Check out these great articles dealing with issues and plans throughout the City of Boston, such as the revised plans for Lovejoy Wharf, solar charging seats on the Greenway and lots of climate change related updates. Lastly, do you remember The European?
Lovejoy Wharf Details Leave Out One Thing
Here are new renderings of Lovejoy Wharf, the waterfront project due to connect the North End, the West End and the Charles River Esplanade (oh my!). It comes courtesy of the Architectural Team, which is serving as urban planner and architect. The firm enthuses about Lovejoy Wharf’s 187,000-square-foot Converse HQ; its offices, ground-floor shops and 300-seat restaurant; and its new open spaces, including floating docks and a visitor’s center. It leaves something out, though, of the grand scheme of Lovejoy Wharf. Read more at Boston Curbed
Stonework at North End Park Fountains
When Columbus Day weekend drew to a close a few weeks back, we turned off our fountains at the North End, Rings and Chinatown locations for the season. We then started work on a number of projects, including resetting of the cap stones along the edge of the fountain in the North End park south of Hanover Street. Read more at Life on the Greenway

Seat-e can recharge phones as users take a rest
The newest park benches in Boston come with instructions. Installed recently at the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway, each of these two sleek, backless benches has a solar panel on one side to provide power to recharge cellphones, a connection to the Internet, and for night lighting. Soon they also will have sensors to detect for air pollution — even telling whether someone nearby is smoking. All of which is not that obvious to the Greenway visitors invited to use them.
Read more at The Boston Globe
The Freedom Trail: There’s an app for that
Imagine all the time and effort Paul Revere could have saved if only he had had a smartphone. Instead of galloping through the dark countryside on his midnight ride, the Boston silversmith simply could have texted the news that the British were on the march to Lexington, tweeted the Committee of Correspondence, and turned in at a decent hour. Thankfully, the only roaming charges Revere ever needed to worry about were his horse’s oats because although a smartphone would have made his task easier, it also would have deprived us of the drama and romance of the American Revolution, a tale retold every day in this city along the Freedom Trail. Read more at The Boston Globe

TBHA applauds Mayor Menino, City of Boston’s Follow Through on Commitment to Climate Change Preparedness
On February 5, 2013, TBHA was honored to participate in a joint press conference in which Mayor Thomas M. Menino announced the City’s plans to better prepare Boston for the next Superstorm Sandy and future higher sea levels. We simultaneously released our report Preparing for the Rising Tide, which has since been downloaded over 10,000 times from our website and has received over 1.3 million Google hits. On the first anniversary of Superstorm Sandy, Mayor Menino again held a press conference at the New England Aquarium and announced the progress the City has made on climate change preparedness. Progress included the release of two excellent resources for both property owners and policy makers. Continue reading at The Boston Harbor Association
Strong Port Needed for Strong Waterfront
Check out this post from the The Waterfront Observer, written by Vivien Li, Special To Banker & Tradesman. The Port of Boston, New England’s largest port handling more than 20 million tons of cargo annually, is facing global and local challenges. Read more at The Boston Harbor Association
If Sandy hit Boston again…
[With Video] On the one-year anniversary of Superstorm Sandy laying waste to the New Jersey coastline and flooding New York City – and giving Boston a long, hard soaking – Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino and city officials and environmentalists reviewed progress on the city’s efforts to prepare for further climate change and severe weather events. Read and watch at NECN
Cities that Are Building Resilience to Climate Change
The featured map highlights 50 cities that have already taken steps to increase their resilience to extreme weather and other climate change impacts. These actions include building sea walls and levees, restoring wetlands and dunes, factoring climate change risks into infrastructure, building designs, and public health planning. The map includes cities that are implementing actions in their adaptation plan, developing a plan, or taking initial steps to build resilience without a plan in place yet. The cities included on the map is not an exhaustive list of metro areas taking resilience action, as many other cities are adapting to more extreme heat, floods, and drought even if they are not publicly attributing these growing risks to climate change. Read more and view map at American Progress
Temporary eatery could fill former Anthony’s Pier 4 site 3
Developers at Pier 4 are considering a new, temporary restaurant to replace Anthony’s, which closed its waterfront restaurant in August after 50 years to make way eventually for a new condo building and park. New England Development — developer of the 1 million-square-foot, mixed-use Pier 4 project that will include three buildings in South Boston’s Seaport District — has been in talks with prospective restaurateurs about the prime Boston Harbor spot. Read more at The Boston Herald
Aprile’s European Restaurant
Those who are in their teens or twenties may never have heard of a restaurant in the North End called The European, but for more than a few who are a bit (or a lot) older, hearing that name brings back fond memories of this long-closed Italian restaurant near where Hanover Street and Cross Street intersect. The European shuttered in the late 1990s after being in business for more than 80 years, saddening many who remember the terrific pizza served at this place, but the restaurant–and the pizza–is not really gone forever, as the same family opened a dining spot called Aprile’s European Restaurant in North Chelmsford back in 2010, moving into a charming space in an old brick mill building that sits next to a little brook. Check this out at Hidden Boston