The MBTA - not much to tweet home about
(Jeremy C. Fox for Boston.com)
Are all these people unhappy? Maybe.
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Charlestown library to close during 4-month construction project
The Charlestown branch of the Boston Public Library will be closed for four months starting in July as it undergoes a variety of renovations..
The Boston Public Library announced Friday it will close on Friday, July 6, and begin making improvements to its Charlestown branch starting Monday, July 9. It expect construction work to last until November.
The construction and closure of the branch will allow for the replacement of the building’s gas heater and the electric cooling rooftop unit and fans. The building’s roof and windows will also be replaced. New controls and room temperature sensors will also be installed.
Library users will see a new early literacy nook in the children’s area and a self check-out machine once the repairs are complete as well as concrete repairs and new landscaping.
The library suggested Charlestown residents visit the North End branch located at 25 Parmenter St. or any other location, during the closure
“We look forward to unveiling the improvements in the fall and thank our users in advance for their patience while we make upgrades to the building,” Christine Schonhart, Director of Branch Libraries, said in a statement.
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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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North End Against Drugs hosts annual dinner, scholarship awards
(Courtesy North End Against Drugs)
Laurie D’Elia, a Nazzaro Center staff member and NEAD board member, spoke before the concert.
North End Against Drugs recently announced the winners of its annual scholarships for students from grammar school through college at its spring family dinner and children’s concert at the Nazzarro Community Center.
At the event, Boston Police Area A-1 Captain Tom Lee and Laurie D’Elia, a Nazzaro Center staff member and NEAD board member, spoke with youth about the importance of avoiding drugs and alcohol and of listening to their parents and wearing sunscreen.
Later, the Nazzarro Center Band performed under the direction of Jeremy Sarzana, Nazzaro Center Band director, and Christopher Romano, 15, assistant band director.
After the concert, NEAD announced the winners of 11 scholarships totaling $7,000 made through its Raymond and Michelina Costa Scholarship Program. North End Against Drugs and the Nazzaro Center contributed $2,000 each to allow the 11 scholarships to be given out. Other donors were Bill and Jennifer Lane; Matt Conti, editor of NorthEndWaterfront.com; the Boston Police Activities League; and two anonymous donors.
“We are already raising money for next year,” said NEAD President John Romano.
Donations can be sent to NEAD, 30 North Bennet St., Boston, MA 02113. Donations of $500, $750, $1,000, or more can have a scholarship named after the donor, a loved one, or a deceased family member or friend.
The 2012 scholarship recipients are as follows:
Grammar school scholarships, $500 each
Lane Family Scholarship: Marielle DiPrizio
Anonymous Scholarship: Antonio Romano
North End Waterfront.com Scholarship: Nolan Ward
Boston Police Activities League Scholarship: Sydney Russo
Bobby Decristoforo Scholarship: Jordyn Amoroso
Bobby Decristoforo Scholarship: Tayla Cerqueira
Bobby Decristoforo Scholarship: Jacob Gunderson
High school scholarships, $750 each
Bobby Decristoforo Scholarship: Nick Mustacchio
Bobby Decristoforo Scholarship: Mikayla Romano
College scholarships, $1,000 each
Anonymous Scholarship: Michelle DiPrizio
Bobby Decristoforo Scholarship: Tia Bevilacqua
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(Courtesy North End Against Drugs)
Lead guitarist and assistant band director Christopher Romano (left) performed with the Nazzaro Center Band.
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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Haymarket vendors and customers have mixed feelings about upcoming development
(Jeremy C. Fox for Boston.com)
Though cleaner than in the past, Haymarket has remained much the same since the 1830s.
With a prominent new structure soon to rise alongside Haymarket’s historic home on Blackstone Street, pushcart vendors and customers have reactions ranging from upbeat to dismal.
All agree that the market should remain much as it is, regardless of whatever new structure goes up. State officials are currently reviewing four proposals: two would bring apartments above high-end markets and restaurant spaces, one would create a 180-room hotel, and another would build a new museum of Boston history. Officials expect to declare a winner sometime this summer.
“As long as it doesn’t affect Haymarket,” said K.C., a Woburn resident who said she had been coming to Haymarket every week for 14 – 15 years. “Because all these people want to do business, make their money, and I like buying fresh vegetables all the time.”
