Jeremy C. Fox for Boston.com

The setting sun shone down as an outbound Orange Line train approached Roxbury Crossing.

By Jeremy C. Fox, Town Correspondent

Spring is in the muggy, fetid air on the MBTA

Storified by Jeremy C. Fox· Fri, May 03 2013 12:32:56

Jeremy C. Fox can be reached at jeremy.fox@globe.com.
Follow him on Twitter: @jeremycfox.
Follow Downtown on Twitter: @YTDowntown.

By Matt Rocheleau, Town Correspondent

A video projection art piece will be overlaid on the façade of the former Blessed Sacrament Church in Jamaica Plain as part of an event Friday night that bills itself as a rally to stop a controversial plan for the church to be converted into condo units.

Organizers of Friday’s event say they want to see the building used as a community space instead of housing.

The Hyde Square Task Force will host the event from 7:30 to 10 p.m. Friday in front of the church “to highlight the iconic importance” of the ornate building located “in the heart of what’s known as Boston’s ‘Latin Quarter,’ the rapidly changing Hyde/Jackson neighborhood of Jamaica Plain,” organizers said.

The evening will include Afro-Latin music, drum circles, treats provided by the Cupcakery food truck and the public projection of the art piece by MassArt students that “highlights the church’s significance within the community,” organizers said.

“The church’s beautiful architecture will serve as the base for a video projection art piece overlaid on the church façade,” said a statement from the Hyde Square Task Force. “The piece will include the sounds, voices and images of community members as they reflect on the church building, the changes to the community, and their hopes for the church’s future use as a community space where people can connect and be inspired.”

“Hyde Square Task Force hopes to inspire community members, the public, and elected officials to support this architectural treasure as the centerpiece of Boston’s vibrant Latin Quarter where people can gather, perform, create community, and celebrate individual, family, and community-wide events,” the statement said.

The Archdiocese of Boston closed the church campus in 2004 and sold the three-acre property along Centre Street a year later to two co-developers. A master plan to redevelop the campus was approved one year after that, following an extensive community review process.

Since then, 81 housing units have been built on the campus. All of the units constructed so far follow the original plan, including being designated as affordable housing.

But, there are two buildings on the campus that have not yet been redeveloped – the 99-year-old church building and the 117-year-old Norbert School building.

Recent proposals for the two buildings have drawn criticism because each would alter some aspects of the original master plan.

The latest proposal for the Norbert School calls for building 21 market-rate rental units inside. That plan has been criticized because it would cause the overall ratio of affordable housing on the campus to be lower than originally planned. The original master plan called for that building to be kept as a school, but the school moved out in 2009 and the building has been empty since.

The church building proposal has drawn controversy even though it largely follows the original plan, would actually create a slightly higher proportion of affordable units, and also calls for about 200 more square feet of community space. The church, a city-designated landmark, would be converted into between 32 and 34 condominiums, four of which would be designated as affordable housing.

The Archdiocese sold the church with a restriction that the building be used as housing, with the exception of the front portion of the first floor that is designated as community space, developers have said.

The original plan called for the entire campus to contain 118 housing units, 88 of which, or about 74 percent, would be designated as affordable. If both of the current development proposals are completed as planned, the campus would contain between 134 and 136 total units, 85 of which, or about 63 percent, would be designated as affordable.

Some community members have called for the co-developers to consider new proposals with either more affordable housing or more community use.

Officials from the co-developers have said they entertained more than 50 ideas to repurpose the two undeveloped buildings, but the only two that have proved feasible are the ones being worked on presently. The developers have said they have paid a few million dollars to maintain the vacant church and school and continue to incur costs.

But, critics have continued to oppose the proposals.

“The plans for the Norbert School will eliminate 15,000 square feet of space, originally set aside for community uses and the plan to build market rate condos in the church will close off the church forever from the community and for future community uses,” the Hyde Square Task Force said in a statement this week.

“When the campus plan was approved by the Boston Redevelopment Authority in 2006 there was a need for housing, but hundreds of units of mixed income housing have been built in the immediate area since then,” the statement added. “Many residents strongly believe that the church was built for community uses and needs to be reclaimed for those purposes.”

E-mail Matt Rocheleau at mjrochele@gmail.com.
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By Patrick D. Rosso, Town Correspondent

On Saturday residents of Roxbury and Jamaica Plain will celebrate 35-years of Wake Up the Earth gatherings with parades, vendors, activities, and community groups.

The yearly event, put on by Spontaneous Celebrations, brings together residents from across the community to celebrate the neighborhoods’ green spaces with a particular emphasis of the Southwest Corridor, which cuts through Jamaica Plain, Roxbury, Mission Hill, and the South End.

