Alison Barnet's Two October Presentations of her Recent Book, "Once Upon a Neighborhood: A Timeline and an Anecdotal History of he South End of Boston," Drew Crowds Passionate about Their 'Hood'

Author and urban historian Russ Lopez, who introduced Alison Barnet (right)

Ann Hershfang introducing Alison Barnet on October 15

In a first for the South End Writes author series, local history chronicler Alison Barnet had such an overflow audience for her scheduled talk about Once Upon A Neighborhood: A Timeline and Anecdotal History of he South End of Boston on October 8 that a follow-up event was held a week later. South End neighbors and friends passionate about the local scene filled the library’s community room on October 15 as well, reminiscing about the neighborhood as it was then (“a sense of community,” “people recognizing humanness,” “multiculturalism,’ “people easier to talk to”) and, perhaps less so, as it appears to be now to at least some (““coldness,” “distancing,” “gentrification,” “$5,000 baby carriages”). The emotions reached such a pitch that someone felt compelled to caution the audience that “history can become nostalgic. We shouldn’t idealize ‘our moment’ and not see the potential in ‘this moment,’” the attendee said. “Without denigrating history, there is our moment here, too.”

The author wearing a Hite Radio and TV t-shirt

The author of a series of perceptive, original and passionate analyses of the South End as both a place and a character, Barnet landed in the South End in the 1960s when, as a transfer student to Boston University, she was not offered dorm space. She found room in one of the “approved” living spaces for women at the time, the Franklin Square House on East Newton Street, where her love affair with the South End began as she walked from the South End back and forth to BU every day. As she reported in a previous book, South End Character, “I liked it when people spoke to me, and I found what they said witty, offbeat, profound, poetic, right on target, and never boring.” One of the founders of the South End News in the 1980s, Barnet also wrote Extravaganza King: Robert Barnet and Boston Musical Theater and Sitting Ducks.

Urban historian, Russ Lopez about to introduce Alison barnet on October 8

Pages from Once Upon a Neighborhood

Longtime South End resident Ann Hershfang, founder and board member of WalkBoston and a member of the South End Library’s History Collective, introduced Barnet on October 15 while urban historian, Russ Lopez, also part of the Collective, had done the honors for Barnet’s talk on October 8. Copies of the book were hot off the presses on the first night, and sold out at both events. At each reading, Barnet wore a series of T-shirts with logos of historic South End organizations.

The time line format in Once Upon a Neighborhood

Writing Once Upon a Neighborhood began five years ago, Barnet recounted, inspired by another Boston historian, James Vrabel, author of When in Boston: A Time Line & Almanac. Initially believing it would be a few short pages, she became obsessed by its potential and, with the continued support of the Collective, completed it after four-and-a-half years. Helpfully organized as a time line, Once Upon a Neighborhood is a treasure trove of South End history with references to, among other items, an amazing list of publications, some of which survived but many not. They included, for example, the Midtown Journal; the Boston Chronicle; the South End Sun; the Boston Guardian; a newsletter called Hi Neighbor; the New South End; the South Bay Union; the SEPAC newsletter; the People’s South End News; The Neck. and many others.

Alison Barnet with a t-shirt from Chico’s Variety & News Co.

FOSEL has received a number of inquiries about where to purchase a copy of Once Upon a Neighborhood: A Timeline and Anecdotal History of the South End of Boston. Since the South End library is closed for an upgrade until sometime in February 2020, the traditional location for the book’s acquisition is not available. The author has emailed us to say that buyers can call her at 617-267-7018 and leave a message with a phone number. She will then arrange a sale, for $30, cash. When the library reopens, the book will be available at the counter.

"Traces of the Trade," by Filmmaker Katrina Browne, a Descendant of the Largest Slave-trading Family in the US, Lays Bare New England's Complicity in Slavery and its Institutional Amnesia About It

When filmmaker Katrina Browne read her grandmother’s words two decades ago about the illustrious and prosperous Rhode Island family she was a part of, she noticed a brief reference to the ‘unpleasantness’ of the family’s trade in slaves. What she suddenly realized could be the true story of her ancestors rocked Browne to the bottom of her soul, said Dain Perry, her cousin, and led her to produce the documentary, Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North.

