Photo: Moonshine Hollar at last year’s festival.

Mark Saturday, Sept. 23 on your calendar when you can head over to the corner of Common Street, and Trapelo road as the Cushing Square Merchants Association holds its third Cushing Square Fall Festival.

“I think this will be really great for Cushing Square. I think it needs a boost,” Mary Westcott Thomajan, owner of two Westcott Mercantile stores in Belmont and president of the 25-member Merchant Association, told the Belmont Board of Selectmen which approved her application on Monday, Aug. 7.

For the past two years, a much smaller version of the festivities dubbed the “October Festival” took place in front of Thomajan’s store in the first weekend of October. But with the completion of the Trapelo/Belmont Corridor roadway reconstruction earlier in the year and the 167,000 square-foot Bradford development underway, “it’s time to promote the square and the businesses.”

On the 23rd from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Common Street will be closed from Trapelo to the crosswalk at Palfrey Road – Payson Road will stay open – and a small portion of one way Cushing Avenue adjacent to the UPS store. 

There will be approximately 25 table spaces for local stores and if there are any empty spaces to encourage businesses from outside the square to participate. Visitors can expect local eateries to dish out their specialties and stores to set up shop as well as bluegrass music and activities such as stilt walking classes. 

While there will be four or five of the same kiddy rides which take place in Belmont Center in May, “we are not trying to mimic [Town Day] but wants to keep it locally grown,” said Thomajan who has received help organizing the event from Gerry Dickhaut, owner of Champions Sports Goods in Belmont Center and chair of the Belmont Center Business Association which manages the annual Town Day celebration.

“To have a fall event and a May event in Belmont should work well,” she said.

“This sounds exciting,” said Selectman Adam Dash. “You guys have put up with so much with construction; this is the least we can do.”

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