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 students display multi-media projects in Adobe Youth Voices program
(Patrick D. Rosso/Boston.com/2012)
In Video: Jenu Berry, a junior at Madison Park also found his voice with his project “Smoking Affects Everyone” and is one of the four students who were chosen to represent BPS in the international Adobe Aspire Awards Competition.
More than 100 multi-media projects were on display Friday at the Jeremiah E. Burke High School in Dorchester as local students celebrated the projects they made for the Adobe Youth Voices program.
The program, sponsored by Adobe, works to cultivate the students' voices and gives them the tools needed to push a message in a 21st century setting.
This year, more than 900 Boston Public School students from 15 schools took part in the program that encouraged students to, using Adobe products, tackle issues important to them, such as “coming out,” quitting smoking, and healthy eating.
FULL ENTRYDearborn School in Roxbury eyes overhaul to add grades 9-12, STEM focus
(Boston Schools)
Mayor Thomas M. Menino, Schools Superintendent Carol R. Johnson, and State Treasurer Steve Grossman join representatives of the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization and other partners at a community meeting in early March to sign a feasibility study agreement for the renovation and expansion of the Dearborn Middle School.
A two-year study is underway to determine how to renovate and expand the Henry Dearborn Middle School in Roxbury, in an overhaul that could cost tens of millions. One idea is to reinvent it as a grade 6-12 school with curriculum focused on on science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
Once a plan is chosen, the Massachusetts School Building Authority would reimburse the Boston Public School district for at least 74 percent of the total project cost, officials said. That rate could increase to a maximum of 80 percent. The city school department would fund the remaining costs.
Matt Donovan, a spokesman for the school building authority, said it is preliminary to comment on cost and other projections.
Matthew Wilder, a spokesman for the Boston school system, also declined to disclose detailed estimates, but did say the project is expected to cost tens of millions of dollars.
He said the project is "very much in the preliminary stage" and that further details about the undertaking will be "based on what the needs of the students will be," which the ongoing study plans to find out.
Jose Duarte, who has been the principal at Dearborn since 2009, said the project is currently estimated to cost about $60 million and construction could start as soon as spring 2014.
“Your mouth just drops when you see the potential things they can do” to modernize the school, said Duarte, who joined Dearborn after serving for nine years as the headmaster of English High School.
He said construction is projected to take about 18 months, during which the school would relocate to yet-to-be-determined site.
Duarte said current projections call for the school’s enrollment to reach about 550 once it adds high school grades.
The school currently enrolls about 250 students in sixth through eight grades – a figure that has been declining in recent years.
In spring 2010, the state Department of Education designated the school as underperforming, making it one of about a dozen schools in Boston and 35 statewide assigned to receive additional funding to help reverse consistently subpar standardized test scores.
Since it was awarded about $1.3 million to fund its three-year turnaround effort, the Dearborn has met or exceeded every academic goal, the school district says. The school day has been lengthened and the curriculum and staff have seen changes.
For years, neighboring residents and members of local organizations, educational groups, nonprofits and churches have sought ways to help the school turn around its academic performance and improve the aging building.
“This has been almost exclusively driven by the community,” Duarte said. “The community has pushed it, the community has supported it, the community has owned it.”
The school’s growing list of partners includes: the Roxbury Presbyterian Church, Trinity Church Boston in Copley Square, the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative, the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization, the Trust Project, Northeastern University, MathPower, Massachusetts 2020, the Boys and Girls Club, the Boston Celtics, Fidelity and Raytheon.
The proposal to overhaul the Dearborn school was voted into the state school building authority's capital pipeline in Jan. 2010, Donovan said.
The feasibility study is expected to be complete by Feb. 2014.
To see copies of study agreement documents, click here and here.
E-mail Matt Rocheleau at mjrochele@gmail.com.
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Roxbury artists look to spark conversation about race, homosexuality
(Patrick D. Rosso/Boston.com/2012)
One of the posters pasted on a building in Dudley Square.
Residents in the South End, Roxbury, and Jamaica Plain might have noticed a few posters appearing around their neighborhood that feature pictures of people of color and quotes about “coming out”.
