Downtown JournalAn occasional column about city life Tentatively stepping back into what life used to be, we shake off the shackles of the lockdown and look around at the changed world. It’s not really new, of course, but our perceptions of it are altered. We see things in a new light as the opening of Read More…
Downtown JournalAn occasional column about city life On the first Friday of May, I went to sleep next to my husband and woke up early Saturday morning being transported from our bedroom to an ambulance. “What hospital do you want to go to,” one first responder asked. “Mass General,” I replied. We raced off to Read More…
Downtown JournalAn occasional column about city life Nothing dulls my senses more than a televised press conference. However, recent State House pressers starring Charlie Baker catch my full attention. When the Massachusetts governor talks to reporters about the coronavirus situation, he communicates clearly and speaks well, answering reporters’ questions without attitude or comment. Baker, generally, Read More…
Downtown JournalAn occasional column about city life Each December, I pay the piper after hoarding donation envelopes and non-profit pitches during the previous months. In the 2019 giving season, as I went through my envelopes, I found one addressed to the Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy. I pondered it, felt a bit sad, and cast the Read More…
Downtown JournalAn occasional column about city life Earlier this month, my husband Ben and I were driving home and we weren’t speaking. We were utterly absorbed in a podcast playing on the car radio – a podcast with the most implausible title, “Should America Be Run By…Trader Joe’s?” As we listened, each of us came Read More…
Downtown JournalAn occasional column about city life Each morning, I am oddly comforted when the rallying cries begin. In the evening, when the shouts fade away, I feel the neighborhood becomes a little too quiet. The hotel workers on strike at Battery Wharf Hotel definitely have a hold on my attention. The striking Local 26 Read More…
I was telling a friend, a Broadway aficionado, about the topic I planned for this column. He immediately thought of a song, although he couldn’t remember the title or the show, but he described how an older character sings of her new love. In the anthem, the character (he remembers actress Dorothy Loudon played her) Read More…
One of the biggest local news stories of the year nearly got buried under a pile of rubble. That story is the sudden shuttering of 454-464 Hanover Street in mid-March by Boston’s Inspectional Services after an engineer working for the department cited the deterioration of steel beams and reported the possibility of “catastrophic failure.” The Read More…
Downtown JournalAn occasional column about city life The biggest news of the week arrived with old school simplicity – delivered by the post office in a letter that began: “To Our Valued Customers and Friends of GREEN CROSS PHARMACY…we are retiring after 55 years. Green Cross Pharmacy has been sold and will be closing on Read More…
Downtown JournalAn occasional column about city life The New Year is now three weeks old. Are you tidied yet? Or still bound up with resolutions to tidy? Oh. OK. You want me just to shut up and go away. You don’t want to be reminded of that determination to pare down, clean up, throw out Read More…
Downtown Journal An occasional column about city life Lydia Edwards is a brave woman. The freshman city councilor represents District One, which includes the North End, and she has chosen to wrap herself around a perilous issue haunting everyone – garbage. In fact, the disposal of waste goes to the heart of the preservation of Read More…
Downtown Journal An occasional column about city life We live in strange times when political leaders – the president, the Congress – seem to have forgotten our noble past of sacrifice and wars waged for freedoms once envied around the world. Every day, more of our collective dignity and purpose seem to erode under the Read More…