On Friday at Noon – “Everyone Wins!”

from John Kelly:

I wanted to tell you about the most important event since NAG’s founding (Neighborhood Access Group is almost 7 years old!) , a rally next Friday called “Everyone Wins!”  In a nutshell, the city has implied that it wants to take out the brick sidewalks along Huntington Avenue and replace them with concrete (at an estimated cost of $384,000), but that it might also have to try (due to overwhelming institutional and elite pressure) to make them comply by grinding them down.  The challenge is for people who support public safety, civil rights for people with disabilities, and fiscal responsibility — bricks are a nightmare to maintain, while concrete takes care of itself — to overcome opposition from elitists trying to protect a bad investment in status enhancement (installing the bumpy and dangerous bricks in the first place over a perfectly serviceable concrete sidewalk).

 

So NAG and BCIL are sponsoring a rally next Friday, 12 p.m.-2 p.m., at the corner of Huntington Avenue and Massachusetts Avenue, near 333 Mass Ave. and Utrecht Art Supplies.   We are calling the rally “Everyone Wins!” and will be offering wheelchair rides on the brick, opportunities to write to public officials, sign a petition, and have fun.

there’s more…

 

Beantown – Last Day!

The first concerts are already underway, but there’s much more between now and 6pm.  John Kelly reminded me that I should post this – I’m still in recovery from getting the October issue out…  Go to:

http://www.beantownjazz.org/

to find out what you’re missing if you don’t get over to Columbus Ave.

Stephen

Meet a Fenway News Writer

John Kelly, one of our regular correspondents, is profiled in an interview/video in today’s Globe Magazine.  It’s called “Access Denied,” and he shows how apt that title is for many wheelchair-bound Fenway citizens just trying to get to Dunkin’ Donuts and back with a cup of coffee.  John has agreed to start a regular column in the Fenway News in November.

Colleges Rip Off Students

Check out this Barbara Ehrenreich essay to find out how the administration is turning you into part of their “Matrix” battery.

A FensFest Winner

I’m hoping that we will have some pictures of yesterday’s festivities in the Victory Gardens – but until then, this post by Mike Mennonno, one of the formerly unsung gardeners who make that part of the world so delightful to walk through should fill in very nicely.

Luciano and the Spice Girls

Some people have referred to Pavarotti at “opera’s ambassador to the world” – he definitely got around!

I found this vid on Crooks and Liars – a great place to visit for news about American politics.

Levine on Pavarotti

From the Boston Symphony Orchestra:

James Levine, who collaborated with Mr. Pavarotti in 139
performances at the Met beginning in 1973, said, “Few singers in the
history of the Metropolitan Opera have had the popularity with the
general public and the enormous impact that Luciano Pavarotti had during
his 36-year career with the company. Luciano’s voice was so
extraordinarily beautiful and his delivery so natural and direct that
his singing spoke right to the hearts of listeners whether they knew
anything about opera or not. I will never forget the sheer magic of that
voice, but I will also remember the warm, generous, and exuberant spirit
of the man. He is, rightfully, a legend already – an artist whose
recordings will be a reference for singers and opera lovers for a long
time to come.”

For a brief taste of the two maestri working together, check out this YouTube vid of nessun dorma – but if you’re anything like me, you should have some kleenex handy…

Looks Like Janitors Won’t Have to Strike

The Boston Herald is reporting that a tentative agreement has been reached in contract negotiations between negotiators for Service Employees International Union, Local 615 and the Maintenance Contractors of New England.

The article notes that the janitors got some moral support in August from “the region’s largest commercial office-building owner,” the Blackstone Group.  Fenwickians might wonder why the largest non-profit educational institution in our neighborhood could not have taken the same high ground.

Fenway Park Improvements

from the Red Sox:

Dear Neighbor,

As we enter the 9^th inning of our season, and while we all have October on the mind, we want to take this opportunity while the team is on the road to invite you over to hear about this year’s Fenway Improvements. If you are able, we invite you to Fenway on Tuesday, August 28, at 6:00 pm or Wednesday, August 29, at 7:30 am for this informal meeting. All attendees can enter Gate D.

Thank you,

Sarah McKenna

NIMBY on Upton Street

I live above the Store 24 on Mass. Ave. across the street from the Berklee Performance Center.  The sidewalk in front of my house seems to be a magnet for people in need of “spare change” not to mention perhaps food and shelter and other such basics.  I frequently feel like I run a gauntlet entering or exiting my building – not so much composed of multiple needy people as of my own conflicting emotions of irritation, guilt, compassion, anger, etc., etc.  If my feelings were turned into policy without any amelioration by reason, morality or good sense, all these people would be swept away to some place where I didn’t have to be conscious of their existence.

That being said, I would rather adopt the smelliest, loudest, most pathetically and hopelessly needy of the lot of them, and move that person into my house, than live next door to someone like Norm Knickle or Jerry Frank.  According to the Boston Globe’s Yvonne Abraham, they would deny homeless people the chance of a roof over their heads simply because they imagine that their property values might suffer.  If I were a religious person, I would think about these persons in terms of the state of their souls, and about camels passing through the eyes of needles.  I might compare their posh Upton Street houses to whited sepulchres.

But I’m not.  I’m just someone who can’t stand the stench of greed and selfishness and who hopes that the more that people like these try to make themselves comfortable at the expense of others the more they will be afflicted by demons of their own making.