Karen is taking a break. Since we were all recently laughing at Trump when he inappropriately complimented the French president’s wife on the good shape she was in after the age of 60, the subject of this column still seems up to date. One good thing Donald has done for America is that the regrettable Read More…
Karen is taking a break. Here is a column from last fall that needs more consideration. The noise is always a surprise. Your cab stops in the street to let you out. The driver can’t pull over because parked cars line both sides of the narrow street. A short time passes while you pay and Read More…
Karen is taking a break. This column from last September still has relevance. Throughout the 1990s and into the early 2000s, Boston boldly invested in itself. It cleaned up the harbor, spending $3.8 billion on the Deer Island Treatment Plant alone. It spent from $650 to $850 million, depending on how you count, in state Read More…
I spend several days every summer in the North Country. The weather is always typical for New England, both warm and cold, dry and humid, sunny and rainy—all the contrasts that summer brings in our region. Plenty of rain this year has ensured that the color green is pretty much overwhelming. The rain seems to Read More…
A few weeks ago seven friends and I explored the HarborWalk from Lovejoy Wharf to Congress Street. We were dismayed by the blind alleys, signs pointing in the wrong direction or no signs, parking lots and the sad condition of parts of the walk. Now I’ve investigated what’s being done. The prognosis is mixed, but Read More…
News articles extoll Massachusetts’ wealth. From the Boston Globe on June 28: “The Massachusetts miracle: rich and thriving.” In January, “A Waterfront that’s rapidly transforming,” which reports that $1.5 billion of construction was taking place with $850 million about to begin. These new properties mean exploding tax revenue for Boston and higher revenue for Massachusetts Read More…
In 1990 eight-year-old Victoria Glazomitsky stepped off a plane at Kennedy Airport with her mother and father, her paternal grandmother and grandfather and her three-year-old brother, Misha. They were immigrating from what was still the Soviet Union. Her grandmother didn’t want to leave. But everyone else did, including her father, who as an engineer could Read More…
Last Thursday, I took a walk along the harbor with four friends from downtown Boston and others from Iowa, Kentucky and Washington, DC, to assess how the 33-year-old HarborWalk is doing. Its purpose is to connect neighborhoods along the harbor and enable all Bostonians access to that scenic and economically important feature of our city. Read More…
When Hampshire House owner Tom Kershaw invited me to join him on the square-rigged, 122-foot schooner Lynx, based in Nantucket and St. Petersburg, Florida, at Saturday’s Parade of Sail, I immediately said yes. Journalists often get to do something special—once I walked the entire Big Dig tunnel while it was under construction, and I’m still Read More…
Why does the Hurley Building on Cambridge Street have chain link fence pieces around it? A person from the state Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance who said not to use his name told me that there is a drop between the plaza and the sidewalk and his department is concerned that people could Read More…
I’m sitting in the sun at a corporate event on Summer Street. Newspaper people often get invited to occasions like this. Millennium Partners are the hosts. They redeveloped the Filene’s block, restoring the 1912 Daniel Burnham Building, named after its architect, and adding the new residential tower built on the hole in the ground that Read More…
Have you kept up with contemporary authors? They get praise from reviewers, but some are challenging. Their books are admired for convoluted structure and no plot line. You search for the good writing the reviewers say they demonstrate, but you find it hard to determine what certain sentences mean. The authors can seem self-absorbed, forgetting Read More…