BY STEVE WOLF N early four decades after a wave of arson-for-profit fires gripped the Fenway, a Boston film-and-video company has laid out plans to produce a documentary about the criminal conspiracy that left three dead and forced hundreds out of their homes. Ironically, no one involved in the Burning Greed project was born when fires gutted more than 30 buildings along Symphony Road and Westland Avenue in the early 1970s. The group has launched a funding campaign on Kickstarter, the popular crowd-funding website. For years, the Symphony Road fires, as they were popu- larly known, dominated residents’ and outsiders’ perceptions of the Fen- way. In the early 1970s, with Boston suffering from economic de- cline and middle-class flight to the suburbs, the Fenway was a far scrappier and shabbier neighborhood than it is today. Students, re- tirees, and low-income working singles and families filled its cheap and poorly maintained apartments, particularly in the East Fens. Building owners— often from well-to-do suburbs—discovered that they could make much more money by inflating the value of their properties and then burning them down than they could as legitimate landlords. Selling and reselling the same building among different sham partnerships enabled an owner to pump up its paper value and in- sure it for the price of the most recent sale. A property worth less than $50,000 could over the course of a few months grow in “value” to $700,000. With the collusion of fire and building inspectors who took payoffs to ignore building-code violations, the owner hired an arsonist to burn the building, collected the insurance payout, and walked off with a tidy profit (even after paying off multiple accom- plices). Meanwhile, a dozen or more tenants had lost everything as the building burned. Organizing themselves as STOP—Sym- phony Tenants Organizing Project—neigh- borhood residents set about documenting the chain of fake sales that ended in arsons.After years of brush-offs from public officials they finally found willing ears in the staff of the state attorney general’s office. Ultimately that office built a criminal case against the arson ring and prosecuted its members, 32 of whom wound up in jail. Live Lobster Group, with an office on Brookline Avenue and a CEO who lives in the West Fens, offers film, video, and special- media production services. Its principals thought the Fenway story merited a fuller recounting in a documentary. “We chose this story for its historic value and its fascinating subject matter,” said Allen Pinney, one of Burning Greed’s producers. “It’s a David-and- Goliath story of ordinary citizens fighting corrupt city officials, crooked businessmen and greedy landlords to save themselves, their neighbors and their homes.” Despite the challenges of producing a documentary independently, the Live Lobster team has had one stroke of good fortune: most of the principal characters, from STOP leaders to prosecutors, are still alive, and all have filmed initial interviews for the project. Using these interviews and other archival material, the team has produced a dramatic trailer (“on a shoestring,” as the film’s Web page notes) that outlines the story (watch it at www.livelobstergroup.com/BurningGreed. ) The team has turned to Kickstarter to raise $15,000 that would allow it to complete key filming and produce a longer and more polished film. Scrambling for funding early in a film’s production is typical for filmmakers, SERVING THE FENWAY, KENMORE SQUARE, UPPER BACK BAY, PRUDENTIAL, LONGWOOD AREA AND MISSION HILL SINCE 1974 VOLUME 38, NUMBER 8 SEPTEMBER 28-NOVEMBER 1, 2012 OCTOBER 2012 FREE WWW.FENWAYNEWS.ORG REGISTER BY OCT. 17 TO VOTE IN NOV. ELECTIONS BY GINNY SUCH Tuesday, November 6, is Election Day. The deadline for registering to vote, if you aren’t already registered, is Wednesday, October 17. You should have received a pamphlet in the mail from the secretary of state’s office with information about the candidates and the three ballot initiatives on which voters will vote. If you are not already registered to vote, the pamphlet includes a voter registration form. You can also find voter-registration information at www.sec.state.ma.us/ele/ eleifv/howreg.htm Any voter may also vote by absentee ballot if she or he: • will be absent from their city or town on election day, or • have a physical disability that prevents them from voting at the polling place, or • cannot travel at the polls due to religious beliefs. If you expect to be out of town on November 6, you can apply for an absentee ballot. If you have questions about voting, voter registration or absentee voting and you live in the city of Boston, you’ll find election information on the city’s website, www.cityofboston.gov/elections. You may also mail questions to Boston Election Dept./ One City Hall Square (Room 241)/Boston, MA 02201. Other methods for reaching the department include by phone at 617-635-3767; by fax at 617-635- 4483; or by email to [email protected]. Election Department business hours are 9am to 5pm, Monday through Friday. It is your privilege and responsibility as a U.S. citizen and Massachusetts resident to vote on Tuesday, November 6. See you at the polls! Ginny Such lives in the East Fens. BY DUKE HARTEN T wo Northeastern University alumni gave $60 million last month to the School of Business Administration, tripling the university’s previous record for philanthropic investment. The school will be renamed for its benefactors, Richard D’Amore and Alan McKim. The two are local boys who both dropped out of the university’s business school decades ago but eventually returned to earn their degrees. D’Amore received his BA in 1976, McKim his MBA in 1988. Both men credit a former professor and mentor, Daniel McCarthy, for drawing them back to the school; they met in 2004 while collaborating to endow the professorship McCarthy currently holds. After completing his education, D’Amore went on to co-found Waltham-based North Bridge Venture Partners. McKim founded and is now CEO of Clean Harbors, an environmental and energy services firm. In a statement about the donation, D’Amore said: “I believe in supporting entre- preneurial institutions. I strongly support the mission and current leadership at North- eastern, and I’m proud to join with Rich and make this investment.” In a Northeastern press release, university president Joseph Aoun recognized the tremen- dous opportunity the donation presents: “Once in a generation, history is made in the life of a university. This is one of those moments.” He thanked D’Amore and McKim for the unprec- edented generosity and scope of the gift, citing its potential to “allow [the school] to build on its strength in global entrepreneurial programs and make a quantum leap forward. It will also galvanize our community and allow us to set our collective sights even higher.” The newly-named D’Amore-McKim School of Business is headed by dean Hugh Courtney, who joined the university in July. The previous record for a donation to North- eastern was Bernard Gordon’s 2006 gift of $20 million to the school’s engineering program. Duke Harten lives in Mission Hill. $60M Gift Sets New Northeastern Record HOW KICKSTARTER WORKS In under two years, www.kickstarter.com has grown into something of a cultural phenomenon as a Web-enabled funding source that helps creative projects get off the ground. The site takes an informal process—hitting up family and friends to invest in a Brilliant Idea—and uses the Internet to test that idea’s market ap- peal. If enough people like the idea and pledge to fund it, the sponsor receives the funding. If not enough people pledge, the donors pay nothing—and the sponsor walks away empty-handed. As The Fenway News went to press, “Burning Greed” had eight days to go be- fore the deadline to hits it $15,000 target. If you think this major chapter in Fenway deserves a documentary, why not visit the film’s page and make a donation? www.kickstarter.com/projects/livelob- stergroup/burning-greed Johnson Gates Can’t Catch a Break The historic Johnson Gates at the intersection of Hemenway Street and Westland Avenue just can’t catch a break. Late last month, just days after the installation of a replacement for a missing bronze lion’s head, three highway directional signs appeared, blocking the view of the gates from the west. It’s not apparent why this particular site cries out for these signs—the only ones within a multi-block radius of the location. Not even heavily traveled Boylston Street or Mass. Ave.—never mind the end of Hemenway Street, which the Route 9 sign points toward—have such markers in the Fenway. We hope state officials wi\ll address this problem promptly. WITH KICKSTARTER HELP, LOCAL TEAM PLANS FILM ON 1970s ARSON RING BURNING GREED on page 2 > WHILE Y OU WATCHED TV, 13-YEAR-OLD NEC STUDENT WON A BIG PRIZE Cellist Zlatomir Fung, a 13-year-old student of Emmanuel Feldman in NEC’s Preparatory School, won second prize in the cello division of the Seventh International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians. Only one other American took home honors from in the competition, held Sept. 4–15 in Montreux, Switzerland. A Westborough resident, Zlatomir is home-schooled and performs in NEC’s Youth Philharmonic Orchestra, where he is co-principal cello (we should hope so!) and plays chamber music. WTI STUDENTS’ EXCELLENT ADVENTURE : MAKING A MUSEUM EXHIBIT Students from Wentworth Institute of Technology teamed up with the Design Museum Boston and the Industrial Design Society of America to create Life Impacted: International Design Excellence, which showcases the best recent product design. From “mobile gadgets to innovations that improve lives in the developing world,” explains the Design Museum’s website, “design is truly everywhere. Sketches, models, and artifacts from companies like Microsoft, Samsung, Beats by Dr. Dre, Nike, and IBM illustrate the impact of strategic design.” e exhibit features the products themselves and delves into the people and processes that produced them. Visit the exhibit in the MassChallenge offices on the 14th floor of 1 Marina Park Drive (just east of the Moakley Courthouse in the Seaport District). For more information, visit http://designmuseumboston.org/. NEW GARDNER SERIES EXAMINES THE LAY OF THE LAND(SCAPE) Given its famed and intensely cultivated courtyard, it should come as little surprise that the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum has added landscape architecture to its portfolio. It launched Landscape Lectures last month, featuring professionals whose “work has shaped NEWSLINES on page 2 >
Transcript
by STEVE Wolf
Nearly four decades after a wave of arson-for-profit fires gripped the Fenway, a Boston film-and-video company has laid out plans to
produce a documentary about the criminal conspiracy that left three dead and forced hundreds out of their homes. Ironically, no one involved in the Burning Greed project was born when fires gutted more than 30 buildings along Symphony Road and Westland Avenue in the early 1970s. The group has launched a funding campaign on Kickstarter, the popular crowd-funding website.
