Controversial Dewey Square Mural Coming Down
The large, colorful mural located along the Rose F. Kennedy Greenway at Dewey Square Park, which has drawn some controversy since it was created in July 2012, will be coming down this fall. The 70-by-70-foot mural painted on the air intake structure between Summer and Congress streets has reportedly begun deteriorating and is due to be replaced soon, Greenway Conservancy director Charlie McCabe told Boston Magazine recently. While no new artist had been selected, McCabe told the magazine he expects to announce what project will replace the mural by August, calling the space “a great and very visible canvas.” Created by Brazilian twin brothers Otavio and Gustavo Pandolfo, known together as Os Gemeos, the mural was designed in coordination with the brothers’ first solo exhibition in the United States, which was on display at Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art from Aug. 1 through Nov. 25, 2012. The colorful mural depicts “a giant, yellow-colored character in brightly mismatched clothes who appears to have squeezed himself in between the towering buildings that surround him,” according to the description posted on the Greenway website. “These yellow-colored characters are an iconic and recurrent feature in Os Gemeos’s work, and are depicted in a wide variety of situations.” The artists have said the image is that of a young boy wearing pajamas, with clothing wrapped around his head. But shortly after the mural went up, some individuals began commenting online about the figure looking like a “terrorist.” The racially charged comments reportedly first appeared on Fox 25 Boston’s Facebook page but have since been repeated, discussed and argued against around the Web. As recent as May of this year, Universal Hub reported that a Boston resident had complained about the “terrorist mural on the front of the building across from the Federal Building” via the city’s Citizens Connect, calling the artwork “a disgrace” and “extremely offensive.” The mural was always intendend to be temporary, according to the Greenway website, and had a tentative end date of October 2013 “dependent on its condition.” SOUTH END PATCH: Facebook | Twitter | E-mail Updates South End Patch
Feeling a Bit Down? Seven Things to Help Inspire You
Is daily life really so tough? Well, yes, it can be. Here, though, is to keeping things in perspective. For more than a month now, Patch and Grape-Nuts have teamed up to present stories about your neighbors – neighbors who have faced challenges that would seem insurmountable to many of us. But not to the people we’ve featured in this series, Journeys. Not surprisingly, the stories have generated dozens of comments on Patch and on Facebook: “Great story…” “Thanks for sharing…” “So wonderfully inspiring…” And, so, here they are again. Great stories shared to inspire. Take a look at what these people have faced. Then click on the story to see their responses. And, feel better about things. Local Woman Helps Run Girls Soccer Club in Haiti For Taryn Silver, what began as a 10-day trip to Haiti in 2011 turned into a new home and close to 50 new friends. A former Sharon resident, Silver helps run the Association Sportives des Jeunes Filles de Fond des Blancs (The Sports Association of Young Women of Fond des Blancs), a girls soccer club in the rural town of Fond-des-Blancs, about 70 miles west of the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince. The club offers an opportunity that Haitian women rarely get due to lack of funding, time and also due to the cultural roles Haitian men and women often play. ___ Cleanup Organizer Sees a Future of Smaller Footprints Pat Conaway is “kind of a nut” about the environment, and when he retired from teaching in 2008, it didn’t take long for him to find a number of productive ways to spend his time. He now sees hope in the young people who help him clean trails, waterways and roadways. “I wanted to get people fired up about the environment, to try to encourage citizens to get involved locally,” he said. ___ Home Sales for the Love of Rescued Animals Three years ago while on the Internet, Weston real estate agent Leslie Mann read a story on the Internet that horrified her: A female pit bull-type dog named Turtle had been abandoned in a wooded area in the middle of winter. Badly injured, Turtle showed signs of being a bait dog, one used to test the fighting instinct of a potential fight dog. The Animal Rescue League of Boston stepped in to help, and nursed Turtle back to health through six months of treatment at Tufts Veterinary Hospital in Walpole. The story was enough to inspire Mann to raise about $ 6,000 for Turtle’s treatment. And even though Turtle is now on the mend, Mann and her husband, both agents with […]
State Police to Crack Down on Texting While Driving
