Over serious neighborhood objections, MassDOT is soon to dismantle the Casey Overpass and dump thousands of vehicles onto the already congested and pedestrian unfriendly streets around Forest Hill station. It promises to reconfigure local streets to tame flows and make it all friendlier for pedestrians and bikers, and gives out numbers saying it will...
Opinion
Politics as Unusual: The tough path to electing a mayor of color
Despite their notoriously low voter turnouts in municipal elections, local communities of color are already buzzing over the mayoral madness sweeping Boston. As expected, important conversations are under way about the viability of certain minority candidates. Even outside of black, Caribbean, Latino and Cape Verdean enclaves, a discussion about race has surfaced front-and-center. Since...
Politics as Unusual: Boston shouldn’t hook big Fish for mayor
When Boston Mayor Tom Menino gave his post-hospitalization “Heigh-Ho” and State of the City address at Faneuil Hall this January, you’d have needed a pair of those cartoon-sized shears that he cuts grand-opening ribbons with to slice through the tension and uncertainty. Those who wished that his ailments would permanently sideline Menino clenched their...
JP Observer: Pond view in danger until the public owns it
The natural area that forms the backdrop of Jamaica Pond on its western side appears eternal. It’s true that Hellenic Hill’s history reaches back to the time when Native American Kuchamakin, Jamaica Plain’s namesake, ruled the area—even back to when the bowls that formed the pond were dug out by glaciers. The natural area...
Editorial: No Phoenix, and less power for us all
The abrupt closure of the Boston Phoenix two weeks ago leaves a staggering black hole in the city’s self-understanding and civic power. Journalism is a scrappy business, and like most papers, the Gazette generally doesn’t deign to mention the competition. But we must mourn the loss of that storied alternative newspaper/magazine. In JP alone,...
Editorial: Pull the plug on energy database
The Boston City Council should pull the plug on Mayor Menino’s proposed ordinance to force owners of large buildings to report their energy usage and monitor tenants’ utility bills. The idea is big-government meddling that is a solution in search of a problem, an onerous burden on landlords and a threat to citizens’ privacy....
Letter: Children’s Hospital’s retreat from community care
In the 1960s and ’70s, community organizations in Boston pressed the major teaching hospitals to use their prodigious resources to improve the health of low-income residents in our neighborhoods, and the hospitals agreed to sponsor health initiatives around the city. Boston Children’s Hospital agreed to provide financial support to the Martha Eliot Health Center (MEHC)...
Letter: JP should oppose Casey Arborway as it did I-95
How disappointing to read in the Gazette elected officials and residents saying Jamaica Plain needs to accept MassDOT’s decision to eliminate the Casey Overpass and embrace the six-lane highway that would replace it. (“Casey opposition gets louder, but doesn’t sway officials,” March 15.) JP needs to “move forward” and work together to lessen the...
Letter: April cleanup one of many ways to tackle JP litter
As co-organizers of the annual Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Cleanup (April 27will be our 28th year), Michael Reiskind and I were somewhat chagrined, but in complete agreement, with the observations which Sara Driscoll and Judy Kolligian expressed in their anti-litter letter to the editor of Feb. 22. We were most persuaded by the public safety...
Letter: BRA exaggerated streetcar extension costs
According to the March 15 Gazette, BRA transportation manager James Fitzgerald would have Gazette readers believe that restoration of streetcar service along S. Huntington Avenue from Heath Street to Perkins Street, a distance of seven-tenths of a mile, “would take around a decade and a billion dollars to complete.” (“S. Huntington ‘vision’ draft presented,”...