For years, the Symphony Road fires, as they were popu-larly known, dominated residents’ and outsiders’ perceptions of the Fen-way. In the early 1970s, with Boston suffering from economic de-cline and middle-class flight to the suburbs, the Fenway was a far scrappier and shabbier neighborhood than it is today. Students, re-tirees, and low-income working singles and families filled its cheap and poorly maintained apartments, particularly in the East Fens.
Building owners—often from well-to-do suburbs—discovered that they could make much more money by inflating the value of their properties and then burning them down than they could as legitimate landlords.
Selling and reselling the same building among different sham partnerships enabled an owner to pump up its paper value and in-sure it for the price of the most recent sale. A property worth less than $50,000 could over the course of a few months grow in “value” to $700,000. With the collusion of fire and building inspectors who took payoffs to ignore building-code violations, the owner hired an arsonist to burn the building, collected the insurance payout, and walked off with a tidy profit (even after paying off multiple accom-plices). Meanwhile, a dozen or more tenants had lost everything as the building burned.
Organizing themselves as STOP—Sym-phony Tenants Organizing Project—neigh-borhood residents set about documenting the chain of fake sales that ended in arsons.After years of brush-offs from public officials they finally found willing ears in the staff of the state attorney general’s office. Ultimately that office built a criminal case against the arson ring and prosecuted its members, 32 of whom wound up in jail.
Live Lobster Group, with an office on Brookline Avenue and a CEO who lives in the West Fens, offers film, video, and special-
media production services. Its principals thought the Fenway story merited a fuller recounting in a documentary. “We chose this story for its historic value and its fascinating subject matter,” said Allen Pinney, one of Burning Greed’s producers. “It’s a David-and-Goliath story of ordinary citizens fighting corrupt city officials, crooked businessmen and greedy landlords to save themselves, their neighbors and their homes.”
Despite the challenges of producing a documentary independently, the Live Lobster team has had one stroke of good fortune: most of the principal characters, from STOP leaders to prosecutors, are still alive, and all have filmed initial interviews for the project. Using these interviews and other archival material, the team has produced a dramatic trailer (“on a shoestring,” as the film’s Web page notes) that outlines the story (watch it at www.livelobstergroup.com/BurningGreed.)
The team has turned to Kickstarter to raise $15,000 that would allow it to complete key filming and produce a longer and more polished film. Scrambling for funding early in a film’s production is typical for filmmakers,
servinG the Fenway, Kenmore square, upper BacK Bay, prudential, lonGwood area and mission hill since 1974 volume 38, numBer 8 septemBer 28-novemBer 1, 2012
OCTOBER2012
FREE
WWW.FENWAYNEWS.ORg
reGister By oct. 17 to vote in nov. electionsby ginny suchTuesday, november 6, is Election Day. The deadline for registering to vote, if you aren’t already registered, is Wednesday, October 17. you should have received a pamphlet in the mail from the secretary of state’s office with information about the candidates and the three ballot initiatives on which voters will vote. If you are not already registered to vote, the pamphlet includes a voter registration form. You can also find voter-registration information at www.sec.state.ma.us/ele/eleifv/howreg.htm
Any voter may also vote by absentee ballot if she or he:• will be absent from their city or town on election day, or• have a physical disability that prevents them from voting at the polling place, or• cannot travel at the polls due to religious beliefs. If you expect to be out of town on November 6, you can apply for an absentee ballot.
if you have questions about voting, voter registration or absentee voting and you live in the city of Boston, you’ll find election information on the city’s website, www.cityofboston.gov/elections. You may also mail questions to Boston Election Dept./ One City Hall Square (Room 241)/Boston, MA 02201. Other methods for reaching the department include by phone at 617-635-3767; by fax at 617-635-4483; or by email to [email protected]. Election Department business hours are 9am to 5pm, Monday through Friday.
It is your privilege and responsibility as a U.S. citizen and Massachusetts resident to vote on Tuesday, november 6. see you at the polls!
Ginny Such lives in the East Fens.
by DukE HarTEN
Two Northeastern University alumni gave $60 million last month to the School of Business Administration, tripling the university’s previous
record for philanthropic investment. The school will be renamed for its
benefactors, Richard D’Amore and Alan McKim. The two are local boys who both dropped out of the university’s business school decades ago but eventually returned to earn their degrees. D’Amore received his BA in 1976, McKim his MBA in 1988.
Both men credit a former professor and mentor, Daniel McCarthy, for drawing them back to the school; they met in 2004 while collaborating to endow the professorship McCarthy currently holds.
After completing his education, D’Amore went on to co-found Waltham-based North Bridge Venture Partners. McKim founded and is now CEO of Clean Harbors, an environmental and energy services firm.
In a statement about the donation,
D’Amore said: “I believe in sup porting entre-pre neurial insti tu tions. I strongly sup port the mis sion and cur rent lead er ship at North-eastern, and I’m proud to join with Rich and make this invest ment.”
In a Northeastern press release, university president Joseph Aoun recognized the tremen-dous opportunity the donation presents: “Once in a gen er a tion, his tory is made in the life of a uni ver sity. This is one of those moments.” He thanked D’Amore and McKim for the unprec-edented generosity and scope of the gift, citing its potential to “allow [the school] to build on its strength in global entre pre neurial pro grams and make a quantum leap for ward. It will also gal va nize our com mu nity and allow us to set our col lec tive sights even higher.”
The newly-named D’Amore-McKim School of Business is headed by dean Hugh Courtney, who joined the university in July. The previous record for a donation to North-eastern was Bernard Gordon’s 2006 gift of $20 million to the school’s engineering program.
Duke Harten lives in Mission Hill.
$60M Gift Sets New Northeastern Record
HOW KICKSTARTER WORKSin under two years, www.kickstarter.com has grown into something of a cultural phenomenon as a web-enabled funding source that helps creative projects get off the ground. the site takes an informal process—hitting up family and friends to invest in a Brilliant idea—and uses the internet to test that idea’s market ap-peal. if enough people like the idea and pledge to fund it, the sponsor receives the funding. if not enough people pledge, the donors pay nothing—and the sponsor walks away empty-handed.
as the Fenway news went to press, “Burning Greed” had eight days to go be-fore the deadline to hits it $15,000 target. if you think this major chapter in Fenway deserves a documentary, why not visit the film’s page and make a donation?www.kickstarter.com/projects/livelob-stergroup/burning-greed
Johnson Gates Can’t Catch a BreakThe historic Johnson Gates at the intersection of Hemenway Street and Westland Avenue just can’t catch a break. Late last month, just days after the installation of a replacement for a missing bronze lion’s head, three highway directional signs appeared, blocking the view of the gates from the west. It’s not apparent why this particular site cries out for these signs—the only ones within a multi-block radius of the location. Not even heavily traveled Boylston Street or Mass. Ave.—never mind the end of Hemenway Street, which the Route 9 sign points toward—have such markers in the Fenway. We hope state officials wi\ll address this problem promptly.
WITH KICKSTARTER HElp, lOCAl TEAm plANS fIlm ON 1970s ARSON RING
BuRNING GREEd on page 2 >
While You Watched tV, 13-Year-old Nec StudeNt WoN a Big PrizeCellist Zlatomir Fung, a 13-year-old student of Emmanuel Feldman in NEC’s Preparatory School, won second prize in the cello division of the Seventh International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians. Only one other American took home honors from in the competition, held Sept. 4–15 in Montreux, Switzerland. A Westborough resident, Zlatomir is home-schooled and performs in NEC’s Youth Philharmonic Orchestra, where he is co-principal cello (we should hope so!) and plays chamber music.
Wti StudeNtS’ excelleNt adVeNture: MakiNg a MuSeuM exhiBitStudents from Wentworth Institute of Technology teamed up with the Design Museum Boston and the Industrial Design Society of America to create Life Impacted: International Design Excellence, which showcases the best recent product design. From “mobile gadgets to innovations that improve lives in the developing world,” explains the Design Museum’s website, “design is truly everywhere. Sketches, models, and artifacts from companies like Microsoft, Samsung, Beats by Dr. Dre, Nike, and IBM illustrate the impact of strategic design.” The exhibit features the products themselves and delves into the people and processes that produced them. Visit the exhibit in the MassChallenge offices on the 14th floor of 1 Marina Park Drive (just east of the Moakley Courthouse in the Seaport District). For more information, visit http://designmuseumboston.org/.
NeW gardNer SerieS exaMiNeS the laY of the laNd(ScaPe)Given its famed and intensely cultivated courtyard, it should come as little surprise that the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum has added landscape architecture to its portfolio. It launched Landscape Lectures last month, featuring professionals whose “work has shaped
NEWSlINES on page 2 >
2 | FENWAY NEWS | OCTOBER 2012
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BOSTON RESIDENTSLeaf & Yard Waste 7-Week Collection
Boston Public Works will collect and compost residents’ yard waste
Seven weeks: October 15 - November 30 ON YOUR RECYCLING DAY.
Place leaves in large paper leaf bags or open barrels marked “yard waste.” For free “yard waste” stickers, call 617-635-4500 (up to 2 stickers available per household).