Texting while driving has been illegal in Massachusetts since 2010, but police around the country have said the law is difficult to enforce. Forty percent of Massachusetts drivers say they still text while driving despite a nearly three-year-old law banning such activity and preventing any cell phone use for drivers under 18 years old, according to a poll conducted by Plymouth Rock Assurance. With the help of a federal grant, Massachusetts State Police will begin a statewide crackdown on the illegal and dangerous practice in June. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has awarded the state a $ 275,000 federal grant to increase enforcement of the Safe Driving Law, which bans the sending, typing or reading of electronic messages to or from handheld devices while operating a motor vehicle and a complete ban on the use of all handheld electronic devices by junior operators while behind the wheel, according to a state police press statement Tuesday. The law was enacted in Massachusetts on Sept. 30, 2010. The program, called “Text With One Hand, Ticket In The Other,” will make use of a “high visibility enforcement” model which uses informational road signs, command posts other tools which make the enforcement obvious to the public, according to the NHTSA website. This specialized enforcement will take place in two to four week intervals over the next two years, according to the police statement. The first installment will occur from June 10-29 on state roadways in Andover, Dracut, Dunstable, Lawrence, Lowell, Methuen, North Andover, North Reading, Reading, Tewksbury, Tyngsboro and Wilmington. A recent National Safety Council study has shown that nationwide, 24 percent of all crashes are related to the use of handheld electronic devices while driving, the statement says. As many as 3,000 deaths per year are caused by distracted driving, according to Boston Medical Center. SOUTH END PATCH: Facebook | Twitter | E-mail Updates South End Patch
Mayor Menino: Don’t Let Candidates ‘Tear This School System Down’
Mayor Tom Menino cautioned Boston residents not to focus on negative portrayals of the Boston Public School system as the city’s mayoral race heats up. Speaking at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new playground at Harvard-Kent Elementary School in Charlestown on May 10, Menino touted the progress public schools have made in recent years and asked residents not to allow anyone to “tear this school system down” in the coming months. “We’ve made a lot of progress in the Boston Public Schools in the last several years. It’s because of a lot of reasons—teachers, principals, the superintendent, the community—and I tell you, the graduation rate is up, dropout rates are down, more kids are going on to college,” Menino said. He spoke of how the schools work to educate every child, from every background and learning level. “Don’t let anybody over the next several months, as this campaign heats up, tear this school system down. This is a great school system. We’re not perfect, but with the new assignment plan we can make that happen,” Menino said. “To all of you out there: Stay positive about what’s happening in the schools. The most important thing we can do in our society today is to educate our children, and I think over the last few years we’ve done an incredible job. We have some ways to go. Don’t have this become an issue of tearing down the schools, because these kids out here are the future of our city.” Menino also spoke highly of Boston Public Schools Superintendent Carol Johnson, a Charlestown resident, who recently announced she will be retiring at the end of the school year. “She has done a remarkable job for the young people of our city over the last several years—driving up test scores and graduation rates, improving access to the arts and making projects like [the Harvard-Kent schoolyard] an important part of learning,” Menino said. SOUTH END PATCH: Facebook | Twitter | E-mail Updates South End Patch
Week in Review: More Bombing Suspects in Custody, Crime Down in South End
The following were the top articles on South End Patch from April 29 to May 3, 2013: South End Senate Primary Results Gomez, Markey get the most votes in the South End’s precincts. Boston Police: Three New Bombing Suspects in Custody Officials stress there is no threat to the public, details still emerging. What Sold in the South End: Douglas Park Condo for $ 352K Sold properties in the Boston area this week, April 24 – May 1. South End Crime Down Over First 4 Months in 2013 See how big a drop in crime the South End experienced in 2013 over the same period in 2012. Police: Man Charged with Drug Possession, Attempting to Break into Car on Harrison Ave The man told police the car allegedly belonged to his girlfriend. It allegedly didn’t. SOUTH END PATCH: Facebook | Twitter | E-mail Updates South End Patch
South End Crime Down Over First 4 Months in 2013
Major crimes were down in the South End during the first four months of 2013 as compared to 2012, according to recently released Boston Police figures. In the D-4 Police district, which covers the South End, Fenway/Kenmore, the Back Bay and Lower Roxbury, overall Part One crime – which includes incidents of homicide, rape (including attempted rape), robbery (including attempted robbery), aggravated assault, burglary (including attempted burglary), larceny (including attempted larceny) and motor vehicle theft (including attempted motor vehicle theft) – was down 12 percent during the period beginning Jan. 1, 2013 and ending April 22, 2013 compared to the same period in 2012. There were 1,078 incidences of Part One crime in D-4 over that span in 2013, compared to 1,222 in 2012. The highest number of incidents in both years related to larceny and attempted larceny. In 2013, police reported 811 incidents of larceny compared to 920 in 2013. Burglaries went up in 2013, with police reporting 91 incidents in 2013 compared to 85 in 2012. Incidents of crime were down in all other categories in D-4 except for rape or attempted rape (4 in 2013, 3 in 2012). Crime was down 14 percent in all of Boston during this time period. South End Patch