On Saturday separate parades from Centre Street in Jamaica Plain, Egelston Square, and Dudley Square will meet at Jackson Square to join together and proceed to the park across from the Stony Brook MBTA Station, where the day-long festival will be held.

Throughout the day there will be food, music, family activities, and information booths at the festival grounds.

More information, including times and vendor lists, can be found here.

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Email Patrick D. Rosso, patrick.d.rosso@gmail.com. Follow him @PDRosso, or friend him on Facebook.

Jeremy C. Fox for Boston.com

Downtown Boston.

By Jeremy C. Fox, Town Correspondent

A City of Boston initiative has been named one of the top government innovations in the country by an institute at Harvard University.

The Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics is among 25 semifinalists for the Innovations in American Government Award, presented by the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

“These top 25 innovations in government offer real, tangible ways to protect our most disadvantaged citizens, educate the next-generation workforce, and utilize data analytics to enhance government performance,” Stephen Goldsmith, director of the center’s Innovations in Government program, said in a statement Wednesday.

“Despite diminishing resources, these government programs have developed model innovations that other struggling agencies should be inspired to replicate and adapt to their own communities,” Goldsmith said.

The Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics works to deliver an array of transformative city services to residents, ranging from enhancing public spaces, to increasing civic participation, to improving educational outcomes, according to Harvard.

The 25 initiatives were selected by a panel of researchers, practitioners, and policy specialists, Harvard said. The Innovations in American Government Award winner and four finalists will be announced in the fall.

In the list released Wednesday, the programs are presented in alphabetical order and are not ranked.

The Ford Foundation created the award in 1985 to draw attention to effective government programs, Harvard said. The awards program has since recognized more than 400 government initiatives at the local, state and federal level, as well as tribal governments, and provided more than $22 million in grants to support efforts to help disseminate those programs.

A full list of the Top 25 programs is available here.

Jeremy C. Fox can be reached at jeremy.fox@globe.com.
Follow him on Twitter: @jeremycfox.
Follow Downtown on Twitter: @YTDowntown.

(Matt Rocheleau for Boston.com)

By Matt Rocheleau, Town Correspondent

The temporary extra patrols of well-armed police officers and soldiers in MBTA stations are gone. But the quest to bolster the long-term safety of the public transit system is far from over.

The T still has $80 million in unspent federal homeland security grants, which have been doled to public transportation systems across the country since 2002.

The $60 million in federal grants spent by the T over the past decade has helped make the agency a national leader in the industry of public transit safety.

“The efforts toward security and policing that the MBTA has had in place for a number of years have really been looked at as a benchmark for the industry,” said Greg Hull, director of operations, safety and security for the American Public Transportation Association.

And, when the bombs went off at the Boston Marathon two weeks ago, officials at the MBTA said that, while shocked and devastated like the rest of the city, they were prepared, largely due to the new equipment and training acquired in recent years.

“It was controlled chaos,” said Randy Clarke, senior director of security and emergency management for the MBTA and the Massachusetts Department of Transportation.

He described the atmosphere of the T’s central hub for dispatch and communications, or Operations Control Center, as officials scrambled to secure stations and stop some service after the explosions at Copley Square, and then again several day later when the system was shut down during a lengthy manhunt.

“I hate to say we’re used to crises and trained for them, but we are,” Clarke said.

On Monday, two weeks after the Marathon bombings, MBTA officials gave a tour of the control center, which includes some of the transit industry’s most sophisticated technology for daily operations and security.

By Matt Rocheleau, Town Correspondent

Free Wi-Fi Internet access will soon be broadcast from 16 existing pay phones in Boston.

And officials from companies leading the effort hope to, pending city approval, rapidly expand the service so that a total of about 100 existing pay phones across Boston will offer free wireless Internet hotspots by the end of this summer. By the end of next summer, they hope they will have reached a total of about 400 payphones citywide.

The effort, called “FreeBostonWiFi,” is being carried out on a trial basis, company officials said.

So far, the city’s Department of Innovation and Technology has approved Wi-Fi installations at 16 pay phones, located around City Hall, Faneuil Hall, Downtown Crossing and Long Wharf, according to Tyler Kratz, president of DAS Communications, which is one of four private companies partnering on the effort.

RCN Business Services, LCC International Inc., Pacific Telemanagement Services and DAS Communications announced their plan at a conference in Boston last week.

Four temporary demo sites were set up at pay phones near the Hyatt Regency hotel where the conference was held, the companies said.

One site at Cambridge and Court streets near City Hall Plaza was heavily used even though nothing was done at the site to advertise that the Wi-Fi signal was there.

“People had no idea it was there unless they saw it on their phone,” or other mobile device, said Kratz. “People were using it quite a bit. It blew my mind.”

Over about a 24-hour span last week, about 18,000 mobile devices “noticed” the Wi-Fi. About 2,000 devices connected and more than 200 people spent and average of 17 minutes using the Internet connection, he said.