Cut branches to 3’ maximum length and 1” maximum diameter. Tie branches with string.
Place leaves and yard waste at the curb by 7am ON YOUR RECYCLING DAY.
Yard waste will not be collectedduring the two weeks beforethe Oct. 15 start date.Please hold ontoyour yard waste from Oct. 1 toOct. 15, whencollection begins.
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arts academy, hiGh-proFile partners seeK volunteer help For octoBer 6 maKe-over
City Year, WBOS-FM, and the rock band Dispatch’s Amplifying Education initiative have teamed up to arrange a service project on
Saturday, October 6, to improve the facilities of Boston Arts Academy on Ipswich Street. The organizing team encourages Fenway residents to help in the transformation of the city’s ony public arts high school into a more vibrant and engaging learning environment.
Although Boston Arts Academy describes itself as “a high-performing school committed to developing students into learners while promoting creativity and innovation,” its building—once a surplus city property—has never fully matched those high ideals. During the day-long project on October 6, more than 200 volunteers will help repaint more than 40 classrooms, four floors’ worth of hallways, offices, and the cafeteria. Boston Public Schools (BPS) is collaborating with Arts Academy and City Year on the project, following three similar projects at Mission Hill K-8, the new Margarita Muñiz Academy, and the Dever/McCormack School. .
City Year Boston collaborates with BPS to deploy corps members into 20 schools as tutors, mentors and role models to support teachers and help students succeed. They also work with the school district on transformative
physical-service projects designed to make schools more appealing places for students to learn and teachers to teach.
Dispatch, a successful independent rock act, has blends activism with music making. As it tours it mobilizes fans to take small actions to address America’s education crisis through Amplifying Education, its foundation. Over the past year, the foundation has engaged over 600 fan volunteers in nearly 4,000 hours of service to improve schools across North America and Europe; collected over 10,000 book donations to support literacy programs through Better World Books; and raised over $250,000 through a portion of ticket sales and benefit performances. Dispatch donated a dollar per initial pre-order for Circles Around The Sun and will donate another from each ticket sold for its current tour.
For more information or to sign up to volunteer, visit http://bit.ly/AmpEdBoston.
Sept. 1 Was ‘Fro-yopening Day’ for MixxOn September 1 Mixx, a popular
frozen-yogurt store in Allston, opened a branch (its first) on
Boylston Street in the West Fens. The
store offers soft-serve frozen yogurt
with proprietary flavorings ranging
from familiar tastes like chocolate and
strawberry to more exotic selections
like lychee and taro, along with a broad
selection of toppings like nuts, candy, and fruit. Stop in and say
hello.
pHOTO: STEvE WOlf
but the team hopes the Kickstarter campaign will make a difference. The site specializes in helping creative projects get off the ground by providing a Web-based platform for publicizing a project and offering administrative support (like reminding donors when they need to make good on their pledges).
“Our hope,” says Allen Pinney, “is to pre-serve this important but nearly forgotten mo-ment in history and capture the voices of those involved and affected before it’s too late.”
Steve Wolf lives in the West Fens.
> BuRNING GREEd from page 1
FENWAY NEWS | OCTOBER 2012 | 3
STREET ClEANING TImESthe city cleans Fenway residential streets between 12 and 4pm on the first and third wednesdays of each month (odd-numbered side) and the second and fourth wednesdays (even-numbered sides). more info at 617-635-4900 or www.cityofboston.gov/publicworks/sweeping. the state cleans streets on both sides of the park on this schedule:• SECONd THuRSdAy
the riverway, 12:00–3:00pm• Second Friday the Fenway (includes inside lane),
charlesgate extension, and Forsyth way, 8:00am–12:00pm
• Second Friday 8 to 54 the Fenway (includes in-
side lane), charlesgate extension, 12:00–3:00pm
• Third TueSday> park drive (includes inside lane),
upper Boylston street, 8:00am–12:00pm
> park drive, from holy trinity orthodox cathedral to Kilmarnock street and from the riverside line overpass to Beacon street, 12:00–3:00pm
www.mass.gov/dcr/sweep.htm has a complete schedule and maps.
october moves usfully into fall-harvest season. expect plenty of appels
(and cider and cider doughnuts), lots of root vegetables like carrots,
onions, potatoes and turnips, and heartier
green leafy produce like broccoil, cabbage, and
kale. if you’re lucky, you may find some late
peaches
BERKlEE: Outside 7 Haviland Street (former fenway Health)last wednesday of each month 3:00 p.m.–7:00 p.m.COplEy SquAREtuesday & Friday 11:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m.pRudENTIAl CENTER: 800 Boylston, across from Walgreen’sthursday 11:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m.BRIGHAm CIRClEthursday 11:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m.JAmAICA plAIN: Bank of America parking lot, Centre Streetwednesdaysaturday
12:00 p.m.–5:00 p.m.12:00 p.m.–3:00 p.m.
SOuTH ENd: 540 Harrison Avenue (at SoWa arts market)sunday 10:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m.
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Sun Shines on 2012 FensFest
Despite a threat of showers, FensFest had great weather on September 8, and even rain wouldn’t have dampened the smile on BPD Community Liaison Bernadette McCarthy’s face as she picked up her raffle prize. More than 150 people showed up for the annual party in the Victory Gardens with food, live music, and a tag sale.
pHOTO: lOIS JOHNSTON
BooK Festival turns copley square into a literary powerhouse octoBer 27It’s hard to convey how interesting and complex the Boston Book Festival has grown in a few short years. The event has the overwhelming feel of a literary First Night (albeit during the day), with a dizzying slate of lectures and readings in churches and auditoriums clustered around Copley Square, which itself will boast a lively tent city of booksellers, magazines, and food vendors. At press time, the festival organizers still hadn’t nailed down the full schedule, but the website listed 140 all-star presenters, including nationally known writers (Alexander McCall Smith, Junot Diaz, Claire Messud); journalists (The New Yorker’s Adam Gopnik, WBUR’s Robin Young, advice columnist Margo Howard); visual artists (cartoonist Chris Ware, superstar book designer Chip Kidd); high-profile academics (Harvard’s Randall Kennedy, MIT’s Nicolas Negroponte, Tufts’ Maryanne Wolf) and literary agents and celebrities from other fields who write (former Vermont Gov. Madeline Kunin, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, Brandeis Prof. Anita Hill). In addition, the festival will offer writing workshops, a music program curated by Berklee, and two tie-in film events (see October 12 and October 26 in our calendar). Best of all, it’s free. More info at www.bostonbookfest.org.
the field and embodies the highest aspirations for landscape as an element in the social, cultural and environmental life of the city.” Lectures will feature London-based Martha Schwartz, who has worked in China, the Mideast, Europe and the US (Nov. 8); James Corner, co-designer of New York City’s wildly successful High Line park (Feb. 14); and George Hargreaves (April 11), whose firm designed London’s Olympic Park, Chattanooga’s Waterfront Park, and Houston’s downtown Discovery Green. The lectures begin at 7pm in Calderwood Hall and are included in Museum admission ($5–$15). Purchase tickets online at https://tickets.gardnermuseum.org/public/default.asp?cgcode=10; by phone at 617-278-5156; or at the door.
coMPoSer & SoNgWriter daVid friedMaN ViSitS Wheelock collegeBroadway composer David Friedman presented a workshop to 270 first-year Wheelock College students early last mont. “The Thought Exchange” introduced students to his practical methods of transforming lives—“by exchanging one thought for another, our world can change right before our eyes.” Friedman, conductor and vocal arranger for Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Pocahontas, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, returns to Wheelock later in the school year to teach a course.
Mother church NetS Major PaYMeNt With NeW toWer leaSeIn an effort to cut costs Christian Science Church administrative departments moved out of their 26-story tower at 177 Huntington Avenue in 2008 into spaces in the Monitor Building on Mass. Ave. Last month Boston-based Beacon Capital Partners signed a 99-year lease for the tower making the $59 million lease payment to the church upfront. According to an article in the online Boston Business Journal, “95 percent of the space in the tower is currently leased to tenants...[and all] the tenants’ leases remain in effect following the deal with Beacon Capital.” The church completed a master plan for its campus last year—
despite significant unhappiness on the part of the Fenway’s community representatives—that sketches out more revenue-enhancing plans for the church: conversion of a landscaped lot at the corner of Dalton and Belvedere streets (across from the Sheraton and Hilton entrances) into sites for two mixed-use high rises, one of which could reach 40 stories.
> NEWSlINES from page 1
marK your calendar For 2012 openinG our doors, octoBer 8The Fenway Alliance’s “Opening Our Doors” event runs from 9:30 to 4:00 (or later if you attend the after-party) on Oct. 8 with free admission to neighborhood cultural institutions, concerts, workshops, tours and and a raft of special events. Download the full program book, including schedule, map, and event descriptions at http://fenwayculture.org/?p=66
4 | FENWAY NEWS | OCTOBER 2012
> Frequency <The Fenway News reaches the stands every
4-5 weeks, usually on the first or last Friday of the month. Our next issue
will appear on Friday, OCTOBER 26.> DeaDline <
The deadline for letters, news items, and ads is Friday, NOVEMBER 2.