Shown to a packed audience at the South End library in September, Perry and his wife, Constance, who descended from slaves, facilitated the movie’s discussion, and described it as the unvarnished history of the largest slave-trading family in the United States, the DeWolfes, of Bristol, Rhode Island. “What happened then is not taught in schools or discussed at the dinner table,” Dain Perry said. “We suffer  from institutional amnesia, but Katrina wants us to discuss it. Slavery is a cancer on the soul of our nation. We have to build the muscle to talk about it. We don’t look for finger-pointing or guilt. We want to better understand how we became so stuck over race. It is not a problem of our own making. It is a terrible legacy. Our job is to figure out how to move forward as a nation.”

The DeWolfe cousins preparing for the trip that retraced their ancestors’ slave routes.

Browne had never made a movie before but delved into the archives of her ancestral home, now a museum, in Bristol. With ten of her cousins, including Dain, she traveled to re-trace the route the slave ships sailed, from Bristol to Cuba to West Africa, with rum to trade for African men, women and children. The documentary tells the story of how West-Africans were captured, baptized, made slaves in the name of God, and taken to DeWolfe plantations in Cuba. They were sold at auction in Havana and Charleston, while sugar and molasses were brought from Cuba to the family-owned rum distilleries in Bristol. In the movie, another DeWolfe cousin sarcastically described the “brilliant vertical integration” of the DeWolfe empire on three continents, with slaves, ship-building, industrial processing of rum with molasses and sugar, as well as trade in textiles. Another of the cousins remarked upon the stomach for violence slave-trading required: A letter in archives requested a whipping pole be moved from in front of the writer’s store as it caused “blood to be splattered on the window panes.”

FOSEL board member, Gary Bailey, introducing Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North

The documentary premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2008, and was nominated for an Emmy for Excellence in Historical Research. FOSEL board member, Gary Bailey, an assistant dean for Community Engagement and Social Justice at Simmons University, introduced the Perrys and, referring to his own family’s history, said, “Three of my great grandparents had been enslaved. There can be no reconciliation without acknowledgment of slavery. The descendants of the DeWolfe family have begun to do the hard work of telling their story.”

Files in the Bristol Historical society show that slave-trading was supported by the whole town of Bristol and all the coastal towns along the New England shoreline, even when slave-trading had become illegal. The DeWolfe family sold shares to finance their voyages, and founded their own banks, insurance companies, distilleries and shipbuilding enterprises. They transported as many as twenty thousand enslaved Africans and amassed a fortune, together with enormous political power. By the end of his life, James DeWolf had been a U.S. Senator, receiving dispensation and favors from Thomas Jefferson, whose brother was installed as a customs official in Bristol to made sure the illegal slave trade could continue in that town.

Dain and Constance Perry, former South End residents, one descended from slave traders and the other from enslaved Africans, respectively, facilitated an audience discussion after the screening.

 Dain and Constance Perry lived in the South End four decades ago, he on Rutland Square, and she on Dilworth Street, once part of the New York Streets area, which no longer exists. She remembers “Mr. Crite” painting pictures of the neighborhood, a reference to Allan Rohan Crite, the now-famous painter of South End scenery. In the post-movie discussion, Constance Perry said that “my Jewish friends celebrate and remember their difficulties. They emphasize the importance of remembering. It is not the same here when it comes to those who were enslaved. We want to forget, not remember. We should remember through a lens of truth. Kierkegaard said that “we live our lives moving forward but we understand our lives by looking back.” 