Boston School Superintendent to Step Down
Carol Johnson, superintendent of the Boston Public Schools system, will step down after this year. Johnson wrote a letter to the school community and published a video on YouTube Wednesday on how she came to the decision following the recent death of her husband. “This has been a difficult decision but, as you are aware, the loss of my husband and best friend Matthew has been life-altering for me and my entire family,” she said in the video. “After a long and rewarding career that I am truly proud of, I believe it’s time for me to take time to focus more on family, which, of course, always comes first.” In 2012, Johnson was awarded the nation’s highest honor for urban educational leadership, the Richard R. Green Award, presented by the Council of the Great City Schools, according to a Boston Public Schools press release. South End Patch
Locked Down in Watertown: ‘You Can’t Live Scared’
“Well, it’s a beautiful day out there, best of the year,” said Brian Baccaro, 29, a former roommate of mine who still has a Brighton address on the Watertown line. “And now I think bombs might be hidden all over the place.” That statement is no longer irrational for this community. It’s no longer irrational for Boston. The porch barbecues and outdoor events that make these neighborhoods so boisterous likely will not take place this weekend – the first one to hit 70 degrees after a long, brutal winter. There won’t be chicken kabobs or lahmajun eaten, Coors Light 30-racks will stay on the shelves, and you won’t see neighbors yelling across their porches at each other. Instead, the working class people of Brighton, the largely Armenian population of Watertown, the students and citizens of Cambridge and the rest of Eastern Massachusetts will stay hunkered down indoors in a police state. Welcome to post-bomb Boston. Watertown and Brighton Arsenal Street, specifically the section located between two malls in Watertown, is the epicenter of Friday morning’s news. Police have clustered here as they hunt for the remaining suspect, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the 19-year-old wanted for Monday’s Marathon bombings. Aresnal Street, and the two malls that bookend the enormous police presence, are on the border between Watertown and the Boston suburb of Brighton. Brighton is home to young adults, college students and Irish and Russian families who have been there for generations. From 2006 to 2012, I lived on Hobson Street in Brighton. It was a short Charles River bike ride away from the scene of this manhunt. There’s no violent crime in these neighborhoods: When I lived here someone unwittingly showed up drunk at my apartment door mistaking my home for his and a misunderstanding ensued. That’s the only confrontation I remember. It was through Watertown’s quiet, small, one-way streets in the east end of town that police had a gun battle in the middle of the night. By 6 a.m., live images of SWAT teams and other law enforcement encamped in front of a building on Quimby Street were broadcast, and riveting us in front of our televisions before we knew we weren’t allowed to leave our homes. Today not just Brighton and Watertown, but the neighboring communities of Belmont, Cambridge and all of Boston are on government-mandated lockdown; Watertown is a law enforcement stronghold. Not the outdoor celebration of spring it was supposed to be. Locked in Doors, Confident Normalcy Will Return Sue Gryszkiewicz, 29, lives on Clark Street in Somerville, two blocks from Norfolk Street, within shouting distance of the police activity early Friday. “It’s scary,” she […]
Governor Shuts Down T Service as Bomber Manhunt Continues
After a bloody night and multiple gunfights, one suspected bomber is dead and the other remains at large. Governor Deval Patrick requested the MBTA suspend service until further notice as a safety precaution. Officials asked anyone at a T station or bus to go home. Residents of Watertown, Newton, Waltham, Belmont, Cambridge, Alston/Brighton are asked to stay at home and indoors, businesses to remain closed and avoid mass transit. South End Patch
Storrow East Down to One Lane Overnight
Drivers on Storrow Drive heading east at night may want to think about an alternate route during the spring months. The Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation will be bring the eastbound side of Storrow Drive down to one lane at the drive’s tunnel between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m. for the next six to eight weeks, according to Jack Murray, deputy commissioner of DCR. Crews will be cleaning and painting the steel elements inside the Storrow Drive tunnel on the eastbound side, which begins at the Clarendon Street exit and ends at Charles Circle. The tunnel was painted in 2010, but the product did not hold up as well as DCR officials would have liked, Murray said. A new protectant will be used, and the work will likely continue through early May. “Our plan is to gauge the progress and determine how long the job will take,” Murray said. There will not be a detour during the work. SOUTH END PATCH: Facebook | Twitter | E-mail Updates South End Patch