There's Gold in Boston Shines

This past Saturday, while mining trash in Dudley as part of Boston Shines, among the scores of empty fruity rum and vodka nips, hundreds of cigarette butts, chicken bones and fast food containers, there was this little piece of gold.
It reads:

"Free writing

Sneakers is a big part of my world. I start collecteing tham when I was 16. My mother always have told me to stop spending my money on sneakers and save start saving. I till this day havn't listened. One day I will call it quiest and stop with the sneaker head life"

Riding a Bike on Mass. Ave. Boston, Pre-Bike Lane

The meeting Thursday night about bike lanes on Mass. Ave. inspired me to ride Mass. Ave., which I usually avoid. This ride was late in the morning so there's not very much traffic. 

Bike's Eye View: Riding the BU Bridge

Ever wonder, while you're in your car crossing the BU Bridge, what the perspective is like for the people on bikes? Here's a peek. The dutch angle is not deliberate - there's no viewfinder on my camera so it's catch as catch can. Plus, I can't ride and shoot, silly!

Numbers Man Gets Viscera(l)

Back in December, the sculpture Alchemist (2010) by Jaume Plensa appeared at MIT on the lawn of the Stratton Student Center on Mass. Ave. As the MIT List Visual Art Center website will tell you, the work was "commissioned by an anonymous donor, and lent by the artist and Galerie Lelong to MIT for one year in celebration of the Institute’s 150th anniversary".

But someone apparently thought numbers man was lacking content and inserted offal: red heart, pink intestine, yellow liver (or gall bladder?).  My camera does not do the viscera justice.  They were removed a short time after being inserted. This photo was taken on 2 February 2011.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude in Dudley Square?

Ok, ok, mebbe not. It's the new headquarters of Historic Boston, Inc., under wraps.

HBI, under wraps.

HBI, March 2011, under construction.

Torrent Six from the BPL Archives

This is supposedly what it used to look like but this picture always confuses me because the Eliot Burial ground should be visible immediately to the left of the building and I don't see it.

Spicy Dudley

Inside Mr. G's Plaza on Warren street there used to be hair, lots of hair. Hair for weaves, hair for extensions, hair for braids, and hairdressers. Now, just inside the door, there is Merkato, an Ethiopian market, named after the huge Merkato in Addis Ababa. Partners Lebeza Alemu and Desalegn Yifru opened the shop last December. They sell legumes, spices, and best of all, fresh baked injera, an unleavened flatbread made of buckwheat Teff flour and cooked on a flat griddle. Teff is an ancient grain originating in Ethiopia but sourced by Dudley Merkato from Idaho. Merkato also sells the wheat based sweet bread ambusha.

Update: Lebeza says they have two kinds of injera: Teff only and Teff with barley.

Mr. G's was flooded on March 22 and although the flood had no effect on Merkato, the entire complex has been shut down and will open as soon as March 31, Lebeza hopes.

Bye Buy Bob Slate

This was the Church Street Bob Slate last Wednesday. I almost grabbed the small fridge tucked in the end of the dumpster.

Damn you, Staples! Damn you, internets!  If a small business can't survive in the People's Republic, where can it?  Though the store is closed, the business is still for sale.  Buy Bob Slate. 

The letter posted on the window of the storefront supplies the relevant information.

Dudley Square Blossoms

Springtime came to Dudley Square this past Friday when Blanka's Flowers and Gifts opened on Warren Street. Blanca Sierra de Price of Milton dispensed squeals of joy with hugs while customers chatted and purchased floral arrangements at the opening celebration. Blanca with a "c" calls her store Blanka with a "k" to be different.

"I want to bring the best product to Dudley Square. The best!" she said.

Brunilde Torres of Jamaica Plain said, "This is great for the neighborhood." Torres said she may be trekking to Dudley to buy her flowers since Leaf and Petal in Jamaica Plain is no longer open.

The store

                           

The wares.

                                 

More wares.

 

Brunilde Torres of Jamaica Plain makes a purchase from Yolanda Tubens of the South End.

More pictures here.

Fixin' It on the Fly: Cambridge Installs Bike Repair Stands

Cambridge has installed three public bike repair stands throughout the city - one at Fresh Pond, another at the Main Library and the third on the Mount Auburn Bennett Street end of the little car lot underneath the Harvard Square Hotel. There's a tire pump, allen and wheel wrenches, flat-head and phillips screwdrivers and tire levers.

