NorthEndWaterfront.com
News & Views for Boston's North End & Waterfront Community
Some Boston Public Schools are effective and beloved by their students and those students’ parents. They are coveted but oversubscribed, so it is hard to get your child into one. The Eliot in the North End and Charlestown’s Warren/Prescott are good examples. The Hurley School in the South End is also an effective, coveted school. [...]
An interesting topic came up with a recent buyer of mine purchasing on the Waterfront. She asked me, “Why are the prices always dropping on the Waterfront when I am getting out bid over asking price in the South End and Back Bay?” A very interesting and compelling statement from an educated, high end and [...]
Spring is definitely here so downtown residents’ inclinations turn to gardening. Digging in dirt, planting flowers, doing a bit of pruning and scooping up the winter’s detritus, all on a sunny day, is satisfying after hugging the fire all winter. Back Bay’s magnolias and Beacon Hill’s pears are gone, but they provided weeks of enjoyment [...]
The following commentary relates to a pending application by Regina Pizzeria, 11 1/2 Thacher St., to add “cordials” to its existing malt and wine license. The establishment has an existing license to close at 2:00 am, but normally operates to 11:30 pm (Sun-Thu) and 12:30 am (Fri-Sat). This application will be presented to both neighborhood [...]
The Cape will suffer an economic downturn this summer. Fewer people can take a vacation. The reason: it seems that half the citizens of Boston are running for office. They must stay in the city and campaign. This is occurring just when we thought we could come up for air after the 2012 campaign in [...]
It is hard to apologize for the third week in a row not writing about fitness and health, finishing the Sphere of Conditioning, but this has been an epic week for American Sport, and each article, each story needs a voice, and that is my charge. Barring no other catastrophic incidents in American Sport my [...]
By now, you’ve probably heard of Arkansas State Representative Nate Bell who tweeted “I wonder how many Boston liberals spent the night cowering in their homes wishing they had an AR-15 with a hi-capacity magazine?” By now, you’ve also heard the answer: “none.” I called Nate Bell and left a message on his voicemail. I [...]
Heading into Men’s Night at Work on Thursday night, three days after the Boston Marathon finish line catastrophe changed lives forever, I was excited to spend some intimate time with some of our clients and staff while we watched the Bruins host the first large number gathering since the attack. I was listening to the [...]
The electronic signs over the expressway and interstate this weekend flashed in sequence: “We are one Boston.” “Thank you to all.” We’ve had 9/11 when planes flew out of Boston into New York’s twin towers. We’ve had the Boston Strangler(s). We’ve had the Great Molasses Flood. The anarchist bombing of a North End fire station. [...]
Whew. Last week is finally over. If you consider the guys who planted the bombs on Boylston Street, the Mississippian who sent ricin-laced letters to a senator and our president, and the husband and wife accused of murdering Texan law-enforcement officials—vermin we became aware of within one 48-hour period—you’d think we’re living in a perverse, [...]
For the last three weeks this column has featured the three Democratic candidates for the 8th Suffolk District state representative seat Marty Walz left in January. There have been new developments. One candidate, Nils Tracy, dropped out. And the elusive reported Republican candidate found me. So I can introduce you to him too. Victor Navarro, [...]
Three Democrats are running for state representative in the Eighth Suffolk District, which includes the Back Bay, the West End, most of Beacon Hill and Cambridgeport. A Republican is supposed to be running, but we haven’t unearthed him yet. Nomination papers are due April 16 so we’ll know for sure at that point. This column [...]
Mary Romano got laid off at ABCD in the North End last week. She has worked there tiredlessly for around 20 years or more. She worked to help many seniors with Fuel Assistance, food stamps cooked lunches for them, ran trips and held parties at each holiday. She had special parties for those turning 90 [...]
Please look at these disgusting sanitary conditions on Cooper Street. Theses photos were taken on March 30, 2013 in front of 17 and 19 Cooper Street. This is not the first instance for these two buildings. I have repeatedly observed food and bottles (meat, vegetables and fruit) being thrown out in paper bags in front [...]
I understand compromises come with city life. But why does this helicopter hover over us often at sunrise, sometimes for at least ten minutes? It is no stranger to the ‘hood, thumping overhead of late at 6:20 to 6:30am – with the promise of arriving ever earlier as the days lengthen. I live in the [...]
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the profound fatigue that last fall’s presidential and senatorial election brought on. How could we face another round of debates, accusations and ads that two special elections were bound to produce? As I was trying to shed the dismal feelings, Jay Livingstone called me up. Dismal feelings gone. [...]
A friend recently commented that she thought the Eliot School was in trouble under the new school assignment plan, approved by the Boston School Committee last week. And she made it very clear that a lot of other parents feel the same way. I was surprised at that reaction. But I shouldn’t have been – [...]
