South End Residents Among First Responders Receiving Tickets Donated by Outside the Box
Ted Cutler, founder and chairman of Outside the Box, has donated tickets to first responders and medical staff throughout Boston to a special Doo Wop Show at the Cutler Majestic Theatre on the first Sunday of the festival. Tickets have South End Patch News
Boston Residents Talk Chickens, Urban Farms
Residents around the city are getting a chance to share their thoughts on Boston’s proposed new rules for urban farms, markets, composting and bee- and hen-keeping. At the first public meeting on the topic, held Monday at Suffolk Law School in downtown Boston, the Boston Redevelopment Authority announced the dates of 10 additional meetings designed to gather community input about rules that could bring life to vacant lots and rooftops around the city. The meeting was led by Tad Read, senior city planner for the BRA, and attended by Boston Chief Planner Kairos Shen, other city staff and members of the Urban Agriculture Working Group, which has been meeting for almost a year and a half to develop the rules outlined in Article 89. “A couple of years ago there was a businessman in the city who wanted to start a lettuce farm, and he couldn’t do it because it’s not addressed in the zoning code; therefore it’s forbidden,” Read said. “He wasn’t the only one; there were other people who were following this national interest in urban agriculture and wanted to start farming in Boston and found they were meeting all kinds of barriers, primarily zoning. The purpose of Article 89 is to identify and address different agricultural uses so that they can be allowed or conditional, so that development can be facilitated in the city.” The proposal is one of Mayor Thomas Menino’s key initiatives, and one he hopes to see carried through before he leaves office at the end of the year, Shen said. “I know if the mayor were here he would talk about his chickens on Long Island,” Shen said, referring to the city’s first free-range chicken farm, located on Long Island in Boston Harbor. In May, the BRA released a draft document outlining the new rules proposed in Article 89, which can be viewed as a PDF on the BRA website. The rules set the allowable size and location of various agricultural activities and establish a Comprehensive Farm Review process that would help ensure farms are “good neighbors” to other businesses and residents around Boston, Read said. The Keeping of Hens Much of the discussion at the first meeting focused on hen keeping, with members of the group Legalize Chickens in Boston and others speaking in favor of less restrictions. Unlike other agricultural activities, bee- and hen-keeping are already addressed in the city’s zoning code, Read said, and each neighborhood has established its own zoning rules for those two activities. Article 89 would not supersede rules set by individual neighborhoods but would establish guidelines—such as coop size and location and number of chickens allowed […]
Police, Residents Attend Officer Sean Collier’s Wake
Flags at half-staff, a police caravan leading a hearse and the Patriot Guard Riders lining Main Street in Red, White and Blue. A long, almost silent trail of mourners waiting to enter a local funeral home and a row of TV news trucks. Bystanders and passersby no longer have to ask, “What happened?” “What’s going on?” They know. It’s a scene that’s become all too familiar – Sunday in Medford, Monday in Stoneham and at Boston University and soon in Dorchester. On Monday in Stoneham, police paid respects to one of their own, 27-year-old Sean Collier, an officer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who was shot and killed Thursday night in his police car. Hundreds of others also attended the wake for Collier, a Wilmington native and Somerville resident, at the Anderson-Bryant Funeral Home on Common Street. The wake was private. A public memorial ceremony is scheduled for noon Wednesday, April 24, at MIT’s Briggs Field (270 Vassar St., Cambridge). Collier’s death led to the manhunt for the two Boston Marathon bombing suspects, one of whom was killed in Watertown. The other was captured hiding in a boat behind a home there and was recently charged. Police believe the suspects, brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, respectively, killed Collier before fleeing. The bombing at the marathon killed three more, 29-year-old Medford native Krystle Campbell, Lu Lingzi, a 23-year-old BU graduate student from China, and 8-year-old Martin Richard of Dorchester, and injured nearly 200 others. More than 1,000 locals remembered Collier, a 2004 Wilmington High School graduate, Saturday night in a vigil at Wilmington Town Common. At the vigil, Collier’s brother, Andrew, asked residents to keep Collier in their hearts. “Sean will continue to live on and his legacy will continue to live on,” he said. South End Patch
City Readies Property Owners, Residents to Re-Enter Blast Zone
