The MBTA - not much to tweet home about
(Jeremy C. Fox for Boston.com)
Are all these people unhappy? Maybe.
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Boston Common's long history on display, in action for students
Centuries of Boston Common’s rich history will be on display all at once Monday as re-enactors and hundreds of students celebrate the park’s third annual Making History Day hosted by the Friends of the Public Garden.
Thousands of years of history will come to life as school groups from around the state learn about the artifacts left by Native Americans, including a 7,500-year-old spear point and a 3,000-year-old shell midden.
Students will also have chance to see a flintknapping demonstration, build a replica fishweir and watch the Wampanoag Nation Singers and Dancers perform.
Heading into Colonial times, students will also play games popular during Colonial times, dance, try rope-making, learn wool spinning techniques, and see how else the Common was used in the Colonial period.
Those uses include grazing land for cows and sheep, military encampments, and punishments--students may even find themselves in wooden pillories as they learn about the era.
The history of the Civil War will also be discussed with a talk about the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts regiment, which consisted of both white and African American officers, and is memorialized on the Common.
The educational events for children coincide with reenactment of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts’s drumhead election on Boston Common.
The Company is the oldest chartered military organization in North America and holds the ceremony annually on the first Monday of June
That event also includes a parade beginning at Faneuil Hall that ends on Boston Common at 1:30 p.m.
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Twitter: @YourBeaconHill
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City's ParkARTS program offers free painting workshops in parks
Amateur artists have a chance to create al fresco during two painting workshops hosted by the city this weekend.
The Boston Parks Department is holding free watercolor painting workshops at Christopher Columbus Park in the North End Saturday from 12 to 2 p.m. and at the Public Garden by the Lagoon Sunday from 12 to 2 p.m.
Blick Art Materials will provide supplies while a professional artist offers tips to seasoned painters and newcomers, alike.
The workshop are part of Boston’s larger ParkARTS program, a citywide initiative now in its 16th year designed to make the arts more accessible and draw residents to their neighborhood parks.
In addition to painting workshops, this year’s events include craft and photography workshops, marionette puppet shows, movie nights, and a variety of concerts.
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Twitter: @YourBackBay
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Boston to celebrate Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee with street party Sunday
Boston may have rejected Britain’s tea more than 200 years ago, but that doesn’t mean the city’s current residents want to miss out on a royal party.
While England is abuzz this weekend celebrating Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee, Boston residents will also have a chance to mark 60 years of the queen’s reign with a British-style street party on Sunday.
The Bostonian Society and the British Consul are hosting a street party complete with donuts and cake, traditional live music, Shakespeare performances, and Red Coat re-enactors.
The party, open to the public, is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. in the pedestrian mall outside the Old State House at the corner of State and Washington Streets.
The tradition of street parties became popular in Britain around the end of World War I to celebrate national events by decorating neighborhood streets and offering food and drink, according to the Bostonian Society
The Boston event, co-hosted by British Consul General to New England, Dr. Phil Budden, and Brian J. LeMay, president of the Bostonian Society, will feature cake and donuts from Montilio’s Baking Company and Dunkin' Donuts; performances by Commonwealth Shakespeare Company; and a re-enactors of the 10th Regiment of Foot portraying British Army in Revolutionary America.
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Twitter: @YourBeaconHill
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Work begins to transform old restroom on Boston Common into Earl of Sandwich shop
(Photo by Brock Parker for boston.com)
Two men work on renovating a former restroom on the Boston Common to turn it into an Earl of Sandwich shop.
Construction has begun in a project to transform a long-vacant Boston Common restroom into a sandwich shop.
Fencing and scaffolding surrounded the octagon-shaped structure earlier this week as a construction crew worked inside the 660-square-foot building to turn it into a new location for restaurant chain Earl of Sandwich.
The building, known as the Pink Palace because of the pinkish hue of its masonry, was built in the 1920s as a men’s comfort station, but has not been used since the 1970s.