Serving the Fenway, Kenmore Square, Audubon Circle, upper Back Bay, lower Roxbury, Prudential,
Mission Hill, and Longwood since 1974
FENway NEws assOCiaTiON BOaRd OF diRECTORs
Steve Chase • Helen Cox • Joyce Foster, president Rich Giordano • Steven Harnish • Duke Harten Barbara Brooks Simons • Steve Wolf, treasurer
EdiTOR: Stephen BrophywEB TEaM: Nicole Aubourg, Stephen brophy, Duke Harten, Mandy Kapica, Steven Kapica, Valarie SeabrookPROduCTiON dEsigNER: Steve WolfwRiTERs: Jon Ball, alison barnet, Will brownsberger, Liz Burg, Helen Cox, Tracey Cusick, Margot Edwards, John Engstrom, Stan Everett, Lisa Fay, Lori A. Frankian, Joyce Foster, Marie Fukuda, Steve Gallanter, Galen Gilbert, Elizabeth Gillis, Katherine Greenough, Sam Harnish, Steve Harnish, Duke Harten, Sarah Horsley, Akshata Kadagathur, Rosie Kamal, Mandy Kapica, Steven Kapica, Sajed Kamal, Shirley Kressel, Kristen Lauerman, Mike Mennonno, Letta Neely, Catherine Pedemonti, Richard Pendleton, Michael Prentky, Bill Richardson, Mike Ross, Barbara Brooks Simons, Matti Kniva Spencer, Ginny Such, Jamie Thomson, Anne M. Tobin, Fredericka Veikley, Chris Viveiros, Stephanie Wieseler,PhOTOgRaPhERs: Steve Chase, Lois Johnston, Mike Mennonno, Patrick O’Connor, Valarie Seabrook, Matti Kniva Spencer, Ginny Such, Steve WolfCaLENdaR: Carol Paige, Helen Cox, Ruth Khowais, Steve Wolf, PROOFREadER: Tracey CusickBusiNEss MaNagER: Mandy Kapica disTRiBuTiON: Della Gelzer, Aqilla Manna, Lauren Dewey Platt, Reggie Wynn
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we must act Before defecating Geese destroy the rose GardenTo THE EDiTor:
Today is one of the saddest days of my life. On this sunny autumn Sunday afternoon, my wife went for a walk to visit her favorite Kelleher Rose Garden in the Back Bay Fens. She came back home heartbroken and disgusted.
Over the last 27 years we have enjoyed many quiet moments among the beautiful flowers and witnessed many wedding ceremonies there.
The garden is now covered with large amounts of goose excrement. It is impossible to walk along the paths.
Why do we as a community tolerate such a sacrilege against this magnificent jewel of the Olmsted Emerald Necklace? Does anybody care? What department of the mayor’s administration is responsible for the maintenance of this garden? Donations to the Emerald Necklace Conservancy are not the solution.
I strongly suggest that you photograph the mess, devote an editorial to express our collective outrage and notify the appropriate authorities to clean the area and find a permanent solution to the problem
If no permanent, politically viable solution can be found, the garden should be dug up, sod planted so the Canadian geese can defecate at will.
your DiSguSTED NEigHbor,
PETEr C. CalCaTErra
EaST fENS
mission main tenants take issue with manager’s letter in last issue
I’m writing in response to a letter to the editor that was printed in the September issue. The writer believes the August 2012 Mission Main article painted a misleading picture of the expert fire safety plan at 69 McGreevey Way.
Mission Main was redeveloped as new construction housing under the HUD HOPE VI program in 1999. It is now 2012. Prior to the Mission Main Concerned Residents Committee (MMCRC) petition in October 2011, a written, bilingual fire safety plan at 69 McGreevey Way was nonexistent for 12 years. Repeated documented requests by the Mission Main Tenants Task Force (who are the official tenant organization in the development
and who on paper have 50% decision-making power with Winn Management); by MMCRC, an ad hoc resident advocacy group; and in the form of a 2009 petition produced no results over the ensuing years.
Over 500 petition signatures of support were collected and presented to Senior Property Manager Leslie Giddings in early November (see wording below). Boston Fire Department (BFD) Captain David J. Cushing
was contacted by MMCRC on November 14th, and a formal building code
violation complaint was filed. After the property was issued an abatement order for noncompliance with local fire codes, a 10 AM fire-safety presentation was held on site by three BFD officials on February 23rd. At the meeting, MMCRC made several follow-up requests of Giddings: 1) Schedule an evening presentation for
residents who work or have medical appointments during the day;
2) Provide a deadline for installation of permanent evacuation signage on each floor in English and Spanish and;
3) Translate the written evacuation plan into English and Spanish.
The first and the second requests are still pending as of this date. According to Captain Cushing, the overtime request for an evening fire-safety presentation was approved several months ago, following a MMCRC written request to BFD Superintendent Roderick Frazier. The third request was completed after Mayor Menino’s office was contacted and they set a timeline for distribution.
PETITION FOR AN EVACUATION PLAN AT 69 MCGREEVEY WAY
This petition is being circulated by the Mission Main Concerned Residents Committee to request that Mission Main Management distribute a Written Evacuation Plan to residents residing at 69 McGreevey Way. There was a massive fire at Wardman Road in Roxbury on October 17, 2011, whereas 45 residents were displaced and/or injured. Residents have asked for a Written Evacuation Plan since 2007 when a bomb scare was called in at 69 McGreevey Way. Since that time, Management has vowed to install proper permanent signage on each floor in English and Spanish and develop a list of names of disabled residents for security and first responders.
In December 2009 and again in April 2011, Management stated that an Evacuation Plan for 69 McGreevey Way was forthcoming. We, the signees of this petition would like to know when a final date can be scheduled to have a Written Evacuation Plan in effect and signage posted on each floor.
The August article did not claim that a WinnResidential staff member was not there, it was a maintenance worker who triggered the sprinkler during a HUD pre-inspection. The issue was when firefighters arrived, maintenance staff nor the 24 hour on-site security had a key to the first-floor mechanical room, thus firefighters were forced to break the door to gain access to the equipment. A worker did approach the firefighters with a key after the door was forced opened.
Lastly, MCRC and the Mission Hill Health Movement, Inc., hosted their 4th Annual World Asthma Day Roundtable Discussion on May 1st. Attorney Staci Rubin from ACE was the invited guest speaker. 32 people attended and discussed concerns about reasonable accommodation (RA) requests for carpet removal that were not granted by Management over the past 12 years, despite residents’ presenting valid medical documentation and the property’s being covered under Section 504 of the Fair Housing Act. Rubin informed residents that a RA request can only be denied if it would cause an undue financial and/or administrative burden on the housing provider.
A follow-up meeting was hosted on June 21st. Eugene Barros from the City of Boston Public Health Commission attended and heard additional concerns about poor air quality and possible mold and mildew issues at 69 McGreevey Way. Residents reported that the May 14th flood was the second flood in two years. Barros referred the complaints to the City of Boston Environmental Health Department. Housing Inspector Damon Chaplin visited 12 households during two visits and made a formal recommendation to Giddings to remove carpeting in the common hallways and inside specific units.
I would like to thank The Fenway News for the opportunity to respond.
gloria Murray
MiSSioN MaiN rESiDENT, MMCrC MEMbEr
LETTERS
by JoHN kElly
ne of the joys of the Fenway is its diversity and vibrant community spirit. We Fenwickians take on issues with gusto, from development and institutional expansion to streetscape access, my own project over the last 10 years
The little Fenway-based Neighborhood Access Group (NAG) has been welcomed and supported.
Now comes a pair of state ballot questions that touch directly on our experience as people with disabilities. Question 3, medical marijuana, would provide access to proven treatments for our various and unique ailments, from muscle spasticity and pain to anxiety and insomnia. Medical marijuana makes good social policy, and I hope to qualify for the program, assuming the question is approved.
Question 2, for the legalization of assisted suicide, sounds equally good at first, with its promise of autonomy and dignity. Yet a closer look shows plenty of danger. We draw the name of our group, “Second Thoughts,” from our finding that the more people learn about this bill, the more they oppose it. This measure will make for disastrous social policy, in which death itself becomes a medical treatment.
The so-called “Death with Dignity” Act is modeled on laws in the Oregon and Washington, where assisted suicide is legal. The measure would authorize doctors to prescribe a lethal dose of barbiturates for people diagnosed as “terminally ill,” defined as having less than six months to live. But terminal diagnoses are famously inaccurate: people outlive their terminal diagnoses by years or even decades. Second Thoughts member John Norton says he would have used assisted suicide had it been available at his terminal diagnosis 55 years ago, and now works to save vulnerable people from the fate he was spared.
In this age of induced austerity, we are bombarded with stories of the expense of people’s last year of medical care, while local hospitals lose money and try to re-organize. In Oregon, Barbara Wagner and Randy Stroup received letters from Oregon Medicaid denying coverage for prescribed chemotherapy but noting that the state would cover the
$100 cost of assisted suicide. Because assisted suicide will always be the cheapest treatment, its availability will inevitably affect medical decision-making. This will actually end up constraining choice.
The “safeguards” in the measure are empty and go unenforced. When doctors in Oregon decline to prescribe lethal dosages, people simply “doctor shop” for that one “yes.” One of the two required wit-nesses at a request may be an heir. No witness is required at the time of death, so there is no way to know whether suicides are voluntary.
No reports are gathered from doctors who refuse to prescribe, families are not interviewed, and abuses are not investigated. So when Wendy Melcher and others were illegally overdosed by nurses, authorities were not
notified. The state nursing board placed Melcher’s killers on nursing probation.