Guns and Butter

Ah, if only gun-toting, shooting-each-other-up youth had the power to incite as much passion, commitment, and rallying as a friggin' grocery store! Websites, videos, organized protests, and even a panel spring up in the arsenal of weaponry coordinated to keep the nation's organic supermarket from coming to Jamaica Plain but for you, ignorant, misguided, impoverished gang-child? You're on your own, kid, until they need a scapegoat. Where do you buy your food? I bet you don't - I bet you're hungry a lot and hungry for a lot of things:  acceptance, love, food, safety, respect, knowledge, a decent future, work.

Where is all this civic effort when gang violence escalates? Grocery shopping, apparently.  That these protesters are able to coordinate so quickly and adeptly using all available new media says it's too late: the gentry have arrived.

Whole Foods is a symptom, not the cause of gentrification here in Boston or anywhere else in the country. Fabulous (and fabulously expensive) City Feed, the business with the most to fear from a Whole Foods in J.P., is sure, irrefutable proof that the gentry aren’t just discovering J.P., they are ensconced. And the expansion of City Feed from one store on Boylston Street to a second and larger one on Centre only confirmed the increased incursion of people with ample disposable income to that neighborhood.

I worked at the Symphony Whole Foods when it was still a Bread and Checkbook (Bread and Circus, for the uninitiated). I took the job because it was the closest place to home which allowed me to work only part-time and still get health insurance and other benefits. Maybe I don’t love Whole Foods but they provide benefits to their workers far beyond anything the Hi-Lo ever did. They’ve also done much more to support local farmers than the Hi-Lo ever did.

In the meantime, if you miss the Hi-Lo, do the socially just thing and come shop Tropical Foods/El Platanero in Dudley Square and give the food to someone who doesn't have the luxury of protesting a food store.

Do Right, Dudley!

Any day now (maybe any second) the Mayor should be making an announcement, as promised, about the development of the Ferdinand's building in Dudley Square.

The geographical and historical heart of the city, Dudley has languished in recent decades as the result of bank organized discrimination and neglect. The development of Ferdinand's is only one of several new projects crucial to the resurgence of Dudley as, not just a place to live and work in or near, as but a place to deliberately visit. What?! Visit Dudley, the outsiders gasp! Yup.

A rich national historical legacy is already here. We need the shops, restaurants, and more of the supper clubs and arts events that are also a part of the most alluring, vibrant destinations.

Yet, because we have gone for so long without services and amenities nearby, many local people are willing to settle for less. Why, they ask, can't we have a "insert bloated vapid corporate chain here"? Why, I respond, would you want that? Give me Union Square or Rozzie village, with their small, independently-owned, exceptional businesses not a stale, indistinguishable Copley Place or Galleria Mall.

How do we build Dudley and keep it unique and kinda gritty/cool but also make it cutting-edge and an exemplar of urban development? Two quick suggestions with more to follow later.

Take a hike. Remove the emphasis from cars as the primary means of getting around. As the center of a major transportation hub, Dudley is soo easily accessible by bus, easily walkable from the South End, Mission Hill, the Fenway and Jamaica Plain and very easily bikeable from further afield you don't need a car to get to it. There is a name for those places where you can drive your car to each errand and park it by the door: the suburbs. Dudley is not the suburbs. Besides, walking, biking and taking the bus is better for us and better for the environment.

Cut the chains. Develop and nurture small locally owned businesses. The big chains put their money where their corporate offices are. A locally owned business keeps money in the community, in part, because its corporate office is in the community. Maybe DSNI could help? Chain stores do not give back to the local economy the way local business does but even worse - they're deadly boring.

Easy to write, hard to do? Dudley has endured the hardest parts already. Transforming the area back into a vital, sustainable economic and cultural center is worth thoughtful, careful deliberation. Let's do it right, Dudley.

Boston Got Punchdrunk First

Now Punchdrunk is taking Sleep No More to NYC in March 2011. If you didn't get to experience it at the old Lincoln School in Brookline last fall, here's another chance. If you did get to experience it at the old Lincoln School in Brookline last fall, it'll be interesting to see how, new venue aside, it may be different.