She and Dain Perry asked the audience for one word to describe their feelings after seeing the movie, which produced a long list: Frustration; Sadness; Loss; Grieving; Hope; Anxious; Urgency; Disconnected; Terrified; Learning; Legacy; Gratitude; Truth; Aware; Anger; Shame; Despair; Lucky; Greed; Power; Useless; Time; Unknown; Ache; Resilient; Forgiveness; and Uncovered. Asked to elaborate on their words, one member of he audience said that after seeing the movie the idea of a white person’s ‘proud ancestry’ as the foundation of his life is somewhat ‘shakey.’ Another said that “white privilege is not about money, but about power.”

BPL Trustees Vote to Eliminate $135,000 in Outstanding Fines for Young Adult Library Users, Calling the Debt "Hard to Collect" and an "Obstacle to Youth Education"

Michael Colford, BPL’s director of library services

The Board of Trustees of the Boston Public Library voted at a public meeting on October 3rd to eliminate all fines for library users under 18, systemwide. A longstanding project of Michael Colford, director of library services at the BPL, who requested the 11-member governing board of the BPL approve the amnesty, said the $135,000 in fines currently on the books for young adults are hard to collect, present an obstacle to youth education, don’t encourage the return of books, and are barrier to library use.

In making the BPL a fine-free institution for young adults, it joins 55 member cities of the Urban Libraries Council, a non-profit think tank, including Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia and Baltimore, and a total of some 200 municipalities nationwide. The goal is to make the BPL fine-free for everyone, eliminating the outstanding debt of $1.4 million for all BPL cardholders.

The amnesty means unreturned books will stay on the user’s record until they are brought back but the accumulated fines have been forgiven. The cardholder can use the library and take out other books, as before. “The punitive approach is embarrassing,” added BPL President David Leonard. “The fines should not be a financial burden. We’d be on the wrong side of history.”

Reversing years of neglect, the BPL's Rare Book and Print Collection Now Has Been Inventoried and Will Reopen to the Public in 2021 Thanks to a $15.7 Million Overhaul

BPL Trustees Evelyn Arana-Ortiz, Robert Gallery and BPL President David Leonard

Only four years ago, a mold outbreak in the BPL’s Rare Book and Print Department at Copley Square brought home what years of neglect and underfunding meant for one of the top five largest Special Collections in the world: misplaced (and perhaps even missing) treasures and a lack of something as basic as an inventory were only the beginning of it. But a $15.7 million overhaul of the 20,000 square-foot space on the fourth and fifth floors of the Johnson Building should be complete by November 2020 and bring the collection back among the top rare books’ departments in the world which include Yale University, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the New York Public Library. Before the current reconstruction began, 250,000 books and 1,000,000 manuscripts were moved to a secure location elsewhere.

In the BPL’s Rare Book and Print Department

A Durer and a Rembrandt print that went missing in 2015 but were later found

Reflecting Mayor Marty Walsh’s stated commitment to repair and rebuild Boston’s public libraries, the renovated department will be accessible by glass elevators that now stop at the third floor. It will feature display cases to exhibit a range of treasures; a classroom for school groups and educational institutions; a reading room; adequate space for 17 researchers and staff; and, yes, a top-level security system with additional security layers for the rarest of manuscripts.

At the most recent BPL Trustees’ public meeting on October 3rd, Simmons College Professor Martha Mahard reported on having inventoried the 1.3 million items in the print and photography collection. Along the way, she came across a card saying, “must be in the library somewhere.” She said there now was a “foundational” inventory. The next step would be to create detailed descriptions of the collection, for which several specialists have already been hired. After the department becomes available to its staff, in November 2020, the collection will be tested for acclimation in its new surroundings. It is expected to reopen to the public by the fall of 2021.

The A-Beez Music Collective Closed Out the 2019 Summer Jazz & Blues Concert Series in Library Park with Seductive Vocalists and Soulful Musical Numbers

Vocalist Melissa Bolling

The last of the summer of 2019 Jazz & Blues concerts brought the Boston-based music collective, the A-Beez, to Library Park with much-appreciated musical numbers, including Overraged (Aaron Bellamy); Smells Like Teen Spirit (Nirvana) and Ramblin' (Ornette Coleman). With its roots in soul, funk, and R&B, the core musicians of the group, Amy and Aaron Bellamy, began their musical collaboration in the early 2000s as members of the Sam Kininger band (BMG Japan recording artists) and have since backed up numerous artists, including Chaka Khan, Beyonce, Terri Lyne Carrington, Elan Trotman, Martin Luther, Cody Chestnut, The Perceptionists and Club D’elf .