In 14 years, fewer than 7% of suicide requesters have been referred for psychiatric consultation; of 171 last year, only one was referred. So Michael Freeland, who had a 43-year history of depression and suicide attempts, easily got a lethal prescription, and only because he mistakenly called an opposition group was he spared suicide.
Finally, that word “dignity” in the initiative’s title signals that assisted suicide is not only a cure for pain and suffering, but also a cure for lives perceived as not worth living. Prescribing doctors in Oregon report that people are most concerned about social issues, such as limitations on activities, incontinence, feeling like a burden, and perceived loss of dignity.
We disabled people, whose lives frequently look like the lives of people requesting suicide, do not feel that our dignity is compromised because we depend on others for physical care, or because we are not continent every hour of every day. We know that when social supports such as home care and PCAs are made available, family burden can be relieved. Let’s make sure that people have the support to live comfortably at home before offering hastened death. Please think about other people, vulnerable and not in control, who will be affected by this piece of bad social policy. Vote no on Question 2.
John Kelly lives in the West Fens.
Ballot Question 2 Promises Dignity But Delivers Only Trouble
Voices of the Fenway
FENWAY NEWS | OCTOBER 2012 | 5
we started meeting with the city. The city had formed a Disability Commission but the first commissioner, Spinetto, never bothered to come to a meeting. We eventually got him replaced by Kristen McCosh, and even got one of our Neighborhood Access Group members, Eileen Brewster, on the commission. I was on the commission until I left to form Second Thoughts.
“If I had just shown up at that demo alone, nothing would have happened. I would have just been some crank. But we got a turnout. Having allies, that makes all the difference. Just as in the Fenway’s fights against arson, highways, the ballpark, and urban renewal, none of those fights were fought individually.
“And I have plenty of privileges, like being a white middle-class male. I had so many allies growing up. And here too. But this was easy, compared to, say, organizing against racism or forming a union at work.
‘Disability is about the simple fact that we all have bodies. The able ideal is the powerful white male body that
can translate desire to action. When you think of that ‘universal person’ you automatically think of a healthy 25- to 45-year-old white guy, not an older black woman in a wheelchair.
“Early feminism used to acknowledge that the essential difference for women was their body experience, until liberal feminism co-opted the movement and made it about the right to advance in corporate America. Well we all have bodies, and after we pass 30, some of the parts start not doing what we wish. So on one hand we disabled are different, but in other ways, we’re that universal person.
“Ability is the most powerful ideology around. We’re taught as kids that we’re responsible for everything that happens to us. Trip on the sidewalk, it’s your problem. Can’t control your poop, you may as well be dead, or even kill yourself. But everyone takes for granted all the ways they are helped by society. We get food, and piped water, because of others, not by our own efforts. So thinking certain things are our responsibility and others aren’t, that’s just a social construct. Aging too. Only Americans dread reaching their 60s, thinking it will cost them status in their communities.
“The worst thing to watch is how money bleaches a neighborhood. The very presence of the disabled, minorities, or say, cruisers, detracts from the world moneyed people want to live in. I hear people saying ‘I have the money, so I should be able to live here. Why do places get reserved for you disabled and poor people?’ Such an idea, that rights come from having money.
“When we were leafleting for Second Thoughts in Allston, the people who were the most hostile were the same ‘progressive good-government’ people who opposed bright-colored ramps as unaesthetic. They just don’t want to be reminded of their own future disability while they’re young, and they don’t have the courage to face up to it in their own bodies when it comes. So they’re vehement about getting the legal right to get a doctor’s help killing themselves if they ever become disabled like us.
“But like all minority movements, when we free ourselves, we free everyone. When we ask people why they love the Fenway, they always answer ‘diversity.’ That means you’re free to be who you really are here. So our curb cuts and accessible crosswalks, they changed everything. Everyone benefits from them. Women with strollers, and the elderly out in their power chairs. Now anyone can get into a store. It wasn’t always that way. People had to go to a nursing home when their home was not accessible, but now they can stay where they are.
“Look how when it snows, all our civic energies go toward clearing pathways for commuters’ cars, which are really earth-killing machines, rather than clearing sidewalks. So thousands of elderly people can’t go outside, not to mention everyone else. Isn’t that just as great a social need? So nearly everyone will benefit from our work eventually.”
Long-time contributor Jon Ball lives in Jamaica Plain.
by JoN ball
on July 26, the 22nd Anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Mayor Thomas Menino led a ribbon cutting for the new
disability access path across City Hall Plaza. Menino also read a proclamation naming it “John B. Kelly Day,” in honor of the Fenway resident whose work was instrumental in establishing the pathway. Kelly has long advocated for social justice and currently works with the organization Second Thoughts, taking issue with the November election’s ballot question on assisted suicide.
Kelly recalls “I was born in 1958 and grew up in Middletown, NJ, in an all-white-flight subdivision. But our family taught us everyone deserves respect, and even then, I think maybe from being the youngest, I got to understand what powerlessness was like. You see that all the time, like when you go to restaurants and watch how some people just try to dominate the server.
“I loved playing baseball and basketball, and graduated first in my class. So in 1976-1981 I went to Yale. The President, Hannah Gray, was trying to bust the workers’ union, so in 1978, they struck. I had some friends who knew more than I did, and they brought me to meetings, where I learned about real oppression.
“One day a group of students, union supporters, sat in a driveway with locked arms, to block an oil delivery. There were lots of cops, and someone threw a bottle. One of the workers went over to try to calm things down, and a policeman arrested him. Then another worker, angry at the wrongful arrest, jumped on that cop’s back, not six feet from me.
“Until then, the only cop I knew had my same name, and came to our school to talk about safety. But this cop was sullying his uniform. His hat flew off, and I couldn’t believe I was watching him arrest the wrong guy. So I sidled up to his hat and dug my heel into it.
“Next thing I knew I heard ‘Son of a bitch.’ They grabbed me and threw me into a van. Of course that was in 1978. If I did that kind of thing today, I’d probably be dead.”
“After Yale I worked at a Jewish deli in Newton, and was a mental health worker at Bournewood. On New Years Day 1984, a group of us went to Springfield, Vermont, Homer Simpson’s town, for a fun weekend. I was sledding downhill on cardboard, having fun. My head hit a tree. I had to adapt to a new body. And that December, I moved to the Fenway.
by riCHarD PENDlEToN
The three-story space in 360 Newbury St. that was once occupied by Best Buy has sat empty since mid-May. Speculation in the neighborhood is rife with regard to who might move into the location.
• Maybe the 360 Newbury St. Association will expand its condo complement from floors 4-8 down to 2 and 3, leaving the first floor for retail.
• Perhaps there will be another multi-story retail outlet: Target, Bed, Bath & Beyond or IKEA.
• The major consumers of space in the Fenway are educational institutions like Berklee College of Music, Boston Architectural Center, Boston Conservatory of Music, Northeastern University. They are in persistent need of classroom, studio and office space.
It is not likely that the 360 Newbury condo group would allow any of its square footage to be used for dorm space or practice studios. What happens to the building is a guessing game. How will the use of the space in a landmark building affect the local retail scene? What impact will it have on the adjacent turnpike air-rights projects? What effect will there be on Back Bay residents?
The building has a unique history. It once served as the headquarters of the Boston Elevated Railway Co. with “Transit Building” carved into its Mass. Ave side. Between 1914 and 1918 there was coordinated construction between the excavators of the Boylston St. subway and the building’s work crew. The subway had to tunnel through the subbasement of the structure on its way to Kenmore Square.
The next seven decades saw an ageing, utilitarian office building with all manner of small enterprises on the upper floors coming and going. Research reveals past establishments on the ground level such as Wurlitzer Music, Federal National Bank and a small lunch counter that was accessible from the sidewalk and the subway entry.
Noted architect Frank Gehry did an initial makeover in 1989 (see www.flickr.com/photos/lfu/4161021183/), adding the lead-metal sheathing on the turnpike side and the exaggerated cornice struts on a new top floor. Tower Records moved into the three-story retail space in 1991. Virgin Megastore occupied the space in 2002, but, like its predecessor, fell victim to the shift from physial records and discs to electronic downloading. Best Buy took over the space in 2007. The upper floors of the building underwent an extensive makeover during 2005-2006, resulting in 54 high-end condominiums.
Hynes Auditorium station, on the Green Line and an integral part of the building, is not accessible to disabled people. There has been some discussion between the MBTA, citizen activists and advocates for the disabled about the potential for installing elevators that would reach from street level down to trackside.
During an initial meeting on this topic in March 2011 at the Boston Public Library, a source familiar with the 2005-2006 remodeling pointed out that the developers went over the access issue with MBTA engineers but concluded that sinking elevator shafts from the street to the tracks could harm the building’s foundation.
None of the interested parties—360 Newbury residents, Fenway/Back Bay neighbors, subway riders, the MBTA—can afford to have anything happen to this building, a key link in a major transit crossroad.
Although no meetings followed this initial meeting on access, a solution may come in the form of a development proposal for turnpike air-rights parcel 13. Submitted to the state by Trinity Financial, a developer, it would create housing and a dorm for the Boston Architectural College above the turnpike from Mass. Ave. to the fire station complex at Boylston and Hereford. And a new subway-station entrance would include elevators.
“The hardest part was overcoming my own internalized prejudice against my own experience, like not being able to eat or control my own bodily functions. It might seem humiliating to be fed. But go to a wedding! There it’s a great honor to be fed.
