Long and distinguished public service can be remembered in a variety of ways. Some get statues, some portraits. Some get a brass plate on the back of a bench.
When looking to remember Joe Gray, the former city manager who retired this year after 40 years as a city employee, Portland found a fitting tribute.
Gray is now memorialized with a granite trail marker on the pedestrian and bicycle path that connects India Street to Portland’s trail network, linking the edge of downtown with East End Beach, the Bayside Trail, the Eastern Prom and Back Cove.
Portland’s 50 miles of urban trails have appeared within Gray’s tenure as a city employee, and their development was one of the things the former planning director and city manager said he was most proud of when he left office.
Public investment in amenities like trails spurred private investment and saved Portland the fate of other small cities in the Northeast, which saw neighborhoods abandoned. That makes a trail marker a fitting tribute for Gray, who helped make sure that didn’t happen here.
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