Once again, lamps on Acorn Street and the rest of Beacon Hill are dressed for the holidays in garlands and bows.
(John Bohn/Globe Staff)
You won't find many blinking colored lights on Beacon Hill. The neighborhood's decorations have a distinctly old-fashioned feel, and residents themselves do the festooning.
For this year's Beacon Hill Holiday Decorating Days, held last weekend, some 150 volunteers - block captains, Brownie troops, Suffolk University students, District 8 Councilor Michael Ross, all led by resident Ivy Turner - decorated nearly 1,100 lamps on their streets and parts of the West End with green garlands and red bows, said Suzanne Besser, executive director of the Beacon Hill Civic Association.
Last Saturday at the Harrison Gray Otis House on Cambridge Street, volunteers cut and wired the 2,700 yards of greens and bows to make the laurel garlands, and started decorating the gas lamps.
They fanned out across the neighborhood on the freezing Sunday afternoon to complete the task. "It brings the whole neighborhood together," said Besser.
Strands of lights, when they are used on Beacon Hill, tend to be small and white, and Besser, for one, loves the look - "The shops on Charles Street . . . all look beautiful, like a fairy wonderland."
The laurel garlands cost about $10,000, much of it raised at an event hosted by Tom Kershaw at the Hampshire House on Beacon Street. Kershaw was an early booster in helping to decorate the Charles Street business area.
"I used to sit down and make the bows for the decorations after Thanksgiving dinner," he said.
A party last Sunday for the volunteers celebrated the end of the task.
"The tougher part will come next month when we ask for volunteers to take them down," said Besser, laughing.
RICH FAHEY
© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.