The posters, affixed to walls and utility boxes by two Grove Hall artists, are meant to raise awareness about the challenges of being gay for people of color. They sprouted up shortly after President Obama gave his back to same-sex marriage and the NAACP restated its contention that gay rights — including the right to marry — are civil rights..
“Often for both of us and for other LGBT folks there is this duo invisibility,” said one of the artists, who asked to remain anonymous because the posters are considered graffiti. “I think for LGBT folks of color we walk this line where in one community we can’t talk openly about our homosexuality and one community can’t talk openly about race.”
FULL ENTRYFree 'Football for You' clinic set for Jun. 9
(Image courtesy City of Boston)
Local youth taking part in last year's “Football for You” clinic.
Local youths will get a chance to learn from the best as the New England Patriots Alumni Club and Boston Centers for Youth and Families team up for their free non-contact football clinic "Football for You" on Saturday, June 9,
The clinic is for boys and girls ages 11-14 and will take place at the Madison Park Technical Vocational High School football field in Roxbury. It will be held from 8:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
The clinic will be taught by former Patriots' players and local coaches who will work with participants to hone their skills and techniques, whether they are beginners or seasoned players.
For more information, or to download the application and waiver form, visit www.citypofboston.gov/bcyf and click on the recreation page.
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E-mail Patrick D. Rosso, patrick.d.rosso@gmail.com. Follow him @PDRosso, or friend him on Facebook.
Brigham and Women's breaks ground on park, underground garage
(Photo courtesy Brigham and Women’s Hospital)
A rendering of the Thea and James M. Stoneman Centennial Park in Brigham Circle. The park and underground parking garage are expected to be completed by spring 2014.
The long drive of asphalt in front of Brigham and Women’s Hospital is set to be transformed into a lush park on the edge of busy Brigham Circle.
Hospital and city officials celebrated Wednesday as they broke ground on what will soon become the Thea and James M. Stoneman Centennial Park, a landscaped park providing trees and green space, and 400 underground parking spaces at the corner of Francis Street and Huntington Avenue.
“The Thea and James M. Stoneman Centennial Park will provide an inviting and very comforting space for our patients and their families who come here to the Brigham from all over the world,” Dr. Elizabeth Nabel, president of Brigham and Women’s and Faulkner Hospitals, said at the ceremony at the top of the cement and asphalt hill just outside the hospital’s original building built in 1913.
“It will also be a very welcoming space for hospital employes and neighbors and we welcome you, our neighbors, to come and relax and enjoy the outdoor space at well,” Nabel said.
The park project on the prominent corner of Brigham Circle will also allow the hospital to build 76 bicycle parking spaces and a larger MBTA bus stop with shelter.
FULL ENTRYCity to use $400k in grants to clean old industrial sites slated for redevelopment in Jackson Square
The city plans to use $400,000 in federal environmental grants to help pay for an estimated $1.2-million cleanup of two neighboring former industrial sites slated for redevelopment in the Jackson Square area of Roxbury, officials said.
The US Environmental Protection Agency's Brownfields Program awarded two grants to Boston, city officials announced Tuesday. Another 16 were awarded to other communities and regional councils in Massachusetts.
The hazardous substance grants have been designated to help fund the cleanup of 1.2 acres of land across two adjacent city-owned sites, 1540 and 1542R Columbus Ave, officials said.
The money will help pay for metals and petroleum remediation at the contaminated sites that were once home to various industrial operations, including an automobile dealership, a trucking facility, and a parking garage, officials said.
Evelyn Friedman, director of the city's neighborhood development department, said the city plans to transfer ownership of the two parcels by selling them for $1 each to nonprofit developer Urban Edge to build two projects,
One project calls for the construction of a long-awaited ice rink and turf field facility. The proposal calls for a 38,000 square-foot recreation center that officials have previously estimated will cost a total of $16 million.
The second project calls for a mixed-use development that will house 37 residential units, 29 of which will be designated as affordable housing. The building, which has been named Jackson Commons, would include a community-oriented commercial space on the first floor.
