Dunkin' at the park with Tommy
Via joe and more, the mayor seeks out the other half
Wearing a blue T-shirt outlining a pirate treasure map, 3-year-old Ryan Kaszanek handed his partially eaten powdered doughnut to his mother, then accepted a plant from Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino.
Ryan's flowers are now outside the family home on Frost Avenue in the Neponset section of Dorchester, where he and his 5-year-old brother, Brendan, water them every day, according to the boys' mother, Adrienne Kaszanek.
The mayor would be proud.
Exchanges like this one at the Martin Playground in Dorchester earlier this month have been playing out in Boston for 10 years. With the help of the Boston Parks and Recreation Department, the mayor has been making the java rounds in various city parks, where people can get coffee and doughnuts, free plants (close to 700 pansies, snap dragons, salvia plants, and, one of Menino's favorites, marigolds, in 11 sessions so far this spring), and some face time with the mayor.
"He knows what it means to people," said Mary Hines, spokeswoman for the parks department. "He appreciates that they come out and he wants to be there for them."
Hines is careful about describing what residents can expect, noting, "It's nothing more than a social gathering."
Still, the gatherings can be sizable. The May 16 reopening of Mozart Park in Jamaica Plain after a renovation attracted about 400 people, according to the parks department. "We were overwhelmed," Hines said, adding that there were so many people, they did not even attempt to give away plants that day.
Whle there's no heavy-duty agenda, the outdoor kaffeeklatsches do serve a purpose, said two political observers.
Pondering the more than 100 coffee hours in the parks over the years, David Luberoff, executive director of Harvard University's Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston, joked, "that's a lot of coffee."
More seriously, Luberoff noted, "This is a mayor whose entire term in office has been marked by trying as much as possible to get out and hear what people are thinking about."
Alluding to a recent Boston Globe survey indicating that about 50 percent of Bostonians said they had met the mayor, Luberoff said, "Well, how does that happen? We were joking the other day [that the mayor is] still trying to figure out who the other 50 percent are."
Fred Bayles, director of Boston University's Statehouse Program, said, "Menino loves doing this. He'll talk to anybody who'll sit still for him," adding, "This is the way you build continual voter support."
Especially given the low voter turnout in Boston, he said, "anybody whose hand you shake is potentially an important vote."
In addition to shaking hands at the Dorchester event, across the street from what used to be a scrap metal yard flanking the banks of the Neponset River, the mayor was busy handing out doughnuts to children, posing for pictures, and distributing plants, which he teasingly reminded people to water.
The crowd on this Thurday morning consisted of about 50 seniors, business owners, and mothers who sat on park benches or talked among themselves while children splashed in the water fountain and played in the tot lot.
"We're just here for the community," said Carol Harrington, 41, as she pushed her 3-year-old son, Derven, on the swings.
"We like the mayor," said Muriel Conrad, 79. "He's good. He's friendly. He remembers the seniors' concerns."
While she mentioned "there's a problem with a drug house" in her neighborhood in Dorchester, Conrad said she didn't plan to mention that to the mayor. "I'm just happy to get a plant," she said.
Noni Smith, 47, from Mattapan, said she attended the event in order to learn about park programs for her 14-year-old daughter, who, she said, "needs a decent place to hang around, other than a street corner."
Kaszanek, 38, also had concerns about the city parks, specifically the lack of public restrooms. She said she keeps a portable toilet in her minivan for her children, just in case.
But 72-year-old Ed Charlebois, who said he has attended all of the mayor's coffee hours in his neighborhood over the past decade, had no complaints.
"Where else can you go get a coffee, a doughnut, and a plant?" he asked. "You get something back for your taxes, right?"
For more information about the mayor's coffee hours or park events, call 617-635-4505 or visit cityofboston.gov/parks/. The final coffee hours for this year will take place June 5 at the Medal of Honor Park in South Boston (at East Broadway and M streets) and June 6 at the Iacono Playground in Hyde Park (at Milton and Readville streets). Both will run from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. 