Ottavio Gallotto, a Haymarket vendor for 26 of his 49 years and president of the Haymarket Pushcart Association for the last eight, represents the vendors on an advisory committee that will present feedback on the four proposals.
Gallotto said the pushcart association would oppose the Market Square proposal presented by Walter “Budge” Upton because the 119 apartments it would create would bring too many additional people and cars to the area. But he would be willing to work with the developers proposing the museum, hotel, or the apartment building with only 50 units.
Gallotto disagreed with a recent Globe opinion piece that stated the pushcart association was opposed to change.
“We’re looking to make this work,” he said. “We want this to work. We don’t want to lose our livelihoods.”
He said a lot had already changed at the market since the old days when refuse would pile up on Blackstone Street and some would remain rotting on the street for days.
“It really is a different, different market,” he said, crediting Mayor Thomas M. Menino and the Boston Public Works Department for working with the vendors to bring trash compactors and recycling to the site.
“What we’ve done is work with the city and the state in every capacity,” said Gallotto. “We have gone away from throwing garbage on the street and having a bulldozer throw stuff away at the end of the night. We have compactors, we recycle, and we are as clean as any market there is in the country.”
Customers visiting Haymarket on a recent Saturday also felt protective of the market and had concerns that changes could have negative effects.
Alicia Savini, 32, has lived in the North End for three years and comes to Haymarket “intermittently” to get fruits and vegetables. Pausing on her way to pick up beets, Savini said she’d prefer that the lot be left open, but if something has to go there, she liked the idea of a museum or an affordable apartment building.
“I think if they were to do apartments, they should do smaller and allow for people who have a lower income to be able to afford to come into a great area,” Savini said. “There’s just not enough affordable places. They’re really hard to find.”
Savini wasn’t enthusiastic about a new hotel in the area.
“There’s enough hotels,” she said as she stood in the shadow of the Millennium Bostonian Hotel.
Danvers resident Patricia MacLean, 59, grew up in Dorchester has been coming to Haymarket for the bargains all her life, though she usually visits only a couple of times a year.
“If it’s not a bargain, I’m not buying it,” she said.
MacLean agreed with Savini that Boston has enough hotels. She would prefer housing, especially if it could be affordable. But most important to her is the preservation of Haymarket.
“I just think that this is like a museum here,” she said. “It’s been here so long.”
MacLean is right. Though its surroundings have changed dramatically, Haymarket has been in more or less the same location since about 1830. And for more than a century, members of the Campo family have been part of Haymarket.
Pat Campo, 56, is a third-generation vendor — his son Andrew, who works with him at this stand, is the fourth generation. Campo said his grandfather first began working here around 1908, but he embraces the upcoming changes and hopes they will improve working conditions in the market by adding restrooms, running water, and electricity — amenities that all the developers have offered to include.
He has some concerns, though, about bringing apartments to the site due to the early morning noise when the vendors set up.
“I wouldn’t want to live with all that noise early in the morning,” he said.
His favorite proposal is the Boston Museum, which would capture many aspects of local history in a building with dramatically open glass walls on the Greenway side of the building.
“I think there’s too much red brick in Boston,” he said.
Vinnie DeNado, 21, has worked as a Haymarket vendor since he was 14, taking over his father’s stand around four years ago. He has no preference among the four proposals, because he believes any change is likely to eventually drive Haymarket from the site, despite city and state officials’ promises to the contrary.
He thinks preference will be given to the Boston Public Market, an indoor farmer’s market planned for the adjacent Central Artery vent building.
“If it goes up, we’re out of here, so I don’t care,” he said. “They’re going to kick us out and keep the public market.”
DeNado doesn’t believe Haymarket will ever get restrooms, running water, or electricity.
“They’ve been saying that for 15 years, since my father was here,” he said. “They said they’re going to do all this stuff, and then they don’t do nothing. … The only good thing is they put the trash compactors in, that’s about it.”
Cheryl Tello, 49, has sold produce at Haymarket since she was 14. She shares DeNado’s concerns, and his belief that promises made to the vendors won’t be kept. She believes apartment-dwellers or hotel guests are both likely to complain about the noise and activity of the market
“They’re not going to want us there,” she said. She also doesn’t like the idea of a new public market moving in right next to Haymarket
“If they open this market under here that’s open seven days a week, it’s going to kill us over here,” she said.