In addition to the two EPA grants, those development projects are slated to receive $1.75 million in money allocated by the city, Friedman said.
The state has allocated $5.6 million to the recreation center development. The two projects may receive more public funding from the state, including through tax credits, Friedman said.
Remediation of the land and new construction are scheduled to being in the spring of 2013, the city said.
“These generous grants from the EPA means that we can not only ensure the public safety of these sites in our neighborhoods, but we can also begin to revitalize these parcels to create housing, commercial space, and a community center in Jackson Square,” Mayor Thomas M. Menino said in a statement thanking the EPA.
The EPA estimates that every acre of reclaimed Brownfields saves 4.5 acres of green space. In turn, that reclaimed green space has, on average, doubled the value of surrounding properties.
Jackson Square is a key crossroads between Roxbury and Jamaica Plain. The city held a ceremonial groundbreaking there earlier this month for the first component of a multi-phase,14-building, $250,000 million redevelopment plan.
That master plan, the Jackson Square Redevelopment Initiative, was conceived over a 10-year process by residents and city officials one decade ago to revitalize the area surrounding the Jackson Square MBTA station.
The square, where Columbus Avenue and Centre Street intersect, was among the areas that suffered after demolitions decades ago to make room for a planned extension of Interstate 95. After a public outrcy, the addition was never built.
E-mail Matt Rocheleau at mjrochele@gmail.com.
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Boston City League baseball all-star game to return to Fenway Park
The Boston City League baseball all-star game will return to Fenway Park next month after a short hiatus at Harvard’s O’Donnell Field.
The annual City of Boston All-City Baseball Classic will be at 5:30 p.m. on June 10 at Fenway Park.
The game is organized by the Boston Center for Youth & Families and held in partnership with the Boston Scholar Athlete Program and sponsored by the Boston Red Sox.
The game was held at Harvard the last two years. Three years ago it was scheduled to be played at Fenway but had to be moved to Harvard due to inclement weather. It was last played at the iconic ballpark in 2008.
In the last three years the all-star game has struggled to garner full participation due to a lack of interest, lack of transportation to Harvard or conflicts with graduations and proms.
Boston schools Athletic Director Ken Still said Fenway Park should help remedy participation issues.
“Fenway Park is a lure because it’s Fenway park, you have people coming from all over the world to sit in Fenway Park,” Still said during a telephone interview on Tuesday morning. “To have a chance to play there as a youngster and baseball person, that’s overwhelming.”
Still announced that the game will be back at Fenway during the Boston City League championship baseball game on Monday morning at Boston English High.
On Tuesday morning, he said he hopes the weather cooperates this year.
“[Fenway is] very tough to get but when we’re able to I say take advantage and let’s do it,” he said. “I hope they are able to get on the field and represent."
The BSA’s new Athletic Director, Chris Rooks, said “It’s an amazing opportunity for the kids.”
Justin A. Rice covers Boston Public school athletics. He can be reached at jrice.globe@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeJustinRice or @BPSspts.
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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Mass. Convention Center Authority provides financial boost to local nonprofits
(Photo courtesy MCAA)
Community Partnership Grant and Hospitality Scholarship award winners with state Senator Jack Hart, City Councilor Frank Baker, and the MCCA’s James E. Rooney.
Twenty-one Boston nonprofits received a financial boost Tuesday after the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority awarded community grants at the MCCA’s annual awards luncheon.
Themoney, from the authority's community Partnership and Hospitality Scholarship Fund, will be used to benefit East Boston, Dorchester, Roxbury, Jamaica Plain, Roslindale, and Brighton.
“We understand the importance of the extensive number of non-profits who work tirelessly to serve all of Boston’s diverse neighborhoods,” said James Rooney, executive director of the authority in a statement. “Our Community Partnership Grants program is a way for the MCCA to reward these non-profits for the positive contributions they are making to Boston and its collection of neighborhoods. The grants are also a way to ensure that the organizations receive the funding that allows them to continue to make our city’s communities better places to live, work and enjoy.”
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