In addition to touring nationally and internationally, the A-Beez are staples of the local Boston scene, hosting a more than 14 years’ residency at Boston’s renowned Wally’s Café and performing in clubs and venues throughout New England and the East coast. They co-wrote and compiled a catalog of original material that became their debut album Never Going Back, released in April 2015. Their second studio album, Say Goodbye, came out in March 2018.

Amy Bellamy, keyboards; Melissa Bolling, vocals; Muu Williams, drums; Steve Fell, guitar; and Pat Loomis, saxophone.

Five Outstanding Vocalists of the Nephrok! Allstar Band and Pat Loomis's Friends Made Library Park the Best Place to Be on a Hot August Night While Listening and Dancing to the Motown Sound

No less than five vocalists sang their hearts out on Tuesday night, August 20, when the Nephrok’s Allstar band brought the Motown sound to Library Park and all the surrounding roof decks, patios and open windows around the South End library. An unusually warm and humid night where not a drop of rain tried to spoil the fun set the stage for a melodic and high-energy performance that brought some in the audience to their feet. They danced alone, with partners, with their infants and toddlers and a few with their puppies, not surprising in the pet-loving South End neighborhood.

Vocalists Sarah Seminski and Nephtaliem McCrary sing with Daniel Day (guitar), Pat Loomis (saxophone) and Scott Aruda (trumpet).

In the third of the four outdoor Jazz & Blues concerts of the 2019 season in Library Park, Nephtaliem McCrary and Sarah Seminski played into each other’s powerful renderings of Marvin Gaye and Tammy Terrell’s Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing and Stevie Wonder’s For Once in My Life. The other vocalists, saxophonist Pat Loomis, trumpetist Scott Aruda and keyboardist Ben Hillman joined them in subsequent titles, including I Heard It Through The Grapevine (Gladys Knight and The Pips); You Can't Hurry Love (Diana Ross and The Supremes); Ain't Too Proud To Beg and My Girl (both by The Temptations). Musicians Charlie Hunt (guitar), Daniel Day and Benny Benson (drums), playing with their usual skill and enthusiasm, were warmly received by the audience for their return performance.

Aiden Loomis receives a birthday cake after his dad, pat, sang Birthday by The Beatles for him.

Pat Loomis sang the last number for his son Aiden, who had requested it for his birthday. It was Birthday by The Beatles. A chocolate birthday cake came with the personal performance.

Next week, Tuesday August 27, another beautiful late-summer night is predicted by the FOSEL weather team, which this year has a special dispensation from the gods of rain..they plan to stay away.

A happy and engaged audience fills Library Park, with many others hanging over the fence on Tremont Street

Ben Hillman on keyboard, Charlie Hunt, guitar and Benny Benson on drums accompanying singer Sarah Seminski

Grammy Award-winning Percussionist Eguie Castrillo Was the Star Performer of the First Pat Loomis Jazz & Blues Concert in the Newly Designed Library Park on July 23

From left to right: Pat Loomis, Angel Subero, David Rivera, Fernando Huergo, Antonio Loomis and Joseph Rivera Sanchez, for the first concert this summer in Library Park.

A happy crowd of Southenders under distant the gaze of the Prudential Tower

Celebrated Puerto Rican percussionist, Eguie Castrillo, was the star performer at the first of four Jazz & Blues concerts in Library Park on July 23rd. The Grammy Award winner played seamlessly with the members of Pat Loomis’s Friends, a local band that has electrified Library Park summer evenings for more than a decade. This year, for the first time, every concert has a Special Musical Guest performer, paid for by you, our generous donors, and recruited by Loomis, himself a well-known and popular saxophonist and vocalist.