Tello said many of her customers are regulars who return week after week and know her by name.
“I mean, we’re a landmark,” she said. “We’re here for the people. We’re not here to make a million dollars. We’re here to feed the people who can’t afford to go to the supermarkets.”
As she spoke, a customer stopped by her stand to give Tello a gift for her granddaughter. Tello explained that the elderly woman sometimes runs out of money before the end of the month, and Tello lets her take vegetables anyway and repay her however she can.
“Her checks run out, so I give her lettuce and tomatoes sometimes,” she said. “If they don’t have the money, I say, ‘Don’t worry about it. Bring it to me next week.’ And then they’ll come back and they’ll pay me next week. Especially a lot of the elderly. … I won’t let anybody starve.”
For a gallery of images from Haymarket, click here.
For a gallery of images from the proposed developments, click here.
All four proposals are also available at the MassDOT Real Estate Website. MassDOT will accept public comment on the proposals until June 3, 2012. Comments may be sent by e-mail to MassDot.RE@dot.state.ma or by letter to the following address:
MassDOT
RE: Parcel 9
OREAD
10 Park Plaza, Suite 4170
Boston, MA 02116
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(Jeremy C. Fox for Boston.com)
Dense crowds of shoppers from across Greater Boston and all over the world are just part of the Haymarket experience.
Eliot School in North End will add classes as part of campus expansion
(Jeremy C. Fox for Boston.com)
Mayor Thomas M. Menino presented Eliot School Principal Traci Walker Griffith with a toolbox made at the Eliot School in 1889 by the grandfather of the mayor’s education advisor. State Representative Aaron Michlewitz looked on.
City officials say that a popular and overcrowded North End school will grow from two to three classes per grade level as the school expands into a second campus.
The John Eliot K-8 school will begin its expansion in fall 2012 with a third kindergarten-2 class and will eventually have three full “strands” of classes from kindergarten-1 to eighth grade. It’s unclear how soon the school will add the early kindergarten program or how quickly additional classes will be added to each grade.
“At this point, what we have right now is the district has committed to expanding kinder-2, which is where the waiting list right now is the heaviest,” said Principal Traci Walker Griffith in response to a mother’s question at a packed announcement ceremony at the school on Tuesday.
Griffith was joined on the stage by Schools Superintendent Carol R. Johnson, Mayor Thomas M. Menino, other elected officials, and the leaders of the school’s family council.
Menino and Johnson were heaped with praise for their leadership on education and their responsiveness to the community’s request that the school expand to serve more children. Currently the school has an enrollment of 322 and a waiting list of 295.
“That means for almost every student attending this school now, another child is waiting to get in,” Johnson said.
FULL ENTRYOn Biking: learning to love Hubway
One of the great things about Hubway, Boston’s bicycle sharing program, is that it allows all sorts of people to go out for a ride.
Until last year, Love Nickerson never considered herself to be a cyclist. Sure, she knew how to ride a bike, but she didn’t own one. For Love, the challenges of maintaining, storing, and securing a bicycle were more than she cared to manage.
When Love first learned about Hubway she was thrilled. “But when I saw the pricing structure I was turned off,'' she said. "The all-day rental was expensive and not practical.”
Fortunately some colleagues at work explained to her that she probably wouldn’t be riding her bike for eight hours in a row. “They weren’t even cyclists and they don’t use Hubway, but they got me to see that Hubway was meant to give me access to bikes when I needed them and to encourage shorter rides.”
For Love, this was, “A different way of thinking about transportation and commuting. It was about sharing, and I liked that.” Once she understood that Hubway could be cheap, practical, and fun, she joined up.
Last year Love biked enough to become a Gold Club member, an award given to the six men and women who logged the most number of trips on Hubway. Love did this by commuting every day from her home in the North End to her job at Dana Farber.
When she began riding to work she was not able to complete her commute in under 30 minutes (the cut off point at which members incur additional charges). “I wasn’t confident about my route and I was just getting used to dealing with the traffic.” Love adapted by docking her bike halfway through her ride. This restarts the clock and allows you to keep riding without being charged extra.