“There’s a demand for this,” said Kratz.

He said the Wi-Fi service at that payphone by City Hall was supposed to be permanent. But, last week it was struck by some bad luck. A vehicle rammed into and damaged the booth. But, Kratz said the companies plan to have it replaced and restore Wi-Fi service within a couple of weeks.

The other 15 pay phones in line to get Internet hotspots are also located in downtown Boston and in areas that draw a high number of pedestrians, including commuters, business professionals and tourists.

Kratz said another focus will be to add the service to pay phones in low-income areas of Boston where some people cannot afford their own Internet access.

“Boston is a great city. With all of the college students and the young people it’s perfect demographically,” he said. “And we really want to make sure this is not just clustered in one spot.”

The Wi-Fi hotspots will offer around-the-clock Internet access for an unlimited amount of time at no cost to users or taxpayers.

The signal is usually accessible within 100 to 200 feet of the kiosk, though range can vary depending on whether there are objects or structures around the kiosk that could interfere with the signal.

To connect to the Wi-Fi hotspots, users need to select FreeBostonWiFiSSID on their mobile device and then accept the connection’s terms and conditions. No password is needed and no personal information gathered.

The companies that own the kiosks and run the service pay for installing and maintaining the new infrastructure at the payphone stations.

Some of the kiosks themselves have advertisements on them to generate revenue for the companies, but Kratz said the Internet service will not display ads on users devices.

"The partnership is giving new life to telephone booths that have almost become extinct due to the evolution of the cell phone," said a statement from Jeff Carlson, vice president and general manager of RCN Boston. “Small cell and Wi-Fi technology deployed through this partnership is another step toward delivering high quality wireless by lighting up hotspots in Boston using RCN's unparalleled fiber network."

The payphone kiosks will broadcast Wi-Fi in part by using small cell technology, which allows mobile devices, such as cell phones, to work.

"It's interesting and a little ironic that capacity demands from the cellular market has allowed for the repurposing of existing phone infrastructure, like payphone kiosks,” said a statement from E.J. von Schaumburg , vice president of Advanced Mobility Solutions at LCC International. “Utilizing small cell technology, we can take advantage of the excellent kiosk locations throughout an urban area and deliver high quality cellular capacity at the street level."

Last summer, a pilot program launched in New York City in which free public Wi-Fi Internet hotspots were emitted from routers installed at about 10 payphones.

Kratz said his company has been involved with the efforts in New York City and that his company now runs Wi-Fi from about 20 payphones there and plans to soon add the service to about 40 more payphones.

City officials in New York have said they plan to have Internet service added to all 12,000 payphones there.

Several weeks later after the program debuted in New York, two at-large City Councilors in Boston – Felix G. Arroyo and Ayanna Pressley – proposed doing something similar here.

Kratz said he has since met with Arroyo to discuss replicating the service in Boston and that he and other city officials have been instrumental in helping it launch.

Use of payphones has become rare because of cell phones. Some payphones no longer function to make calls. Others have been removed entirely.

Wi-Fi hotspots will help restore some use to the old payphone kiosks, officials have said.

The first-ever payphone was installed at a bank in Hartford in the late 1800s.

Since 1997, the number of payphones nationwide has dropped from an estimated peak of about 2.2 million to about 400,000, according to a petition that the American Public Communications Council, which advocates for payphone use, sent to the Federal Communications Commission last spring.

Kratz said the roughly 400 payphones in Boston his company hopes to bring Wi-Fi to are all owned by Pacific Telemanagement Services. He said there are few others in the city.

Kratz said his company is also in talks with city officials about the possibility of having free wireless Internet access broadcast from key municipal buildings, like police and fire stations, as well as from old-fashioned fire alarm boxes around Boston. But, Kratz said, no agreement has been reached and other companies are pitching similar ideas to the city.

E-mail Matt Rocheleau at mjrochele@gmail.com.
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(Google Maps)

By Matt Rocheleau, Town Correspondent

The state transportation department is looking for buyers for four small, vacant parcels of land along the MBTA’s Orange Line in Jamaica Plain.

The sites are surplus property leftover from the MBTA’s Southwest Corridor Project, which began in 1968 and was completed in 1987, officials said.

The largest site is 1,621 square feet. It is located on Lawndale Terrace.

Another parcel, on Gordon Street near Woosley Square, is 686 square feet. There is also a 552 square-foot parcel on Everett Street and a 375 square-foot parcel on Call Street near Carolina Avenue.

The transportation department announced on Friday that it is seeking bids for the properties. Each site will be sold “as is” to the highest bidder.

But, to be selected, the top bid must meet or exceed “fair market value,” which has not yet been determined for these four sites. The state can also reject any bids and can try to seek additional information or negotiate with bidders.

