Charlestown resident honored by Celtics for work with arts, theater
(©2012 NBAE/Sports Action Photography)
From left:Boston Celtics guard Avery Bradley, director of compliance and audit for the Mass. State Lottery Brian Taylor, Heroes Among Us award winner Joe Spaulding, and Brooklyn Nets forward Jerry Stackhouse pose at center court of the TD Garden before the Celtics home game against the Brooklyn Nets on November 28.
A Charlestown man has been honored as a local hero by the Boston Celtics for his work helping to revitalize Boston’s Theatre District and promoting accessible arts education.
Joe Spaulding, a Charlestown resident and president and CEO of Citi Performing Arts Center, received the Celtics’ Heroes Among Us award at the team’s home game against the Brooklyn Nets on November 28.
The Heroes Among Us program was established in 1997 to recognize people who have made lasting contributions to their communities. Since then, more than 550 people have received the Heroes Among Us award, which is presented by the Massachusetts State Lottery.
According to the team’s Heroes Among Us program, Spaulding has worked to protect and support arts in public schools, community centers, libraries and other public spaces, and has helped raise more than $15 million to support the arts and provide over 200,000 children, teens, and families with free arts education programs.
Spaulding was also recognized for his work to revitalize Boston’s Theatre District over his 25 years tenure with Citi Performing Arts Center.
E-mail Kaiser at Johanna.yourtown@gmail.com. For more news about your city, town, neighborhood, or campus, visit boston.com’s Your Town homepage.
New year, old problems on the MBTA
(Jeremy C. Fox for Boston.com)
On New Year’s Eve, these revelers did a little socializing on the Green Line.
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Charlestown school students perform at Copley Place
The Warren Prescott School Chorus poses at Copley Place. The chorus from the Charlestown school was one of many Boston Public School groups to perform at Copley Place in December.
Students from the Warren Prescott School Chorus in Charlestown showed off their musical talents recently when they performed for shoppers at Copley Place.
The students in grades three through eight sang a medley of holiday songs in the Back Bay mall last month as part of the Boston Public Schools Arts Expansion initiative.
The initiative aims to accelerate the expansion and coordination of arts learning across the city’s school district in order to increase access, equity, and quality of arts learning for its students.
The Warren Prescott concert was one of many concerts and dances Boston Public School students performed during December at Copley Place as part of the initiative and to promote the i Create campaign.
Working with the expansion initiative, the i Create campaign focuses on the role arts can play in the lives of students and works to ensure students, their families and the larger community knows about the schools’ increase in arts education
E-mail Kaiser at johanna.yourtown@gmail.com. For more news about your city, town, neighborhood, or campus, visit boston.com's Your Town homepage.
Patty Campatelli sworn in as Suffolk County register of probate
(Jeremy C. Fox for Boston.com)
Paula M. Carey, chief justice of the Suffolk Probate and Family Court, swore in new Register of Probate Patricia Campatelli on Jan. 2.
Patricia “Patty” Campatelli, the new Suffolk County register of probate, was sworn in at a packed ceremony at the Edward W. Brooke Courthouse on Wednesday.
About 100 supporters joined with judges and staff of the Suffolk Probate and Family Court to fill a third-floor courtroom in the downtown courthouse for a short, informal ceremony to welcome Campatelli to her new office.
Paula M. Carey, chief justice of the court, swore Campatelli in after brief remarks in which she discussed the new register’s successful grassroots campaign and the responsibilities of the court.
“We say in the Probate and Family Court we generally deal with good people at their worst,” Carey said. “So people that just are having trouble emotionally, financially, and in every other way that you can possibly imagine.”
Campatelli, a Democrat from East Boston who had never before run for public office, sailed to victory in November’s general election with no Republican opposition. But first she had to pull out a surprise victory over Boston City Councilor Salvatore LaMattina in the September primary, besting the higher-profile candidate by just 633 votes in the final tally.