It sits near the Common’s baseball fields and tennis courts, and the Parkman Bandstand.
Last September, the city announced it had signed a 15-year lease with Orlando-based Earl of Sandwich under which the company will pay $50,000 a year to the city.
"This building has been kind of a decaying and dead building in the Common for many years. It will be great to have some activity in there,” said Elizabeth Vizza, executive director of the Friends of the Public Garden.
Vizza said she expects the sandwich shop to attract visitors and revitalize the area, much like the Friends’ recent renovation of the Brewer Fountain Plaza has done.
“It will bring some life to that part of the Common,” she said.
The eatery has hired it own contractors for the project and will pay for the cost of renovations, according to the Boston Parks & Recreation Department.
Vizza said the eatery has worked to maintain the historic facade of the building while renovating the interior. She said the Friends hope to ensure lighting and signage are well-integrated into the park and truck deliveries are timed to cause as little disruption as possible.
The franchise already has locations in California, Florida, New York, Nevada, and Texas, as well as a location inside Logan Airport.
A sign hanging on the fence surrounding the construction site promises passersby “the sandwiches are coming.” When the project was originally announced, an opening date as early as this spring was said to be possible.
The Globe has previously reported that an engineering report on the Pink Palace commissioned by the city and released in 2007 found that renovations would take about two years and cost anywhere from $750,000 to just under $1 million.
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Twitter: @YourBeaconHill
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Local legislators visit Framingham's Open Mobile to celebrate small businesses
Local legislators visited Framingham-based Open Mobile last week to recognize National Small Business Week. From left to right: Chandra Bajpai, Open Mobile general manager; Rep. Tom Sannicandro; Leila Dillon, marketing/communications/IR vice president; Rep. Chris Walsh; Bob Angelo, chairman/CEO of Open Mobile; Sen. Karen Spilka; and April Anderson Lamoureux, assistant secretary of Economic Development.
Local legislators visited Framingham's Open Mobile headquarters last week to celebrate and promote National Small Business Week, an annual celebration started by then-President John F. Kennedy in 1963.
President Barack Obama had designated last week as National Small Business Week to recognize contributions of the nation’s nearly 27 million entrepreneurs and small businesses.
Legislators kicked off the week’s festivities by visiting local businesses in their home towns to thank them for their contributions to the state's economy, and to promote local shopping this spring.
State Representatives Chris Walsh and Tom Sannicandro joined state Senator Karen Spilka and assistant secretary for Economic Development April Anderson Lamoureux during the visit to the Framingham-based software firm working to deliver a 100 percent compatible and high performing application ecosystem to every mobile platform.
The group met with Bob Angelo, chairman and CEO of Open Mobile, and additional members of the staff to discuss their experience growing a small business in Massachusetts.
With offices in China, India, and Finland, Open Mobile could locate anywhere in the world but chose to have its headquarters in Framingham, Spilka said.
“Small businesses – like Open Mobile – are the backbone of our economy,” she said. “In order to ensure continued economic development and job creation, we must remain committed to supporting entrepreneurs and the growing small business community in Massachusetts.”
The State House also hosted a small business resource fair last Wednesday, where resource providers shared information on the state programs available that help assist small businesses with everything from designing a business plan to procuring state funding.
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Jaclyn Reiss can be reached at jaclyn.reiss@globe.com
Esplanade's Eliot Memorial revitalization continues
A friends group of the Charles River Esplanade is moving forward with efforts to revitalize the park’s Eliot Memorial and the landscape around it.
The Esplanade Association announced that the Eliot Memorial and the area near Community Boating could be revitalized by the fall as volunteers donate hours of work and money to help improve the area.
The association has received grants from the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation Partnership Grant Program, Porpoise Fund, Lawrence and Lillian Solomon Fund and Garden Club of the Back Bay, and individuals to help fund the project.