Riding on the Radio

Someone from the Radio Boston team nabbed me on my commute late this morning to get my opinion on, um, I forget what the exact question was but it had to do the information generated by the Boston Cyclists Union Interactive Crash Map and how many of those crashes happened on Comm. Ave. I was so freaked about being late for a meeting at work that I blew my opportunity to articulate what really bothers me most about riding my bike in this town.

And that would be cell phones. Drivers (and cyclists) on cell phones - not just texting but talking on a cell phone while driving - really disturbs me, with just cause. Aggressive driving is also super annoying. As are pedestrians who ignore cyclists.  Incivility, really, is what bothers me with drivers, with cyclists, with pedestrians.  With people.

I didn't get to listen to the live stream but they just posted the podcast. That's me, "a young (ha!) woman named Michelle", with a partial rant at about 44:55 into the program.

BPL's Historic Roxbury Flickr Photostream

The library has a  Flickr stream with wonderful old photos of Roxbury during the period 1860-1935.

Some of the better known are of still (barely) extant buildings, the Kittredge House

and soon to be HBI headquarters, Torrent Six on Eustis Street.

Here's furniture store Ferdinand's in an early iteration:

Lithographer Louis Prang's House on Centre Street with Mr. Prang himself in the front yard

The Old Guild Home on what was the corner of Bartlett and Washington

There are dozens of others. Dot and JP have their Boston Pictorial Archive Flickr streams too.

How to Ride a Bike in Boston

One of the best things about the college populations coming back into town (and 60 degree temperatures in November) is that there are more bikes on the road. And one of the worst things about college populations coming back into town (and 60 degree weather in November) is that there are more bikes on the road. And on the sidewalk. And plowing through crowded pedestrian crosswalks. And coming at me the wrong way down the street. And they do these things as if they were, as my racing buddy Eric Marro would say, "the Saxo Bank duo of Andy & Frank Schleck drilling it on an Alpine slope trying to drop Alberto "tainted meat" Contador". In other words, they do it as aggressively as they possibly can.

Many riders don't have the bike handling skills of professional riders like the Schleks and Contador and, worse, don't follow the basic rules of the road. I used to believe that more bikes on the road implied increased safety for all cyclists but my fears of being doored have been equaled by fears of my biking brethren. If there's one thing almost as annoying as the oblivious Mr. Magoo drivers in this city, it's the oblivious Mr Magoo cyclists. (And oblivious Mr. Magoo pedestrians, too, but that's a different post.) Though cyclists have enjoyed a relatively free, if dangerous, ride lo these many years (invisibility has its benefits - until the door hits you or the car hooks you), with acknowledgment as a "real" form of transportation, comes responsibility.

We've had a taste of what may become the norm in January 2010 when police will be enforcing road rules by stopping and citing cyclists who break the law.* In the interest of positive bike PR and self-preservation, on the physical as well as financial plane, here's a quick refresher, or primer, depending on where you're at, on the basics of how to ride your bike on city streets.

Follow the rules of the road. In general, keep to the right. Green means go. Red means stop. Yellow means "the traffic signal is changing from green to red. You must stop if it is safe." Be as predictable as possible.

A stop sign is a stop sign. A one-way street means all traffic moves down it in one direction only and that means you, too. If for some reason you must travel the wrong way down the one-way street, do so with deference to the people who have the right of way on their side.

Stay off the #@%*!# sidewalk. Legally, bikes are allowed to ride on the sidewalk outside of business districts unless there is a local ban. If you must, for reasons of safety, ride on the sidewalk, do so slowly and with deference to pedestrians - especially old people and children.

Pedestrians uber alles. That's another way of saying pedestrians have the right of way. Especially on sidewalks and in crosswalks.

Don't pass a vehicle on the right when it has its right-hand directional blinking. Legally, you have the right to do so. Common sense says something different. If I see someone with a right-hand signal flashing, I'll get behind that vehicle and pass it on its left as it turns. I'm not going to wrestle with a ton of composite and steel.

Remember that to many drivers you are either invisible or annoying. Ride defensively and courteously.

Make yourself large. No, put down that donut. And the beer, too. I didn't mean get large that way. Take up some space. Nothing obnoxious but something that says "we're here. stay clear. get used to it". You have the right to be in the road and when you squish yourself up against those parked cars or jersey barriers (BU bridge riders take note) on the right-hand side of the road, you're encouraging drivers to try to pass you when it may not be safe to do so.