Campatelli, 48, worked as a substitute teacher and then as a youth worker with at-risk teens before moving on to several positions in the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department and the state Office of Community Corrections, earning a master’s degree in crime and justice at Suffolk University.
Surrounded by friends and family, Campatelli thanked her supporters on Wednesday for helping her to get through a difficult year in 2012. Campatelli lost her mother, to whom she was devoted, during her campaign and was accused at one point of making offensive postings on social media, which she denied.
“I’m just happy to be amongst friends,” she said. “I’m really looking forward to a new year and really working with everyone. Everyone I’ve met so far has just been incredible, and I can’t thank you enough.”
Theresa Cansler, Campatelli’s sister, had flown in from her home in Valencia, Calif., for the ceremony. Fighting back tears, Cansler said she was proud of her sister but saddened that their mother couldn’t be there to celebrate.
“She’s always worked with the community, even when she was a kid,” Cansler said of Campatelli. “She worked really hard to get here, and I think the people of Suffolk County are lucky to have her.”
Anne Manning-Martin, a Peabody city councilor who has known Campatelli since they worked together at the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department in the mid-1990s, said she was happy Campatelli would have a fresh start in 2013.
“We’re looking forward to her doing a stand-up job as the new register,” Manning-Martin said.
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(Jeremy C. Fox for Boston.com)
About 100 supporters turned out for the swearing-in ceremony at the Edward W. Brooke Courthouse on Wednesday.
Charlestown organizations receive boosts from MGH Institute
A number of Charlestown non-profits received a boost this holiday season from the MGH Institute of Health Professions, and its students, faculty and staff.
The graduate school based in the Charlestown Navy Yard donated time, money, and resources to a number of local charities and non-profits that serve the neighborhood and the city as a whole.
The organizations range from Charlestown Against Drugs and the Charlestown Chamber of Commerce to Holiday Mail for Heroes and the Salvation Army.
"I am so proud of the spirit of giving and generosity displayed by our students, staff, and faculty that these charitable gifts represent," Jan Bellack, the institute’s president said in a statement. "They are one more way the Institute supports the needs of our community neighbors and beyond."
Here is a full list of the organizations and how they were helped this holiday season:
Dennis McLaughlin House in Charlestown received $1,500 from the institute to help support homeless mothers recovering from drug or alcohol addiction and looking for work.
Harvest on Vine Food Pantry in Charlestown received cereal, peanut butter and jelly, canned vegetables and fruits, soup, and rice from a donation drive organized by the institute’s Office of Student Affairs and the Student Government Association.
Charlestown Boys and Girls Club’s Shoes4Kids! program was sponsored by the school’s Physical Therapy Club and received nearly 50 pairs of children’s shoes.
Holiday wreaths hung by the Charlestown Chamber of Commerce on street pole lights along Main Street and Bunker Hill Street were sponsored by the Institute.
Charlestown Against Drugs received $300 from the institute for its Winter Coat Drive. The donation helped the organization purchase ten children's winter coats.
Sante Fanm Ak Lafanmi, a Boston non-profit founded by an MGH Institute School of Nursing graduate, received more than 100 toys for children in Haiti from the school’s employees.
Salvation Army of Boston received clothing and toys for 35 Boston children through the organization’s Angel Tree Program, sponsored by the MGH Institute Staff Council.
Community Servings, a Boston non-profit that delivers meals to critically ill and homebound residents, received support from the school’s staff council through the council’s purchase of 27 pies during the organization’s annual Pie in the Sky bake sale.
Holiday Mail for Heroes sends holiday cards to service members in all branches of the military who are either deployed, or have been wounded and are receiving treatment in the hospital. The school’s Office of Student Affairs organized an effort to write more than 200 cards that were delivered through the American Red Cross.
E-mail Kaiser at johanna.yourtown@gmail.com.
