Doggie Park Dirt Dug

Arlo’s owner saw some dirt getting dug up — and saw a neighborhood’s dream begin to take form.

The dream is a new park for doggies to frolic to replace the expanse that Wooster Square dog walkers previously used at the Conte School until a poop uproar led to a lockout.

Neighbors convinced the city to provide a new fenced-in space for the neighborhood’s many pooches and pooch-owners at Union and Chapel Streets, an underused public space near the railroad tracks.

Work began on the park Monday morning, as Lionel Beehner discovered while biking by. He saw workers remove concrete posts, and sent in the photos accompanying this story. Beehner regularly walks Arlo, his husky hound-husky, shepherd mix, in the neighborhood.

Click here to read a previous story about how the Friends of Wooster Square got the ball rolling on the park.

The parks department hired Letis Trucking Excavation to prepare the site, using $1,900 of department bond money, according to city parks chief Bob Levine. It has hired Guilford Fence Works to put up the fencing. That should cost about $11,500, all of it covered by money raised by Friends of Wooster Square. (The group raised more than that amount.) Levine said he expects the job to be completed within 10 days to two weeks.