Take advantage of signs that read "Bicycles may use full lane" by using the full lane. If doing so somehow makes you feel unsportsmanlike, you can always make it up with a blood sacrifice to the car gods by riding the length of Huntington Ave. or Mass. Ave. on the Boston side of the river. Neither of those avenues has "bicycles may use full lane" signs and both should as they are utterly grim places for cyclists.

When you do take up space, you are not necessarily holding up traffic. The fact is that vehicles are the traffic - it's their sheer volume which gluts roads so a bike taking up a little extra space when it is in the interest of safety to do so, isn't holding anybody up for any real length of time. If you have a hard time taking up space because you fear you're "getting in the way", think of it as cashing in your carbon credits. You're earning them every time you mount your bike and inhale fine particulates and all that other crap from the exhaust that vehicles emit.

Use your voice if you don't want to get a bell or a horn. That little old lady on the bike path has no idea you're about to bolt past her. Shout out "passing on your left". Sometimes, "look out!" is necessary. Do the same for other cyclists and runners - and #%^@!* 'em if they can't hear you cause they've got their blasted earbuds in. At least you made the effort.

Use hand signals when you can - before the turn is safest. Just pointing works well.

Oh, yeah - have fun, if possible.

*"Recent law changes have established a new curriculum for municipal police training programs in bicycle safety and traffic enforcement. As more police are trained, we expect to see more effective and widespread enforcement of laws relating to bicycle safety. Beginning January 1, 2011, a police officer who sees a traffic violation committed by a bicyclist can use the same citation procedure used for motorists. The violation will not affect the bicyclist’s driving record, but he/she may get a fine. A bicyclist who is stopped must provide his/her true name and address, if requested, and can be fined for failing to do so or for providing a false name and address. Refusing to do so can also result in an arrest without a warrant. Companies that rent bicycles must make safety-conforming helmets available to renters. The amended laws change some rules bicyclists were previously required to follow. More significantly, motorists must change certain behaviors in relation to bicyclists or be cited for a motor vehicle violation. This will encourage motorists to be more careful around bicyclists. For a bulleted list of laws relevant to bicyclists and laws relevant to motorists in the presence of bicyclists, please see page 102." (RMV Driver's Manual, page 76).

Nice Day For Bridge Working

Workers on the BU bridge this morning after the rain stopped.

Before the Deluge: Tapping into the Water Cycle

Elizabeth Theriault, who takes care of plants for Acorn Plantscapes, fashioned her own camel back this morning for her trip to work in anticipation of tropical storm Nicole.

She said, "I am hoping to bring a little of outside nature from the outside to the inside. I'm hoping to catch some water from the storm and bring plants inside a little drink and not get completely soaked".

Met on the BU bridge, she loves that she can ride her bike as part of work everyday, cycling to offices throughout the city, instead of having to wait until the end of the day to get on it. And she usually uses indoor taps as her water source.

Ferdinand's in Dudley Square

Engaged citizens of Roxbury testified Monday night about the development of Ferdinand's Complex in Dudley Square at a public hearing called by Councilor Chuck Turner.

First, Kairos Shen, Director of Planning for the BRA, gave a brief presentation. It is the Mayor's goal, he said, in this term in office to tackle some of the most challenging projects left undone. The Mayor has tasked the BRA with coming up with a plan for Ferdinand's by the end of 2010.

The City had been looking at the project as something it would develop alone as a capital investment project, Shen said. The City and BRA would like to build something that is the best possible solution for the area and, due to the state of the economy has had to scale back earlier, larger plans to a smaller project of 80,000-125,000 square feet, he said. Even this smallest project would cost an estimated $110 million, which is what the City usually spends in an entire year on capital investment projects, he said. The BRA is currently engaged in exploring a palette of other options including partnering with developers or having developers lead the project.

Then, engaged Roxbury had its say and here are a few excerpts.

Donovan Walker, "a person who has been trying to develop Dudley and Roxbury for the last six years" said the site needs a mixed use 20 story hi-rise, with expensive condos on the upper levels, offices in the middle, and retail and restaurants on the ground. To develop the building into offices which close at 5 p.m. would be a big mistake, he said.

Karl Nurse, Chairman of the Massachusetts Black Business Alliance, used the development of Faneuil Hall as an analogy for developing Dudley. The "(Roxbury) community has always been investing and it can move in that direction," he said regarding the generation of capital for the project.