In Boston last year, 22 developments worth $1.6 billion broke ground
Twenty-two developments worth a combined $1.6 billion broke ground in Boston during 2012, according to city officials.
The Boston Redevelopment Authority said in a statement that those projects will build 4.6 million square feet of new development, creating 2,450 construction jobs and 2,010 housing units in the process. The projects also involve building space for hotel, athletic, municipal, office and retail uses.
In 2011, 26 projects broke ground building a combined 4.9 million square feet of new development worth an estimated $2.4 billion, according to the authority. More than 6,000 jobs were created.
The authority’s board during 2012 approved a total of 37 projects that will build 7.5 million square feet of new development, officials said. Those planned developments are worth a combined $3.4 billion and will create 3,898 housing units, space for an array of other uses and 5,217 construction jobs.
In 2011, the authority's board approved 46 projects. The value, size and job creation estimates for those projects was not immediately available.
“Cranes crowd the city skyline because investors are bullish on Boston,” said a statement from Mayor Thomas M. Menino. “Thanks to a growing innovation economy, a young and energized population, and an educated workforce – Boston is booming.”
E-mail Matt Rocheleau at mjrochele@gmail.com.
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2012, the year of #MBTAannoy
(Jeremy C. Fox for Boston.com)
Commuters may have pondered what 2013 will bring on the MBTA as a Braintree-bound Red Line train zoomed into Downtown Crossing Station.
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Having survived leukemia and homelessness, Luis Rodriguez focused on family
(Jeremy C. Fox for Boston.com)
Luis Rodriguez (center) gathered with half-brother Christian Rodriguez and brother Carlos Rodriguez before the Christmas tree in his Charlestown apartment.
Luis Rodriguez will spend this Christmas surrounded by family, in his own apartment, with a tree, gifts, and a big dinner.
Many can take these things for granted, but not Luis. Less than two years ago, he was homeless, sleeping on benches outside the Prudential Center and later at a series of shelters. He doesn’t regret it.
“I’m glad I was homeless. I learned a lot from it,” Luis said recently. “It humbled me, and it made me see something that I never saw before in life. It made me love my family a lot more.”
Luis was born in Massachusetts but grew up in Puerto Rico, raised with his older sister and younger brother by their paternal grandparents. His mother had cast out his father and the children — then ages 7, 6, and 5 — keeping only her youngest son, Alexis, then 3.
His father moved in with another woman, but having a home didn’t mean proper care for the children. Luis and younger brother Carlos said their father would leave them unattended and forget to feed them. Soon the Department of Children and Families took the children.
Their lives were better in the Puerto Rican municipality of Sabana Grande. Their grandfather was strict, they said, and he became angry when he drank. But he saw that they had everything they needed, and their grandmother was kind.
For a few years, Luis had a normal childhood, but at 10 he was diagnosed with leukemia. He knew of the disease only from a soap opera his grandmother watched, in which it killed a little boy.
“When the doctor told me that I had leukemia, I remember I started crying,” Luis said. “And I told my grandmother, ‘Am I going to die? Am I going to die?’ And she was crying, and she didn’t know what to tell me.”
For two and a half years, Luis underwent chemotherapy in San Juan. The treatment was excruciating, he said, and left him bald and too weak to play.
He and his grandmother spent long periods in San Juan, a two-hour drive from home. His brother Carlos and sister Jennifer visited as often as they could.
“It was really hard because he was always in the hospital,” Carlos, 22, recalled. “We wanted to be with him but we couldn’t.”
Eventually the leukemia went into remission. He was able to return to school and to socialize, but the disease had changed him. The exuberant boy had become a weary and wary teen.
Then, at 15, he relapsed. His doctor said the prognosis was grim.
“She told me straight up that she didn’t give me a lot of hope,” Luis said. “That relapse was really difficult for me, because there weren’t a lot of people who thought that I would make it.”
Luis needed a bone marrow transplant, but there was a close match within his family.
