BIDDEFORD — Tucked away behind the Sanctuary Art facility on Bolt Hill Road in Eliot, is the Green Foundry, one of the only art casting foundry’s in New England.

In recent months, the co-owners of the foundry, husband and wife team Josh Dow and Lauren Holmgren, have been working on a sculpture that will encase a globe-shaped lantern. This lantern will be the focal point of the new Williams Court Park. It will be used to cast light on an area that was once one of the darkest spots in Biddeford.

The lantern process began in September, when 11 people, some who lived or had lived in the area or had a connection to it, volunteered or were selected to use their hands as the basis for molds. These hand molds were used to form the sculpture that will encase the globe lantern.

“When we first heard of the project (the first public art project in the city) we immediately thought of hands,” said Holmgren.

“The community’s hands are a symbol of people coming together in trying times,” she said.

Last week, the ceramic hand molds were cast in bronze.

The first step of the casting was to heat a crucible, filled with 65 pounds of molten metal, in the propane-fired furnace at the Eliot foundry. When the bronze reached a temperature of 2,000 degrees, it was ready to pour.

Dow, wearing a pair of thick leather mittens, picked up the ceramic molds that were heated in a kiln to 1,000 degrees and rushed them to a giant sand barrel. The sand held them in a stable, upright position.

Next, Dow and Holmgren, dressed head-to-toe in heat resistant, non-flammable leather clothing, used a pair of large, long-handled tongs to carefully pick up the crucible and place it in the pouring shank.

Working quickly and carefully, the couple poured the molten bronze into the molds, as intern Zach Smith skimmed the slag ”“ the impurities that must be kept out of the molds.

Within the next few minutes the substance solidified, turning the fire orange glow of the molten metal to a dark gray.

Next, the molds were chiseled away to reveal sculpted sets of intertwined hands.

The mettle of Williams Court, like the sculpture itself, has been forged in fire.

Williams Court and the area around it has been forged in the fire of poverty, absentee landlords, crime and drug trafficking.

“There was such a blight back there with the tenements,” said Loretta Turner, one of the hand models who lives in the area.

“Police were coming almost daily,” she said.

Not only has the vicinity been a center for drugs and other crime. It was the focal point of one the city’s most recent gruesome crimes.

On June 30, 2009, brothers Derek and Gage Greene were shot to death by South Street resident Rory Holland in front of his home, while they were heading to Gage Greene’s apartment on nearby Williams Court.

Although plans for a park were already in the works before the murders, said Community Development Coordinator Linda Hardacker. Not long after that, money was made available from the federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program to purchase and demolish three multi-family tenement apartment buildings at the end of Williams Court.

Neighbors and interested citizens got together several times to discuss what they wanted in the park. They agreed they wanted a passive park.

“A park for people to go and relax and enjoy in the heart of the downtown,” said Hardacker.

Although there are still some corrections and additions that are needed in the park before it is complete, the area is already being used by residents, she said.

One woman who hopes to enjoy the park in the future is Cecile Parent.

Parent, another of the hand models for the lantern sculpture, no longer lives in the area, but she raised her family on Williams Court and was there for more than 40 years.

She remembers when the neighborhood was a nice family neighborhood.

Although by the time she left the neighborhood, after her husband died 14 years ago, the nice neighborhood had become troubled.

Parent has many memories of the area, both good and bad.

Several of her children were born when she lived on Williams Court. She also lost her preteen daughter, Donna Marie Parent, 30 years ago when the girl was running home from baby sitting one night, fainted, fell face down and suffocated to death.

As a memorial to the girl, Donna’s siblings and Biddeford Saco Savings Bank have commissioned a granite sculpture bench that will be placed in the park.

Despite the progress, improvements to both the park and the neighborhood aren’t complete.

Turner said the park hasn’t come together exactly as the neighbors had hoped. The lighting is too harsh, and a garden that was to add another dimension of beauty to the park is missing.

In addition, crime in the area, though much less, still occurs, she said.

However, said Turner, with continued attention and vigilance she hopes both the park and the neighborhood will eventually become closer to what area residents want.

“The lamp will be there to support the neighborhood,” said Turner.

“It will shed light,” she said, reminding us “not to forget the past completely but now support the effort to move forward.”

— Staff Writer Dina Mendros can be contacted at 282-1535, Ext. 324 or dmendros@journaltribune.com.