off West Farms Road, tombstones lean every which way, some resting on others for support. Several grave markers have disintegrated into nubs, barely visible above the snow. Ward 6 Councilor Marianne LaBarge and a group of Florence residents are determined to change this. Building on momentum from continuing efforts to restore the Bridge Street Cemetery, the city is beginning to draw up conservation plans for two smaller Northampton cemeteries: the West Farms Cemetery, established in 1788, and the Park Street Cemetery in downtown Florence, established in 1825.
The city has hired landscape architect Martha Lyon, who has led the Bridge Street Cemetery restoration project, and Irving Slavid, a stone conservator with Monument Conservation Collaborative, to study the West Farms and Park Street cemeteries and draft a preservation plan. The study will cost around $37,000, an