“One young Ghanaian who took care of me told me it was an honor to make it possible to live my life. So disability, and the prejudice against it, is really a social construct.
“Abled people come up to me all the time and say, ‘You have a wonderful sense of humor,’ or ‘You’re so courageous.’ So I get to experience the same condescension that men express toward women, whites toward blacks, or richer people about poorer ones. But we try to get people to understand that we’re not alien creatures. We disabled are a unique minority because everyone starts out like us, and everyone who gets older eventually becomes like us. And the problem is, people compliment me, but then I never see them at our actions.”
‘During Urban Renewal, they had put cobblestones into the crosswalks, like at 66 The Fenway and Aggasiz
Road. And at Kilmarnock and Peterborough there was a building for elderly and disabled people, without even a curb cut. We couldn’t even cross the street.
“About ten years ago, I went to Taste of the Fenway, to FCDC’s table We formed Neighborhood Access Group, with the Gayleen Jones, Jeanette Ector, Kristen Schneider, and the late Caroline Crockett. Then the FCDC’s Jethro Heiko said to call Councilor Ross. He got DPW [the Department of Public Works] to come and tour with us. We got all the cobblestones removed.
“But then, summer of 2003, they put in brick sidewalks on the Symphony side of Huntington Avenue. Bricks are dangerous for the elderly, disabled, or even women with strollers. Now bricks are really a form of gentrification. Whenever upwardly mobile people come in, they start talking aesthetics. But if your aesthetics exclude people, or cause someone like me to pee his pants because he can’t get down the street, then you’re not really talking aesthetics. You’re talking exclusion and property values.
“In 2004, Tracey Cusick, Kyle Robideaux, Kristen Schneider and I measured Huntington Avenue from Mass Ave. to Gainsborough, on the NU side” to document the obstacles, such as uneven, sloping, and narrow sidewalks. “In the old days, people walked in the streets to get to the streetcars.
But now if I go down the sidewalk in my chair, and people have to step off the narrow walk just to let me by, they have to step into fast auto traffic.
“So then we filed a complaint with the Mass Architectural Access Board. Jack Grieco, Richard Nurt and plenty of others came to the hearing in January 2005, but the city didn’t even show up. MAAB ruled the city had to do some things, and then the city claimed
it had done then. So they closed the case that summer.
“By fall, I wondered how they’d done the work when I’d never seen any digging. So MAAB reopened the case, and then the city claimed the sidewalk was no longer its responsibility, because the MBTA was doing repairs, and they were not finished. MAAB said it was the city’s sidewalk and started fining the city $500 a day for willful non-compliance.
“The fines reached $700,000 and finally the city agreed to put in a four-foot concrete strip. So they agreed to spend the money from the fines on that and other accessibility projects.
“But nothing happened, and then came the most effective protest ever. In 2007, the city scheduled the announcement of the Symphony Area Streetscape work. “We got maybe eight people, like Gayleen Jones and Maureen Cancem to a demonstration at the island over Mass Ave., and held signs like ‘No More Brick’, and ‘Brick Hurts.’
“It was amazing hearing politicians suddenly changing speeches in mid-sentence to add something about accessibility. And when the Globe reporter, who missed the event, called City Hall the next day, the five goals of the project had suddenly become six, with accessibility included.
“The Mayor even came over to us, and
What Lies Ahead for Neighborhood Anchor?
West Fens resident John Kelly has earned a citywide reputation as a disability-rights activist.
Disability-Rights Activist Kelly Gets Results by Making the Personal Very Political
6 | FENWAY NEWS | OCTOBER 2012
fIRST mONdAy SERIES STANdS AS A lANdmARK ON THE muSICAl lANdSCApESTEPHANIE WIESELER
Boston has long been the bastion of culture for New England. Theatre, visual arts, music, and dance have all occupied storied spaces such as the Museum of Fine Arts, Symphony Hall, and the Wang Center. New England conservatory’s Jordan hall is one such space—it’s home to
hundreds of top-tier musical performances each year. Venerated cellist Yo Yo Ma once remarked that he enjoyed Jordan Hall “most of all for the sense of event when you go there.” A stalwart of NEC’s concerts is First Monday at Jordan Hall.
Free and open to the public, First Monday concerts are directed by cellist and NEC president emeritus Laurence Lesser. In the early 1980s, the school’s faculty would perform ad hoc concerts. Lesser decided to formalize them into a series of a half-dozen concerts held the first Monday of the month, thereby providing an easy way to remember the concert dates.
The concert series features faculty as well as notable alumni and some conservatory students. Musicians play of their own volition. “This has to be the collection of like-minded people who enjoy one another’s presence, who enjoy
the music they are playing, and who enjoy playing in this fantastic hall,” Lesser states.
First Monday at NEC, which opens October 1 at 8pm, is now entering its 28th season. Programs will include Brahms and Mozart audience favorites, but Lesser is equally enthusiastic about the unusual, hidden gems of the chamber canon. For instance, two of Lesser’s programs this year feature English, Welsh, and scottish folk songs arranged by none other than beethoven. One might say that the upcoming season is a veritable panorama of centuries, styles, and nationalities alike. Lesser points out that it includes Americans
such as Aaron Copland and NEC’s own Michael Gandolfi, as well as the Brazilian Hector Villa-Lobos. “I feel like I’m a puzzle solver,” he notes. “I’ve got to get all of these things to fit, and if I’ve done that really well, then people just have to come and listen to the concerts.”
Avid concertgoer Mike Wolfberg travels nearly an hour just to reap the benefits of First Mondays, as well as other chamber and symphonic concerts. “One of the best opportunities in the Boston area is what the New England Conservatory offers concertgoers, and this is a wide selection of free concerts of various kinds of music,” he noted. He, like other audience members, marvels at the high level of musicianship. Audiences tend to have “folks of all ages, and I’m sure NEC students are among these,” he commented.
I myself can attest to both of his remarks, having recently graduated from the conservatory and attended many First Monday concerts over the four years of undergraduate study. Although I was a jazz major on saxophone, chamber music remained a source of great interest to me. I recall Ravel’s “Piano Trio in A minor,” performed in the spring of 2011, as especially spellbinding. The hall itself is a force to be reckoned with, as it seats one thousand yet feels intimate, not cavernous. I would often sit on one side or one floor the first half, then switch for the second half, taking in the different visual and sonic vantage points. Jordan hall is simply an ideal environment for chamber music..
First Mondays at Jordan Hall remains a must-hear free musical event in the boston arts community, and the upcoming season is no exception.
A 2012 graduate of New England Conservatory, Stephanie Wieseler is a freelance saxophonist, flutist, and writer, performing most frequently with the Afro-pop group Kina Zoré.
ImAG
E: A
NdRE
W H
uRlB
uT
OPEN HOUSE
MON.OCT.8, 2012
AVENUE OF THE ARTS
BU THEATRE
YOU’RE INVITED TO OUR OPEN HOUSE!
Celebrate our 30th Birthday with cake, special performances, backstage tours,
and more — families welcome! Plus, come in person to the BU Theatre and buy your tickets
to David Cromer’s production of Our Town before they go on sale to the general public.
huntingtontheatre.org/openhouse
H
UNTINGTON
T
HEATRE
COMPANY
Flutist Paula Robison was featured in the opening concert, May 1, of New England Conservatory’s 2012-13 season of First Monday at Jordan Hall.
by JoHN ENgSTroM
Someday I hope to see a modern art exhibit that is devoid of curator-written wall texts, the kind that annoy more than they illuminate.
For example, the first thing you read in Ori Gersht: History Repeating, a new Museum of Fine Arts show of photographs and films that’s up through January 6, is curator Al Miner’s assertion that Gersht takes “a discerning look at multiple histories—from 19th-century painting to the Holocaust—and the ways they are communicated: histories that have shaped his own identity and helped define the state of contemporary society.”
We get the message: Gersht is into history, his own and the world’s. But we only get that from the wall texts. We don’t get it from the photographs themselves, a number of which border on the abstract. “Trace 01” (photograph, 2005) is a blurred landscape in the Carpathian Mountains where the artist’s father hid from the Nazis. But the image does not spell that out—the wall text does. Without the wall text, you would have mostly a fuzzy picture. Similarly, you can look at Gersht’s first video, “Neither Black Nor White” (2001), a shifting galaxy of tiny dots of light, without knowing that its subject was an Arab settlement in Israel, where Gersht is from. Its political-historical context is supplied by the verbal commentary on the wall, not by the art itself.
I didn’t count all the photographs, which are big, high-tech and expensive-looking and take up a lot of wall space. I did not find one of them exceptional. But if you took them all out, stripped the curator comments from the walls, and kept the seven films, you would have a smaller but more focused and interesting exhibition.
I liked almost all the films that I saw, most of all “Evaders” (HD film, 2009), inspired by cultural critic Walter Benjamin and modern artist Paul Klee. It shows the labored, solitary path of an anonymous older man
(Benjamin?) as he trudges through a series of alien landscapes—jagged mountains, a wintry hill—on an unspecified journey. There is also a tracking shot of a seaport and a mysterious back view of a shirtless man in a hotel room. The link to Benjamin is inferrable from the wall text but not from the film, which works on its own as visual poetry. 14 minutes 44 seconds long, “Evaders” is shown in a small theater on two screens. I would see it again.