After a while Love felt confident enough to ride her entire commute without stopping. “It turned out I did that trip in 25 minutes, though I would have been thrilled even if it had been 29 minutes.”
Love first began biking so she could get to work by Hubway instead of the subway. Still, she noticed that even though she rode at a moderate pace for a moderate distance it was more than enough to get her into shape.
After a few weeks Love could tackle the two small hills on her commute “without huffing or puffing or needing a drink of water. The bikes have three gears. When I first started biking I used gear number two. But now I can go in gear number three (a harder gear to push), though every once in a while I’ll be exhausted and have a gear one and two kind of day.”
Love knows that she’s become a cyclist because of the fact that “I’m now aware of how things affect bikers. Even if I’m not on my bike I notice when someone’s double parked in a bicycle lane or if there are potholes or debris in the bike lane. The things that make it tough on cyclists.”
So if Love is so enthusiastic about Hubway, why won’t she be biking this summer and seeing if she can become a two-time Gold Club member? She would if she could, but as of now, Hubway doesn’t have any stations in Mongolia. That’s where Love will be living as of next week when she travels to Asia to teach English through the Peace Corps. “It was something that I’d always wanted to do, to speak another language and experience another culture.”
For Love, “Hubway was one of the first things I thought about that I’d be leaving behind when I decided to join the Peace Corps. I’ll miss how easy it is, how it just became part of my life...I didn’t anticipate that I’d adopt it so completely, but I did.”
Love said, “If I’m stationed in a place with paved roads then I’ll definitely consider getting a bike. But wherever I live after the Peace Corps I see a bicycle in my future.”
In the meantime, Love plans to explore Boston before she flies to Mongolia. At the top of her list of local places to visit is The JFK Library. “I know it’s not entirely Hubway accessible, but I’d like to get over there. Especially as he was the president who signed off on the Peace Corps.”
Jonathan Simmons is a psychologist and an avid cyclist. His book, “Here For the Ride” will be published later this year.
Readers: if you’re interested in following Love Nickerson’s adventures in Mongolia check out her blog at To Mongolia with Love.
Looking for something to do this weekend? Check out Charles River Wheelmen’s “Introduction to Group Riding.” (Full disclosure: I am a member of CRW). This is a great way to learn about paceline riding but it’s not for beginners.
North End enthusiastic about school plan, but questions linger
(Jeremy C. Fox for Boston.com)
The John Eliot K-8 School.
North End residents welcomed Mayor Thomas M. Menino’s recent announcement that the city would accept an offer allowing expansion of a popular neighborhood school. But some question whether it will be enough to meet a growing need.
Menino announced May 14 that the city had acquired a four-building complex at Salem and North Bennet streets for the expansion of the popular John Eliot K-8 School, which sits one-tenth of a mile away on Charter Street. The North Bennet Street School, a 127-year-old trade school that currently inhabits the buildings, will purchase and relocate to two adjacent city-owned buildings on North Street.
Israel Ruiz, co-chair of the Eliot School Family Council, expressed gratitude to Menino and Boston Public Schools Superintendent Carol Johnson, and said parents are excited to learn more details of the plan and contribute their feedback to the process.
“The Eliot School Family Council looks forward to being a part of this process over the next few years, ensuring that the renovations take place in a manner that maintains the integrity of our children’s school environment,” Ruiz wrote in an email.
The announcement created excitement across the North End, where support for both schools is near-universal. But it also raised important questions that have not yet been answered. Parents and others wonder whether any additional seats will open up in time for fall 2012, and whether the new space will accommodate the addition of a third “strand,” or set of classes for the school.
The Eliot expanded from one class per grade-level to two classes in 2008, adding a new class each year, but the additions have meant sacrificing space previously used for a library, music room, and art room.
On Monday, Traci Walker Griffith, principal of the Eliot School, could not confirm details of the expansion in advance of a public announcement by Menino and Johnson at the school on Tuesday night, but she expressed gratitude to the teachers, the community, and Menino for their support.
“I think one of the biggest pieces to the whole expansion was that it was everybody working together,” she said.
Miguel Gómez-Ibáñez, president of the trade school, said he planned to move some of its operations to North Street in time for fall 2012, freeing space for use by the Eliot School, and that the entire complex would be emptied by September 2013. He was unable to say exactly how the Eliot School will use the space, but he said the trade school would cooperate with the city on any transition plan.
