Here, the blasts very much present tense, into the summer

Stand inside the perimeter of Charles River Park any weekday at 11 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. and you'll feel the earth move under your feet. Blasting to build a subterranean parking garage started earlier this month, and will continue through the summer.

Residents of the condos and apartments inside the complex are still adjusting to the sirens that precede the blasts and the shift of the ground during each detonation. Equity Residential, the development company constructing new apartments and the parking garage, has issued advisories to residents, reminding them to protect fragile items from falling off shelves. ''People have taken pictures down and rearranged china," says Ivy Turner, a neighborhood activist who challenged the Equity Residential plan.

Crashing curios is only one possible ill effect. Turner says the blasting has created a dust storm inside the urban campus. ''Walking around, the air is really bad," she says. ''The air quality is already having a negative impact."

Susan Wade, the manager of the Hawthorne Place condos, has a rosier view. ''In my opinion, the impact has been fairly minimal," she says, ''but everybody seems to feel differently about it." Wade did get a call after blasting from a resident who heard a ''thud" and thought the upstairs neighbor had fallen. Otherwise, she reports ''very few complaints."

In a written statement, Equity Residential's Chris Reilly says that ''every effort is being taken to minimize any disruptions due to construction. In the spirit of this, we communicate with our residents, neighbors and abutters regularly regarding the construction management plan for the site." Brooke Botello, a spokeswoman for Equity, says the firm has been working closely with Massachusetts General Hospital, a vulnerable abutter, during the blasting phase.

MONICA COLLINS