The first thing you see when you enter the exhibit is “Pomegranate” (HD film, 2008), a frontal view of a classical still life to which Gersht adds a mysteriously dangling red fruit that drips and “bleeds.” “Liquid Assets” (HD film, 2012) was made especially for the MFA, with a head-on view of an old coin that writhes and morphs between liquid and solid states. “Falling Bird” (HD film, 2008) turns a Chardin still life of a dead duck into a dreamlike vision with a surrealist punch, while “Big Bang” (HD film, 2008) gives us a still life exploding and floating in dance-like slow motion. The latter is not helped by a wall text that talks vapidly about Gersht’s interest in “the links between creation and destruction, the intersection of beauty and violence and the passage of time.” Arrggh!!!
Perhaps to expand on Gersht’s concern with art history, the exhibit features several works by artists he admires—Church, Van Gogh, Hiroshi, Czech photographer Josef Sudek. [The MFA asked Gersht to choose any works from its collection that he felt related to his own work. —Editor] The works are in different media, on different subjects, and are not especially well integrated with the other stuff that’s on the walls.
So you have an uneven show in three parts: (1) so-so photographs, (2) funky films, (3) art by others. And there are those infernal wall texts.
(Recently I revisited the exhibit to see if I might have a more positive reaction the second time around. I did not.)
John Engstrom lives in the West Fens.
Stripping Away Photos (and Wall Text!) Reveals Best of Ori Gersht at MFA Show
FENWAY NEWS | OCTOBER 2012 | 7
Collaboration. In comments to the press, Curator of Contemporary Art Pieranna Cavalchini mentioned collaboration as a foundational
concept for the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s stewardship of art. Collaboration drives the Gardner—collaboration between artists and artifacts, administrators and curators, patrons and donors. At the center of it all is a commitment to art as transformative experience, art as endless conversation between the past, present, and future—art as life. As I kicked off my shoes and settled onto
the exquisite, hand-woven carpet that serves as the centerpiece to the Gardner’s new exhibit, The Raqs Media Collective’s Great Bare Mat & Constellation, I couldn’t help feeling drawn into the living, breathing heart of a conversation. In that moment, I was not only experiencing art, I was creating it.
The Great Bare Mat & Constellation consists of two installations by The Raqs Media Collective, a trio of New Delhi artists who have worked together for 20 years. The exhibit is a remediation—a reanimation of the Gardner’s collection. The Collective’s repurposing of Gardner artifacts establishes a link to the past without being restrained by that link; their work suggests that the careful combination of memory, movement, and multiple voices creates something new and vital.
The focal point of the first gallery is the carpet, which is placed in front of “The Vinegar Tasters,” a two-panel 17th-century Japanese screen from the Gardner’s collec-tion. According to exhibit notes, the carpet, woven by two expert Bulgarian weavers from the Rodopski Kilim carpet factory, “features a repeated motif that indexes the constellation of the Great Bear against a background of sig-nals, essays, and conversations between three personal computers of the Raqs Media Col-lective.” Inspiration for the carpet comes from two Han Dynasty bronze bear mat-weights (also part of the Gardner’s collection) used to anchor carpets upon which philosophers would sit and argue. Patrons are encouraged to remove their shoes and sit on The Great Bare Mat, to both contemplate and converse.
This theme of conversation is extended by “The Vinegar Tasters,” which Jeebesh Bag-
chi of the Collective suggests “represent kinet-ic contemplation—another way of entering the world of thinking.” Just as the conversations that crisscross the carpet follow seemingly random but determined paths, the vinegar tast-ers’ reactions to the brew represent a multitude of perspectives. Shuddhabrata Sengupta of the Collective notes that “The Vinegar Tasters” “presumes that there is not only one taste. The moment you admit the fact that there is not one taste to life, then why three? Why not two times three? Why not three times three?” In the spirit of this endless tasting, the Gardner
has commissioned “The Great Bare Mat Exchange,” a series of talks featuring guest panelists charged with dis-cussing themes and questions posed by the Collective, who will serve as moderators.
The second installation is a silent, looped video pro-jection, “Equinox,” accom-panied by a series of acrylic sheets with acid-etched alu-minum figures titled “Arche-types and Other Permissive Forms”. The large projection dominates the space and casts its light onto the reflective surfaces of the panels in-stalled on the wall adjacent to the projection screen. As the film plays, the panel surfaces light up and fade into shadow.
The etchings are fragments culled from the marginalia of Gardner tapestries—gesturing hands, rabbits, faces, and a sea of waving pen-nants.
“Equinox” is a marvel. It begs repeated viewing. The animated figures, all drawn from the Gardner’s collection, are given new life and new context—but the old never quite leaves the frame. The projection artfully encapsulates both the essence of the Gardner and of the Collective: collaboration and dialogue. Watching the suddenly animated wings of static tapestry figures, or the push and pull of a horse jousting with its own shadow, I found myself wanting to rush back and forth between “Equinox” and the Gardner’s main exhibits. I wanted to search out the Collective’s source materials and compare, keep the old in constant conversation with the new.
At one point in the projection, a small light, like the focused light of a flashlight, traces the edges of animals and mountains. This small light—the only light in a darkened frame—eventually becomes, in the next sequence, the sun. This transformation shows just how easily a shift in perspective can change our perception, can make something with one meaning suddenly have another. As Shuddhabrata Sengupta of the Collective reminisces, “Our experience of touring the museum by night with a flashlight was a strange kind of foray into the after-hours life of the museum. That is when, in all the children’s stories, thing begin to change, the objects begin to talk to each other, the gods come alive.” This is the spirit of The Great Bare Mat & Constellation.
Steve Kapica lives in Kenmore Square.
In the Gardner’s new contemporary show, the Raqs Collective put pieces from the collection (and sometimes constituent images) to work in new ways.
Gardner’s ‘Great Bare mat & constellation’ puts the old in conversation with the new
8 | FENWAY NEWS | OCTOBER 2012
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fRI, SEp 28 THROuGH WEdS, OCT 31: MIT and the Boston Public Library present “Palaces for the People,” the first major exhibition on the Guastavino Company and its architectural and historical legacy. Rafael Guastavino—a Spanish immigrant, innovative builder, and visionary architect—and his son Rafael Jr. designed and built structural tile vaulting in more than 1,000 major buildings across the US, including the BPL’s McKim Building, Ellis Island, and
Grand Central Station. Changing Exhibits Room. FREE
fRI, SEp 29 THROuGH SuN, OCT 14: Hungtington Theater Company presents a critically acclaimed production of David Lindsay-Abaire’s tragicomic Good People, a look at class, fate and the gravitational pull of working-class South Boston. Tue–Thu at 7:30pm; Fri-Sat at 8pm; Wed, Sat & Sun at 2pm. Tickets $25–95 (discounts for students, seniors, BU affiliates, and patrons under 35) at www.huntingtontheater.org or at the box office.mON, OCT 1–TuE, OCT 2: Boston University Chamber Orchestra presents works by Mozart, Faure and Beethoven (Symphony No. 4 in B-flat). 8pm, CFA Concert Hall, 855
Comm. Ave. Info at www.bu.edu/cfa/events/?eid=128756. FREE.