Most neighborhoods have iconic trees. The Back Bay has its magnolias. Beacon Hill blossoms with Callery pear trees in late April. The North End’s favorite trees are the lindens and locusts along the Prado, slated this spring for pruning. Charlestown has variety, with especially good gingkos. Downtown residents get pretty agitated about trees. When city [...]
I’m provoked at Marty Walz. She used to be the state rep for the Eighth Suffolk District, which encompasses Back Bay and most of Beacon Hill as well as a slice of Cambridge. But she resigned to take a job as the head of the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts. She was a good state [...]
Urban designer Julie Campoli has a new book out called “Made for Walking: Density and Neighborhood Form.” It’s not about Boston neighborhoods. It’s about sections of spread-out cities such as Denver, Alexandria and Albuquerque. Still, the book explores features Bostonians will recognize. Typically, these neighborhoods thrived in the early 20th century, then declined after World [...]
What a storm. What a wonderful storm. When we moved to downtown Boston years ago, we didn’t do it for the walkability, the neighborliness or the convenience of living in a place where the electricity stays on when a blizzard bears down. I’m not sure now why we moved here, except I knew that if [...]
Some of you probably went to the Mayor’s State of the City address last week. Some of you, like me, watched it on television. There was lots of blather about the standing ovation and the probability that Menino will run for office once again. Maybe he will. Few candidates could prevail over him, given the [...]
Consider the rat—specifically the Norway rat, which doesn’t come from Norway. It is brownish gray and as long as 16 inches. During its year-long lifespan a female can produce up to five litters of seven babies, although litters can be as large as 14. It has excellent sight and hearing and an acute sense of [...]
Many Bostonians at this time of year are tired of cold and darkness. I don’t share that affliction. I like winter’s atmosphere, albeit with a nice fire to keep me cozy. But because it is cold and dark we read, listen to the radio and watch television more than in the summer, and sometimes the [...]
The Boston Public Schools have an illustrious history. In 1635, Boston Latin became the first public school in America. The Abiel Smith School on Beacon Hill was the first public school building in the nation built for African American children. The Boston Public Schools also have an embarrassing history. The lowest point was in 1974. [...]
Have you heard the news? In late November Governor Patrick signed off on a plan to make Massachusetts highways look like Times Square. He must have decided that trees, rolling meadows and a granite road cut or two just didn’t send the right message in the souped-up, electronic world we now live in. The Times [...]
The problems I hear most about are bikes. I get emails. People stop me in the street. People complain at neighborhood meetings. I bet you hear the same complaints even if you don’t write a newspaper column. Bikes shoot through intersections against the light. They weave in and out of traffic so drivers can’t see [...]
I’ve heard that former North End residents are sending in their opinion as to what it was like growing up there years ago as opposed to some of the awful things that are currently occurring. (Letters From Longtime North End Residents Lament Noise and Quality of Life Problems, 12/16/2012) I was born in 1949 and [...]
New Year’s Eve in Boston brings the arts-related First Night including fireworks on Boston Harbor at midnight. Vote in this poll about where you will be ringing in 2013! Polls are not scientific. One vote per user.
It’s Christmas week. For many, it is hectic, so you might not read this column until Christmas Day is over and you’re dealing with boxes, the wrapping paper that can’t be saved, and the instructions that came with the Lego sets the kids have already assembled. So don’t you think it is a good time [...]
What about that royal baby? I’m sure I speak for all of downtown Boston when I say we’re over the moon with joy. I’m hoping he or she looks more like Kate than Will. And one wonders, if the future monarch of Great Britain can now be the heir-to-the-throne’s first-born girl, why can’t a lowly [...]
It is but one opinion, that of René Loth’s mid-summer Boston Globe article, “Public space, public cash” (Opinion Page, Globe, Saturday, August 4, 2012), regarding the topical state of the Rose Kennedy Greenway. Some blooms did appear back then; but Loth must have been smitten with a whiff of some obscure fragrance, notwithstanding the Greenway’s [...]
As the Boston City Council prepares to vote this week on the Nuisance Control Ordinance, the following series of letters were gathered from longtime North Enders as part of a Boston University student project by Alexander Herrmann on Boston’s North End, curated by Marie Montemarano and shared with permission here on NorthEndWaterfront.com. The letters are [...]
We’ve got an old bridge over the Fort Point Channel. It’s going to be decorated for the next few years with flowers in boxes. Why is this important? Let’s place it first. It is the Northern Avenue Bridge connecting Northern Avenue where it passes between the Moakley Courthouse and the Barking Crab in the Seaport [...]
Just when you think life in our fair city can’t get any weirder, you hear about something even more weird. According to a friend of mine who happened to be out walking early one Friday morning on Charles Street, the trash haulers might have a nice little business on the side. Two guys with Capitol [...]
I’m worried. It’s about a surface parking lot. It seems silly to worry about a parking lot, but that’s the way it is. Maybe it will turn out okay, but things have a way of getting out of hand. Let’s hope I’m wrong. This parking lot lies on the Esplanade near Charles Circle. That location [...]