Through the deal announced May 14, the trade school will give the city its four internally connected buildings, appraised at $6.7 million, and pay $4.6 million cash for the North Street buildings — the former city printing plant and Area A-1 Police Station. In lieu of property taxes, which the non-profit school is not required to pay, it will also provide a $20,000 scholarship to a local student each year.
Gómez-Ibáñez said refitting the city buildings and moving the trade school’s operations there will cost approximately $20 million more. The school has raised the money for the purchase price, he said, and has a plan to finance phase one of the renovations.
Gómez-Ibáñez also expressed gratitude to Menino and the city for enabling the school to remain in the North End, its home since it was incorporated in 1885, and said he was excited to help in the Eliot School’s expansion.
This deal, Gómez-Ibáñez said, is an example of what can be accomplished when the city works hand-in-hand with a private institution for the common good.
“I think it’s the most successful public-private partnership in a long time,” he said.
Through petitions, personal calls and letters, and their votes at neighborhood organizations, hundreds of North End residents had called on the city to expand the Eliot School.
Donna Freni, president of the North End/Waterfront Neighborhood Council, sent a letter to Menino on behalf of the council in January, asking that the city make no decisions about the use of city-owned property until the space needs at the Eliot School were addressed. She said the announcement of the expansion plans had “put smiles on the faces of everyone.”
“I have not heard one person that isn’t absolutely ecstatic about this,” Freni said. “The community voiced its concerns, and the mayor listened and responded in a way that really made so many people — everyone happy.”
The North End/Waterfront Residents’ Association also joined the discussion, sending a letter to Menino in May 2011 supporting the trade school’s bid to use the city buildings for its expansion and its own buildings for the Eliot School’s growth.
Stephanie Hogue, president of the residents’ association, has watched the North Bennet Street School’s expansion efforts for five or six years, she said, since shortly after she joined the association.
“When I called to congratulate Miguel, I said, ‘I’ve been waiting a long time to make this phone call,’” Hogue said. While she’s excited about the plan, she’s also concerned about how much the Eliot School will be able to expand, and how quickly.
“We want to find out those details, because if there’s any way that some of the North End children who are currently waitlisted could get in this coming year, that would be terrific,” she said. “Because I’m hearing from the neighborhood that we have already lost some families.”
Hogue said one neighborhood mother told her she wished that she had known before she sent in her child’s placement request that the Eliot School would gain some additional space in the fall.
“She said, ‘If we had this information, we would have changed the ranking of the schools that we requested for our child,’” Hogue said.
Menino’s announcement also offered little comfort for North End parents like Jen and Doug Bowen-Flynn, who live directly across Charter Street from the Eliot School. That proximity didn’t help their daughter Sawyer get into the school in the 2011 lottery, so the Bowen-Flynns decided to home-school Sawyer for the 2011 – 2012 school year. She has been accepted for the fall at the Josiah Quincy School in Chinatown.
The Bowen-Flynns are glad the Eliot will be able to recreate library and arts lab spaces that were lost to overcrowding and to meet the increasing need for space for its two current strands, but unless the school adds a third strand, the expansion is unlikely to benefit North End families like theirs.
“There are people who are without placement, who are trying to figure out how to get kids somewhere, and it won’t be at the Eliot.” said Doug Bowen-Flynn, 41, who teaches English at Medford High School. “It’s a great first step, but it doesn’t exactly solve the neighborhood’s problem.”
Bowen-Flynn said two of his daughter’s friends attend the Quincy School, so she will see some familiar faces in the fall, but most of her friends attend the Eliot, where she can see them coming and going from her bedroom window.
“Every day, especially this spring, she’s been increasingly sad about, ‘My friends are in school, and I can see them. I would like to be in school with my friends.’ And that’s tough for her.”
Email Jeremy C. Fox at jeremycfox@gmail.com.
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(Jeremy C. Fox for Boston.com)
The former city printing plant at the corner of North and Richmond streets.
Sing a song of public transit
(Jeremy C. Fox for Boston.com)
The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round.
Email Jeremy C. Fox at jeremycfox@gmail.com.
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