A year earlier, Luis’ mother had left Alexis to be raised by their grandparents, without pausing to visit her other children. Jennifer, Luis, and Carlos hadn’t seen their baby brother in eight years, but they welcomed him joyously.
When Luis needed Alexis’ bone marrow, the 12-year-old was eager to help.
After the transplant, Luis’ strength slowly returned. He returned to high school for his senior year and went on to study microbiology at a university an hour from home.
At 20, Luis decided to make a fresh start in Massachusetts. He stayed at first with an uncle in Taunton but couldn’t find a job nearby. So he moved in with his father and his father’s longtime girlfriend in Boston.
He soon saw that while the couple had added three children to the family, little else had changed in 14 years. They argued frequently and violently. Luis and his half-brother Christian went to police, and the Department of Children and Families again intervened, putting Luis’ three half-siblings into different foster homes.
Luis became homeless, sleeping outdoors and then at a series of shelters. He became one of the first to stay at a youth shelter opened in July 2011 at the downtown offices of Bridge Over Troubled Waters, an organization that helps runaway, homeless, and at-risk youth find homes, jobs, and education.
Stephen Keizer, coordinator for the shelter, said Luis made a strong first impression.
“I just knew that he was going to be all right, that he just needed a hand with things that needed to be done,” Keizer said.
With their grandfather drinking daily and becoming more aggressive, Carlos left Puerto Rico to join Luis in Boston and make his own fresh start. Carlos didn’t know Luis had become homeless — he hadn’t wanted his family to worry.
Keizer helped secure a bed for Carlos in the youth shelter, concerned that Luis would return to the streets himself rather than leave his brother alone in an unfamiliar city. “He just takes so much on himself,” Keizer said.
With help from Bridge and other organizations, Luis was able to get a low-income apartment in Charlestown, and he and Carlos moved in last February.
When a job opened up at the youth shelter, Keizer offered it to Luis. Now he helps counsel and care for other young people. Keizer said that with those who know his story, Luis has instant credibility.
Luis hopes to return to college and complete his degree, but for now he is focused on work, taking on overtime whenever he can to support his habit of buying gifts for family. This is Carlos’ turn to focus on education, and he will complete his classes at Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Cambridge next spring.
Luis’ father ended his relationship with his longtime girlfriend. He found temporary housing and has custody of his three younger children. On Christmas Day, they will join Luis and Carlos to exchange gifts and share a family dinner.
“This Christmas is going to be really good for us,” Luis said. “Actually, it’s going to be our first Christmas as a family together.”
Email Jeremy C. Fox at jeremy.fox@globe.com.
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Happy holidays on the MBTA
(Jeremy C. Fox for Boston.com)
Riders awaited their trains and enjoyed the MBTA’s expanding array of countdown clocks at the always-festive Red Line platform in Park Street Station.
Email Jeremy C. Fox at jeremy.fox@globe.com.
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Buses to replace trains on part of Orange Line from Dec. 29 to 30 and Jan. 5 to 6, 12 to 13, and 19 to 20
Buses will replace train service between Oak Grove Station and Sullivan Square Station on the Orange Line for four straight upcoming weekends, according to MBTA officials.
On the Saturdays and Sundays of Dec. 29 to 30; Jan. 5 to 6; Jan. 12 to 13; and Jan. 19 to 20, shuttles will stop at Oak Grove and Sullivan Square stations and the two stations between them, the T’s website said. The shuttles are accessible for people with disabilities.
Track, power, and signal work is planned to be done as part of the Assembly Square Station Project, T officials said.
In July, as part of that same project, buses began replacing train service after 9 p.m. on five days each week between the same four stops, a diversion that is scheduled to run through Dec. 28, except for on nights when events are held at TD Garden.
For more information, contact the MBTA customer communications department at 617-222-3200, TTY: 617-222-5146.
E-mail Matt Rocheleau at mjrochele@gmail.com.
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