Kelley Chunn who runs a marketing business out of Hibernian Hall said that where there is a will there is a way and developing Ferdinand's is simply a matter of political will. She said it's "only fair that the wheel turn around and we get our moment", and that positive change be aggressively fostered in Dudley Square, as it has been in other parts of the city.

Fred Fairfield, who developed the old Roxbury Boy's Club, told of how as a child he would walk with his mother each week to Ferdinand's to make a layaway payment on the furniture she bought there. At 70 years of age, he hopes to be able to show a vibrant new Ferdinand's to his 6-year-old granddaughter before she becomes a grandmother.

Joyce Stanley, of Dudley Square Main Streets described herself as a preservationist and would consider it a loss to the city if the Ferdinand's building is lost. "We have the world in Dudley," she said, referring to the rich cultural diversity in the area, and the Ferdinand's development is an opportunity for the city to celebrate new immigrants as well as all the people who live and work in the city.

Barry Gaither of Williams Street called for a re-imagining of Ferdinand's that is creative and provocative. The development, he said, should be a dramatic, interesting and visually compelling building which creates some excitement in the Square.

Sarah Ann Shaw said she was having deja vu all over again. "We come to meetings, we are promised over and over again and nothing happens. If you say you'll do something, keep your word. Too many promises have been broken".

Jamarhl Crawford called on the BRA and the city councilors present (Linehan, Turner, Arroyo) to use their influence to get the police to push the drugs and prostitution out of Dudley so the district is attractive to new business.

Nadine Nelson, Dudley resident and small business owner said if you look at a map of Boston, Roxbury looks like a heart and it is the heart of the hub and the way that Dudley has been neglected is a "metaphor for the treatment of people of color". People don't want to come here, she said, and she can't understand how the South End and JP, both "sketchy" places at one time, have improved while Dudley "can't change". "I do feel safe here because there's no one here," she said. "I want to be able to spend my money here".

Councilor Chuck Turner said that rather than look to white developers to finance the project, black business leaders need to step forward with capital.

Councilor Felix Arroyo said that it's important that the project be finished so it can help to reconcile "the public perception of Dudley and the reality of Dudley, two different things".

The whole shebang was videotaped and information on viewing it may be found here.

Ferdinand's, established in 1869, was once "the oldest and largest furniture store in New England", according to its facade, and Dudley Square had a history as a bustling, vibrant cultural and economic center.

Storrow Drive As It Should Be...

Without cars, thanks to Hub on Wheels.

It began with great weather yesterday morning. Riding along the Neponset Riverway and the Harbor became windy and a little chilly. It's really fun riding on Storrow Drive and without have to suck in vehicle exhaust along the way. Two of the best days in Boston are Fourth of July and Hub on Wheels Day for that very reason.

Riders line up on State Street.
Riders gather at City Hall Plaza.

Mission Church Grammar School Rehabbed for Harvard

Double shifts of workers are sandblasting the interior brick walls of the 122-year-old Mission Church Grammar School on Smith Street. According to a worker on site, who requested anonymity, rehab of the building is scheduled to be completed by February when the Harvard School of Public Health Operations Department will lease part of it.

The building has been vacant for about six or seven years, according to 84-year-old John Clifford, a lifelong Mission Hill resident, who attended the grammar school from 1931-1939.

According to Clifford, prior to the recent vacancy the school was home to a city of Boston grammar school for six or seven years and prior to that, was a temporary home to the Boston Latin School while it was being renovated.

The Grammar School is sandwiched between St. Alphonsius Hall, a former recreation center and auditorium, and what was at one time a convent, lodging 44 nuns for the school. Neither of those buildings is at this time being rehabbed.

Clifford remembers being part of a class of 56 children in the grammar school which enrolled up to 2000 students in its heyday.

"There were seven rows of eight sections," he said, "with boys on one side and girls on the other. I didn't mind. It was satisfaction. We got homework every night."

For Clifford and his classmates, school started each day with Mass at 7:30. They'd walk home at 8 for breakfast and come back to school from 9 -noon. At noon they walked home for lunch and then school continued from 1 -3 p.m. After school, they'd change clothes and go "up the hill" to the park to play football or kick the bar, a game involving kicking, not a bar, but a bicycle tire.

Asked if he'd miss the school and the history it represented Clifford said, "People who went to school there and graduated from there are the history, not the goddamned building, not the bricks and mortar, to my way of thinking."