WEdS, OCT 3, 10, 17, 24: Science in The News returns to Harvard Medical School with two-hour seminars that sound like very cool classes you never got to take in college. Run entirely by Harvard grad
students, the seminars convey the latest thinking on a range of topics in layperson’s language. Topics this month include “Living Foods: The Microbiology of Food and Drink” (Oct. 17). 7–9pm, Armenise Amphitheater, Harvard Medical School, 200 Longwood Avenue. Details and
directions at https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu. FREE
THu, OCT 4: Roxbury Open Studios week-end opens with an artist discussion at the excellent Haley House Bakery Café at 12 Dade Street in Dudley Square, 7pm. Saturday and Sunday, 11am–6pm, visit more than 20 arts venues, including individual studios, galleries, and group showings at museums and historic houses. More information at
SAT, OCT 6–SuN, OCT 7: BU’s College of Fine Arts presents Le Portrait de Manon, the rarely performed sequel to Manon, Jules Massenet’s celebrated masterpiece. Sat 2 & 8pm; Sun 2 & 7pm. Tickets $7 via http://www.bostontheatrescene.com/season/Le-portrait-de-Manon/. WEdS, OCT 10: The New Center, a virtual Jewish cultural center, brings an intriguing panel to Temple Israel on The Riverway, “Numbers Game: Counting on the Jewish Voter,” examining whether the presidential election will see a shift in traditional Jewish voting patterns. WBZ-TV’s Jon Keller moderates a discussion with CNN political analyst Bill Schneider and New York Times analyst Nate Silver, mastermind of 538 the New York Times’s always-fascinating blog about polling,). 8pm, 477 Longwood Avenue. Tickets $28-45. Information at 617-531-4610 or www.newcenterboston.org/.fRI, OCT 12: As a tie-in with the Boston Book Festival (see page 3), ArtsEmerson presents three weekends of films based on books, including tonight’s 9pm showing of Mystic River based on Dennis Lehane’s novel and directed by Clint Eastwood. Highlights include Gone, Baby, Gone (10/13), Alexader Payne’s Election (10/14), and Ghost World (10/20). Tickets $10 at the box office or http://bit.ly/Q1JtWJ. Paramount Center, 559 Washington Street in the Theater District.fRI, OCT 12–SAT, OCT 21: Happy Medium Theatre hops onto the undead bandwagon with its presentation of The Revenants, Scott T. Barsotti’s examination of two married couples holed up in the midst of a zombie influx who may or may
not themselves be turning zombie. All shows 8pm at The Factory Theater, 791 Tremont Street in the South End’s Piano Factory. $15 (seniors/students) or $18 through www.brownpapertickets.com/event/271916. More information at www.happymediumtheatre.comSuN, OCT. 14: NPR’s hit From the Top returns to New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall for a live taping. The show features hyper-talented young musicians who are the classical music stars of tomorrow. Host Christopher O’Riley, an accomplished musician himself, makes an engaging master of ceremonies. Tickets $25-35. Taping begins at 2pm. Links to ticket sales and more info at www.fromthetop.org.mON, OCT 15:If you’re a fan of British soul sensation Joss Stone, consider getting your tickets soon: Two other House of Blues shows this month—the Alabama Shakes and Ben Folds Five—have already sold out, as have all reserved seats for Stone. Cheaper tickets, which usually means standing only, remain at $29.50 plus fees at www.house-ofblues.com” or through the box office at 15 Lansdowne Street. Doors at 6:30, show at 7:30. More info at 888-693-2583. Another good bet at House of Blues: Cat Power on Weds, Oct 24 at 7pm ($34.50-$45).fRI, OCT. 19 THROuGH SuN, NOv 18: Wheelock Family Theater opens its new season with a musical adaptation of the classic childhood series, Anne of Green Gables. Fri at 7:30pm, Sat-Sun at 3pm, plus Sat. Nov 10 & 17 at 7:30pm. More info at www.wheelockfamilytheatre.org. Tickets $20-
30, available from the website, by phone at 617-879-2300, or by at [email protected], or from the box office at 180 The Riverway, T-F, 10am–6pm.fRI, OCT. 19: If you fancy gold braid with your concert-band music, send off for your tickets to the United States Marine Band’s concert at Symphony Hall. Estab-lished in 1798, the group plays marches, orchestral transcriptions, and piec-es for wind ensemble. 8pm. For tickets, send a self-addressed stamped
envelope to U.S. Marine Band Public Affairs Office/ Marine Barracks/ 8th & I Streets, SE/ Washington, DC 20390-5000. More
info at www.marineband.usmc.milmm. FREE
SuN, OCT 21: Discovery Ensemble features rising-star violinist (and NEC grad) Joshua Wellerstein performing Piazolla’s The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires. The concert program includes Mozart’s Symphony No. 28 and works by Villa-Lobos and Bach. Tickets $20-40 ($10 seniors) through the box office or www.tix.com/Event.asp?Event=501757. 3pm, Jordan Hall, with an introductory conversation at 2pm.WEd, OCT 24: Fathom Events presents the original Frankenstein (1931) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935), with an introduction by TCM’s movie maven Robert Osborne, who’ll discuss the horror genre with Boris Karloff’s daughter and Bela Lugosi’s son. 7pm at the Regal Fenway 13 on Brookline Avenue. Tickets at the box office or online at www.fathomevents.com/classics/event/tcmfrankensteins.aspx.fRI, OCT 26: The Boston Book Festival (see page 3) presents “Page to Screen,” a panel moderated by Boston Globe film critic Wesley Morris with a fascinating line-up of five authors whose books have been adapted for film, including Daniel Handler (the Lemony Snicket series), Buzz Bissinger (Friday Night Lights) and Andre Dubus III (House of Sand and Fog). 7:30pm, Old South Church, 645 Boylston Street. Tickets: $15 from www.bostonbookfest.org/ticketed_events.
These events take place at the Peterborough Senior Center, two blocks from Boylston between 100 and 108 Jersey St. (Walk down the alley and look left.) For more information, call 617-536-7154.TuESdAyS• 9:30am—Coffee Hour• 11am—Exercise class with MahmoudWEdNESdAyS• 9:45am—Yoga with Carmen• 10am—Blood pressure screeningTHuRSdAyS• 9:30am—Coffee Hour• 11am—Berklee students sing-alongmON, OCT 1: Center closed for staff retreatTuE, OCT 2• 10am—Task Force meeting• 12:15pm—movie: On the Waterfront
(1954)WEd, OCT 3• Noon—Watercolors with Bill• 1pm—Taxi couponsmON, OCT 8: Center closed for Columbus DayTuE, OCT 9: Community project with SydneyWEd, OCT 1O: Tiger Lily’s Boutique 50%-off sale all day; TV & DVD player for sale for $60 or best offerTHu, OCT 11: noon—Pizza Party potluck; please bring side dish to sharemON, OCT 15: 11am - Hitchcock movies with Stephen: The Lady Vanishes (1938)TuE, OCT 16: • 9:30am—Special Fundraising Breakfast
with Matti and Maria $3• 11am—Task Force meetingWEd, OCT 17: 1pm—State Senator Will Brownberger, meet and greetTHu, OCT 18: Book swap all day—come and help yourselfTuE, OCT 23: noon—Community project with SydneyWEd, OCT 24: 1• 1am—Poetry and Pot Luck• noon—Mass College of PharmacyTHu, OCT 25: noon—October birthday celebrationsTuE, OCT 30: 11am—Movie, A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)WEd, OCT 31: 11:30am—Halloween Party and pot luck luncheon
it’s well past time that people got over their misconceptions about vegetarianism (boring, bland), and the Boston Vegetarian Food Festival offers a great place to start. On saturday the 27th and sunday the 28th, the event roll sin to the Reggie Lewis Center at Roxbury Community College. The long-running festival, which has grown into a regional attraction, combines 120 exhibitors, cooking demos, celebrity cooks (like Laura Theodora, left, of TV’s Jazzy Vegetarian Cooking), tastings, and free samples. Sat. 11am–6pm, Sun 10am–4pm. FRee admission. www.bostonveg.org/foodfest/
WEd, OCT 3: Crime Watch meeting at Pe-terborough Senior Center (see Focus on Seniors, p8, for directions. Officer Bill Slyne from D-4 will distribute free whistles! All are invited. 6pm.SAT, OCT 6: The City-Wide Friends of the Boston Public Library holds its bimonthly book sale at the Central Branch in Copley Square, 10-4, lower level, McKim Building (Dartmouth Street entrance). Great choice of books, records, CDs, DVDs, tapes and more! Most $2 or less. TuE, OCT 9• Ward 4 Democratic Committee meets at
the South End Branch Library, 685 Trem-ont St. at 6:30pm. For info, contact Janet at 617-267-0231 or [email protected]
• Senator Will Brownsberger holds office hours 7-8pm at Pavement Coffeehouse, 1096 Boylston St. Contact him at [email protected] if you have concerns but can’t make that time.
TuE, OCT 16• “We Saved Fenway Park, Can We Save
the Fenway?” Focus group on neighbor-hood planning, sponsored by the Fenway CDC. 70 Burbank St, lower level. 6pm. For more info, contact Lilly Jacobson at [email protected] at 617-267-4637x16
sources, advocate for family needs, and implement family projects. Potluck-style refreshments; please bring a dish to share. Also, please call one week ahead to request child care for children under 13. 70 Bur-bank St., lower level. 6:30 p.m. For more info contact Kris Anderson at [email protected] or 617-267-4637 x29.
• The Audubon Circle Neighborhood Asso-ciation board meets in Room 3D, Harvard Vanguard Annex, 133 Brookline Ave. Call 617-262-0657 for more information.
• Senator Will Brownsberger holds office hours from 7-8pm at Starbucks Coffee, 755 Boylston St. Contact him at [email protected] if you have concerns but can’t make that time.
WEd, OCT 17: Fenway Liaison for Mayor’s Of-fice of Neighborhood Services holds office hours 3:30-5:30pm at the YMCA, 316 Hun-tington Ave. Contact Shaina Auberg at [email protected], if you have a concern and can’t make it at this time.THu, OCT 18: Rep. Michael Capuano’s liaison holds office hours 1-2pm at Fenway Health, 1340 Boylston St. Call 617-621-6208 if you have concerns but can’t be there.mON, OCT 22: LMA Forum, co-sponsored by the BRA and MASCO for community re-
view of development projects. Meets every fourth Monday, if necessary, at 6:30pm, lo-cation to be determined. Contact Rachel at [email protected] for details and to be added to the notification list. TuE, OCT 23: Fenway CDC Urban Village Committee. Help monitor development in the Fenway and advocate for the kind of neighborhood you want. 70 Burbank St., lower level. 6pm. Contact Lilly Jacobson at [email protected] or 617-267-4637x16.TuE, OCT 23: Symphony Neighborhood Task Force meeting at 6pm. Location to be decided. Contact [email protected] for details.THu, SEp 27: Congressman Michael Capua-no’s liaison holds office hours from 10-11am at Mike’s Donuts, 1524 Tremont St. Contact [email protected] if you have con-cerns but can’t be there at that time.TuE OCT 30: “We Saved Fenway Park, Now Can We Save the Fenway?” Focus Group on Neighborhood Planning, sponsored by the Fenway CDC. West Fenway Location TBA. 6:00 p.m. For more info, email Lilly Jacob-son at [email protected] or call her at 617-267-4637x16For BRA meetings and hearings, visit www.bostonredevelopmentauthority.org/calen-dar/calendar.asp