The association hopes to repair the lawn, plant new trees and shrubs, install an irrigation system, add benches and seating, improve pathways, and add a lockable gate and stairs to the Community Boating dock as part of the revitalization process.
Already, diseased or hazardous trees around the site have been removed or pruned and Equity Residential aerated and re-seeded the soil, removed invasive shoreline plants, cleaned and painted benches, and built compost bins behind the Lee Pool building.
More work will begin mid-summer, according to the association.
"We are counting on the support of everyone who loves this park to help us raise the remaining $50,000 needed to turn this worn out area into a beautiful gathering spot with the addition of trees and shrubs, circular benches, granite curbing and a repaired Founder's Overlook with magnificent views of the river and Boston skyline," Sylvia Salas, executive director of The Esplanade Association, said in a statement.
The Eliot Memorial revitalization is the first project outlined in the association’s Esplanade 2020 vision to be undertaken.
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Twitter: @YourBeaconHill
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A hot week on the MBTA
(Jeremy C. Fox for Boston.com)
Will these unsuspecting passengers be greeted by waves of heat once they board their bus? Many commuters were this week.
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Beacon Hill celebrates 'hidden' history of black residents
In 19th century Boston, the center of African American life and the city’s growing abolitionist movement was focused on the north slope of Beacon Hill.
The neighborhood was home to about 2,100 black citizens by the start of the Civil War, and those residents helped build and support Boston’s first integrated schools, underground railroad stations, and the oldest standing black church in America.
The neighborhood has taken great pride in this history. A Black Heritage Trail runs through the historic streets, offering visitors glimpses of pre-Civil War Boston. The Museum of African-American History on Joy Street also recently completed renovations on The African Meeting House, allowing the the church to stand as it appeared in 1855, at the height of the abolitionist era.
Now, the museum and the neighborhood are showcasing lesser known landmarks in Beacon Hill's history.
The museum, along with the Beacon Hill Scholars and Beacon Hill Civic Association, hosted a talk about the little-known historic places on the north slope that were home to active members in the black community.
The presentation, titled Hidden on Beacon Hill: Boston’s 19th Century Black History, took place on Wednesday at the museum's campus at 74 Joy St.
Hidden on the Hill featured presentations from L’Merchie Frazier, the museum’s education director, and Kathryn Grover, the author of Fugitive Gibraltar: Escaping Slaves and Abolitionism in New Bedford, Massachusetts and co-author of Historic Resource Study of the Boston African American Historic Site.
Current Beacon Hill residents, including Suzanne Besser, Mary and John Gier, Vincent Licenziato, Dana Smith, Michael Terranova, Bernadette Williams, and Victor Zabek.
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Twitter: @YourBeaconHill
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Father, 3 sons to graduate from Suffolk University together
(Photo courtesy Suffolk University)
Thomas Demakes and his sons Elias Demakes, Timothy Demakes, and Andrew Demakes at their family's company, Old Neighborhood Foods, in Lynn.
When Thomas Demakes’s sons receive their diplomas from Suffolk University Saturday morning, he will not be sitting in the audience with the other proud parents.
Instead, Demakes will be walking across the stage with his three sons to receive his own diploma.
For the past five years, Demakes and his sons Elias, Timothy, and Andrew, have spent their evenings taking classes at Suffolk’s Sawyer Business School.
The father and his sons took every class together while working full time and on Saturday will graduate together all with Master in Business Administration degrees.
“I’ve encouraged them, leading the way by my own example, if you will” said Demakes, 69, who wanted to go to graduate school after returning from Vietnam in 1967, but never found the time while he worked at his family’s meat-manufacturing company.
But once his sons graduated from college, Demakes, now the president of his family’s Old Neighborhood Foods in Lynn, said he felt they had too much time on their hands.
“They needed to keep learning--anything. It didn’t necessarily mean it had to be an MBA,” said Demakes, who has also completed a two-year real estate appraiser’s license program and a three-year commercial real estate program with his sons and is already thinking about rounding up his sons to begin studying for law degrees.
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