Monthly Archives: April 2012
Homeless census results delayed
The City has yet to release its 2011 homeless census despite the fact it has done so the past several years during the winter months. The census has been conducted for 32 straight years, with the last several showing a drop in the homeless population. According to Boston Public Health Commission (BPHC) spokesperson Katinka...
Resident begins anti-litter campaign
PONDSIDE—When Kolya Lynne Smith moved to Pond Street from West Roxbury last fall, she was disgusted by the litter piling up on the sidewalks. Now she has adopted the street, giving it a weekly cleaning herself, and aims to form a group called Jamaica Plain Ecology Advocacy to spread the anti-litter crusade. “I am...
Police abuse case lingers a year later
JACKSON SQ.—A high-profile case of alleged police brutality is still under investigation with no conclusion a year later, according to the Boston Police Department (BPD). Michael Pearlstein-Gluck, a Jamaica Plain resident and public school teacher, complained about a March 5, 2011 incident in the Stop & Shop parking lot at 301 Centre St. in...
Librarian remembers civil rights struggle
A small-town Arkansas sheriff once threatened to decapitate JP resident Laura Foner and throw her head in a river. During her time with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1965 and1966, Foner, the children’s librarian at the Connolly Branch Library, was a participant in a grass-roots organization for civil rights in a small...
Bike-riding robber sought
HYDE SQ.—A bike-riding robber stole a man’s cell phone and flashed a knife on Heath Street on March 23, according to the Boston Police Department, which released a description of the suspect. The victim was walking his dog and talking on the phone in the area of 251 Heath St. around 4 p.m. when...
Civil War plays to kick off ‘Olmsted 2022’
Gerry Wright, founder and president of Friends of Jamaica Pond, will be starring in “Olmsted and Whitman: The Civil War Years” April 22 at the First Church in JP. The two one-man shows are a kickoff to Olmsted 2022, a plan to build on the beliefs and ideas of Frederick Law Olmsted, the designer...
Letter: In support of low-income housing
Twenty years ago, in my country, some delinquents assaulted me and shot me in my spinal cord, relegating me to a wheelchair, and four years ago I began to suffer attacks against my physical integrity due to my political ideals. I was the victim of different forms of violence, including threatening phone calls and...
Letter: Gazette is wrong about unanswered Casey questions
The Gazette’s attack on our citizen’s group, Bridging Forest Hills, and anyone who dares to speak up against the state’s biased “public” process on the Casey Overpass project, is a great example of shortsighted journalism (“The Casey criticism,” editorial, March 30). You say that Bridging Forest Hills has a “dubious public process.” Advocacy groups...
Letter: Better traffic data needed for Casey design
I’ve spent 12 years working on the Arborway Yard, two years on the Forest Hills Improvement Initiative. I’m fairly well acquainted with issues that concern residents of the Forest Hills area, especially traffic and transit. As a Casey Overpass project WAG member, I represented 300 residences of the Stonybrook neighborhood, which is used as cut-through...