The Veterans Affairs medical center is constructing a five-story, 500-space parking garage on its 150 S. Huntington Ave. campus. Work began in April and will last about a year, according to VA Boston Healthcare System spokesperson Diane Keefe. “The new garage should alleviate the parking congestion on the neighboring streets and traffic back-up onto...
By Rebeca Oliveira and Peter Shanley, Gazette Staff Mayor Thomas Menino dropped a tantalizing hint about the future of the Jamaica Plain Branch of the Boston Public Library (BPL) at a sit-down lunch with city reporters on May 25. “We’ve had some internal conversations…I don’t want to drop the ball now because I haven’t...
Rev. Carlos Flor, the new pastor of Jamaica Plain’s three Roman Catholic parishes, plans to spend his first year on the job learning about the neighborhood’s needs, he said in a Gazette interview last week. “I am very happy to go there,” said Flor, who started as pastor June 5. He said he will...
HYDE SQ.—The JP Block Party for Boston Pride Week makes its annual return to Perkins Street on Sun., June 10. A celebration of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community, Pride Week features dozens of events around town, including the downtown Pride Parade on June 9. A co-grand marshal of this year’s parade is the...
The City aims to fix erosion issues around the Pinebank area of Jamaica Pond Park with a project this fall. Pinebank is the high embankment on the north end of the pond. The work would include cleaning a drainage basin on the Pinebank area and regrading paths there and along the park’s ball field,...
The Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Development Corporation (JPNDC) will celebrate 35 years of working to improve JP with its annual meeting and a barbecue on June 9. With major projects of national significance like the Brewery complex renovation on Amory Street, the rehabilitation of the Blessed Sacrament campus and the multi-stage revitalization of Jackson Square,...
Activists in Somerville are pressing the state to immediately tear down a highway overpass, citing Jamaica Plain’s Casey Overpass as an example. The state Department of Transportation (MassDOT) is planning on spending 23 months and $10.9 million to repair the McCarthy Overpass, a structure that supports part of the McGrath Highway as part of...
By Rebeca Oliveira and Peter Shanley, Gazette Staff FOREST HILLS—The community reacted to Mayor Thomas Menino’s comments calling the project a “second Big Dig” and stating his preference for a new bridge to replace the Casey during a sit-down lunch with city reporters on May 25, first reported on the Gazette website. A replacement...
By Arlene Snyder, Special to the Gazette Paintings and drawings by Jamaica Plain artist Cynthia Kollios are on display this month at Taylor House Bed and Breakfast, part of the long-running Music and Art series there. Kollios moved to JP in the 1980s after art school and immediately began to draw the old Victorian...
EGLESTON SQ.—Ken Tilton was forcibly evicted from his Weld Avenue home on June 1 despite the fact he already was in the process of moving out. Tilton—the former owner of landmark JP businesses Zon’s restaurant and the novelty store Pluto—has been working with the local housing group City Life/Vida Urbana since Bank of America...