“Prospective bidders are responsible for determining the availability and adequacy of any utilities for the parcel,” the transportation department said in a statement. “Parcels will be sold in an ‘as is,’ ‘where is,’ and ‘with all defects basis,’ and are subject to all existing and recorded easements, encumbrances, restrictions, and utilities.”

Bids are due by 2 p.m. on Thursday, June 27.

For other terms, conditions and details about the bidding process, see a copy of the invitation for bids here.

E-mail Matt Rocheleau at mjrochele@gmail.com.
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AP Photo/Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority

In this 2010 photo provided by the MBTA, Richard Donohue Jr., left, and Sean Collier pose together at their graduation from the Municipal Police Officers' Academy.

By Jeremy C. Fox, Town Correspondent

A Twitter tribute to MBTA Officer Richard Donohue

Storified by Jeremy C. Fox· Fri, Apr 26 2013 13:26:34

Jeremy C. Fox can be reached at jeremy.fox@globe.com.
Follow him on Twitter: @jeremycfox.
Follow Downtown on Twitter: @YTDowntown.

By Matt Rocheleau, Town Correspondent

Two Jamaica Plain organizations have paired up to create an exhibit that blends local history and art.

The exhibit focuses on the history of the Jamaica Plain Tuesday Club and is installed in a room inside the Loring Greenough House, which the club saved from demolition 89 years ago. The club has been a steward of the house ever since.

The exhibit, called “A Social Convergence: Assembling JPTC’s Past & Present,” was created through a partnership with UFORGE Gallery.

“The JPTC would like to share their unique perspective on Jamaica Plain history with new generations, articulated with the help of artists working in a variety of media,” the gallery and club said in a joint press release. “Artists were invited to immerse themselves in the intertwining stories behind this historic landmark and its many central characters: from the Loring and Greenough families, to socialites of the early 20th century, to members of the JPTC, past and present.”

Participating artists recently met with the club’s Collections Committee to learn more about the history of the club and the Loring Greenough House, which was built in 1760 and is “JP’s only remaining Georgian country estate.”

“Drawing inspiration from stories, scrapbooks, objects, and the building itself, eight artists will be presenting their interpretations of this incredible place,” the release said.

The participating artists are: Kasey Appleman, Brian Crete, Patricia Dognazzi, Amy Hitchcock, Marnie Jain, Christina Nelson, Chelsea Revelle, and Lynn Waskelis.

The exhibit debuted over the weekend and be installed through June 29. It is open to visitors on Sundays from 1 to 3 p.m. and during all public programs. To view the Loring Greenough House’s programming calendar, click here.

E-mail Matt Rocheleau at mjrochele@gmail.com.
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Boston.com Staff

Boston City Councilor Matt O’Malley has added two new staff members.

Beatriz Rivera will be his Jamaica Plain liaison and Alexandra Valdez will be his Latino liaison, according to a press release from the councilor’s office.

“I am thrilled to have Beatriz and Alexandra on my staff,” O’Malley said in a statement.

“They are both smart and energetic and have strong connections to Jamaica Plain,” he added. “Beatriz grew up in Jamaica Plain and brings her experience working with some of the neighborhood’s most respected organizations. Alexandra will be a great resource for Jamaica Plain’s vibrant and active Latino community.”

O’Malley said both women are fluent in Spanish.

“I want to make sure that all residents of my district have access to my office and a voice at City Hall,” he said.

Rivera will serve as the liaison between O’Malley and JP, officials said.

She will handle constituent services for the neighborhood. She will monitor development, zoning and licensing issues affecting Jamaica Plain and will work closely with its community groups, nonprofit, city departments and elected officials. She will also represent the councilor at community meetings and public hearings and will accompany O’Malley to his neighborhood district office visits.

A lifelong JP resident, Rivera most recently worked as a community health educator at the Southern Jamaica Plain Health Center and was a program director at Spontaneous Celebrations. A graduate of Pine Manor College, she was also a program director at the City School Summer Leadership Program and has received several awards for community leadership.

“I feel honored and excited about being the Jamaica Plain Liaison for Councilor O’Malley,” said a statement from Rivera. “As a resident born, raised and currently living in the Jamaica Plain community I am committed to working hard alongside our team for the better of our community.”

Valdez will represent O’Malley at meetings of Latino organizations and events around the district.

A resident of Mattapan, Valdez has worked closely with Fundo Arcu, an organization that provides community services and plans cultural events for Boston’s Dominican community, including the annual Dominican Parade. She will receive her associate’s degree this spring and plans to complete her bachelor’s degree at Suffolk University beginning in the fall.

“It’s a pleasure to be working alongside a team of people who strive to make our community better,” said a statement from Valdez. “I feel honored and excited to be representing the Latino community and Councilor O’Malley to the fullest.”

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