Shattuck Hospital closing
The state’s announcement that it intends to close Shattuck
Hospital raises two important questions. The first concerns the
history. In the early 1950s, the late Rep. James Craven went to former Mayor James Michael Curley to ask his approval to locate a state hospital in the Emerald Necklace. Curley said go ahead, and Craven successfully championed the project in the legislature. The world has changed since then, but this is the right time to ask if the Necklace should be restored to its intended purpose, as it was when the original site of the Kelly Rink was abandoned.
The other question is the condition of the Shattuck’s bus stop.
For many years this stop, which serves the #21 & 31 buses, has had no curb cut in the middle of Route 203. Day and night, summer and winter, riders have to climb over the granite divider. There are also no
sidewalks, or only truncated ones overgrown with poison ivy.
Everyone of influence seems to have missed this, despite the stop’s being 300 yards from the former Kelly Overpass; 6,600 feet from a fully functional bus stop at Faulkner Hospital; and 11,088 feet from the home of the owner of The Boston Globe. Nearly two years ago I wrote to Mr. Henry saying that, while there was no reason he should have known about this, “we all need to take responsibility for the condition of our fellow human beings.” Neither he, nor members of The Globe’s editorial board, nor our elected officials, have responded to several entreaties. Whatever the fate of the Shattuck, let us fix this stop before a fellow human being gets killed.
David A. Mittell, Jr.
Jamaica Plain resident
A Fantasy
As we hear each day of more families being broken up and expelled from this country without due process, I like to imagine in the not-too-distant future, the trump family experiencing a similar traumatic breakup after being convicted of treason, money laundering, perjury, and how about RACKETEERING in general. Since many of them are complicit (again, this is MY fantasy), they will each be sentenced to serve time in separate prisons at great distances from one another so that the remaining family members would be inconvenienced if and when they wanted to visit their fallen heroes. Because he will have been the link to these convictions, Boy Jared will be allowed to walk among his fellow prisoners in his one remaining smart/hip outfit – you know, the tight fitting suit, tailored shirt and oh-so-cool half-Windsor knot tie so that he looks like someone who knows a lot of stuff but is actually an empty suit like his dear old pappy-in-law. His fellow inmates will at first think he’s a lawyer on a mission, but, when they realize he’s simply one of them, they’ll let him know what they think of his charade. In no time, he’ll be in an orange jump suit 3x’s too big.
The ONLY concession I would make as judge and jury in terms of where they’ll serve their minimum 15 year sentences is if we can find enough cells available in Guantanamo. Then they can share cells and fight over who gets the prayer rug left by a previous occupant – not for prayer, mind you, but to use as a partial cover because some nights in Cuba can get pretty raw.
Fantasy aside, can you imagine if the Obama administration exhibited the slightest impropriety much less exhibited the kind of corruption that we have witnessed in one year – ONE YEAR – of trump’s reign? That’s why it’s so easy to be cynical these days and wonder how any rational thinker could continue to support an administration that has so blatantly thumbed its nose at the ethical measures installed by the previous and last REAL President of the United States, Barak Obama.
Michel L. Spitzer
Jamaica Plain resident