The blast zone along Boylston Street is still an active crime scene, but city officials are preparing a plan to let business owners and inspectors into the area on a “staggered schedule for limited access.” The city emergency management team along with Mayor Thomas Menino met Sunday to devise a five-phase plan for re-entry to the Copley Square blast zone in the April 15 marathon bombings, according to a press statement April 21. The phases include: Phase 1: Decontamination and TestingPhase 2: Structural Building Assessments and Utility CoordinationPhase 3: Debris RemovalPhase 4: Internal Building AssessmentsPhase 5: Re-Entry, Communications, and Counseling The plan will be implemented once the FBI clears the zone, according to the statement. Items at a memorial at the intersection of Boylston and Berkeley streets and other area memorials will be temporarily moved to Copley Square Park. Boston Police will return personal items left at the scene that has not been retained as evidence by the FBI, according to the statement. Menino on the City of Boston website wrote a message April 20 to business owners and residents of property on Boylston Street from Massachusetts Avenue to Clarendon Street and Huntington Avenue to Newbury Street saying that as soon as the FBI gives the signal, people will be allowed back through the scene of the Boston Marathon bombings. “As soon as we receive clearance from the FBI, the City will move quickly to ensure that the area is safe for residents and businesses to return. We will be taking steps to secure the public safety, including: Ensuring that streets and sidewalks are clean of equipment and debris and are safe for pedestrians; Ensuring that all buildings are structurally sound,” the message said. The city has not given a timeline as to when the plan might be called to action, but the message says workers are on standby and prepared to execute on the plan as soon as possible. The message noted that some areas might be ready sooner than others. The message asks those impacted by the blocked off crime scene to register online or to call 617-635-4500 to provide updated information so the city can be in contact with business and property owners as well as residents when the area is re-opened. The city asks that owners consider the outside contractor services they may need and will provide some lists of contractors for cleanup, construction, board-up and other services. South End Patch
New Book to Feature Notable South End Residents
If you had to consider the most well-known, infamous, or even unsung members of the South End community, who would you pick? South End Historical Society Executive Director Hope Shannon has set out to answer that very question. Shannon has signed with Arcadia Publishing to set author a book entitled Legendary Locals of Boston’s South End. The book will focus on both former and current South Enders that have had a lasting impact on the community. “It’s not just the heroes, it’s the unsung heros – the barber that everyone knows, or the pharmacist who would lend to you on credit,” Shannon said. “I’m looking to feature the people you know from your community in Villa Victoria, SoWA, Eight Streets, Chester Square, Ellis and others,” she said. One neat aspect of the project is that Shannon is welcoming community input and suggestions from South End residents. The finished book will feature 150-200 paragraph-long profiles. Suggestions will be accepted until April 19. “This book is a product of the community,” said Shannon. “I’m the one writing it, but I don’t want it to be just a historian’s point of view. It needs to be a portrait of what the community thinks is important.” To submit a person to profile, email Shannon at hope.shannon@southendhistoricalsociety.org, call 617-536-4445, or fill out the suggestion form found at www.southendhistoricalsociety.org/legendarylocals. The book should be printed and published by early 2014. It will be on sale through the South End Historical Society and through several South End retailers. Although, Shannon said the idea isn’t to turn a huge profit on the book. “It’s just for the community and for us to have,” Shannon said. SOUTH END PATCH: Facebook | Twitter | E-mail Updates South End Patch
Should South End Residents Get to ‘Hold’ Their Parking Spots?
In the wake of the Blizzard of 2013, parking has become unbelievably difficult between the city’s parking ban, the shrinking of streets to one-lane roads, and the 10-or-more-foot high and five-foot deep piles of snow that line the streets. Bostonians all know of the tradition in the city that when you shovel out a parking spot, you can “hold” that parking spot with a chair, trash barrel or other object for up to 48 hours after the parking ban ends. Proponents say that the ban encourages people to do a good job clearing out their spot, knowing their hard work won’t go to waste as soon as they move their car. Opponents say that you can’t claim a parking spot as “yours” just because you parked there before the blizzard. What’s your personal policy? Is there anywhere to park, between the South End’s parking ban, the huge snow piles in the neighborhood, and the spot savers? Is it your right to a parking spot after you put in the sweat and manpower necessary to clear it out? Should the city do anything to discourage this behavior? Which streets in the South End area have the highest number of “saved” spots? Let us know in the comments below. SOUTH END PATCH: Facebook | Twitter | E-mail Updates South End Patch