Flutist Julia and trombonist Angel Subero leaning into an inspired rendition of A Night in Tunisia

What the Boston weather gods will bring to the park concerts is always the biggest source of anxiety its sponsors but, miraculously, the torrential rains of the previous night and morning deposited their last droplet at noon. This left enough time for Library Park to dry out, Parks Department employees to sweep up the debris, and for the big outdoors to broadcast the glorious sounds of a free, live jazz performance. It was the first concert since the Park’s redesign and upgrade last summer, when concerts could not be scheduled due to the reconstruction.

The walk-on musician, Julia, waiting to join the band, and a devoted concert attendant, with watermelon.

As is often the case in the South End neighborhood where the legacy of jazz and blues runs deep and wide, professional musicians not booked for the concert regularly walk on and join the performers. This year, a fabulous flutist, identified only as Julia, was the walk-on and, with the band, gave an inspiring performance of Dizzy Gillespie’s A Night in Tunisia. Other numbers included Mambo Inn (Mario Bauza); Senor Blues (Horace Silver); Chucho (Paquito D'Rivera); I Mean You (Thelonius Monk); and Samba De Orfeu ( Luis Bonfa).

In addition to Pat Loomis and Eguie Castrillo, the musicians playing their hearts out were: Angel Subero (trombone); Antonio Loomis (guitar); Joseph Rivera Sánchez (piano); Fernando Huergo (bass); David Rivera (drums) and the remarkable Julia, on flute.

The next concert in Library Park will feature the acclaimed New York-based composer and pianist, Kevin Harris, on Tuesday, July 30, at 6:30 PM.

At the moment (three days in advance) the prediction is for a hot and dry summer night, another perfect evening for outdoor music. Listen fro your roof decks, your patios or from inside the park. Bring your own chairs and refreshments. FOSEL serves watermelon.

BPL Presentation at City Council Hearing Shows a "Good News Budget," with $127 Million for Capital Renovations over Five Years and almost $50 Million for FY2020 Operating Expenses

President, David Leonard, now in his fourth year at the helm of the Boston Public Library

The difference between a Boston mayoral administration that loves libraries and one that doesn’t so much is this: As little as six years ago library budgets had been cut every year by millions of dollars, branch renovations were few and far between, and new hires for a library system that could barely handle growing demand for Internet and other services were almost unheard of. By contrast, today, the Walsh administration’s FY2020 budget proposes to spend more than $127 million over the next five years to rebuild Boston’s branch libraries, as well as critical departments at the Central Library. This is on top of $30 million already spent this year. “A good news budget,” is how a city financial manager described it.

The proposed FY2020 operating budget is almost $50 million (from $32 million some six years ago); a handful of new positions are included, for project management focused on the branches and teen and children’s librarians. Equally important, the administration and the BPL have created a revamped fundraising arm, Fund for the Boston Public Library, to tap Boston’s private wealth and help sustain the growing demand for expanded public-library services. (Its predecessor, the anemic Boston Public Library Foundation, in its final years raised just enough to pay its employees’ salaries.) Even State funding for the BPL has increased, though minimally for now. That will likely be the next task members of the Boston Delegation to the Massachusetts Legislature are asked to consider when they get a visit from BPL’s board of trustees, one of whom, Rep. Chynah Tyler, is expected to begin a term serving on that very board very soon.

Mayor Marty Walsh, a committed library supporter, will receive the Bates Medal on June 7

The enthusiasm and upbeat tone of president David Leonard testifying about his budget, and the grateful response to his presentation by city councilors at the May 13 budget hearings (where they heard about their constituents’ new or to-be-renovated libraries) is a marked change from earlier days. Boston’s long-neglected library infrastructure is now on the upswing and here is what that looks like: The Adams Street branch renovation has an appropriation of $19.2 million; Uphams Corner, $17.9 million; the Dudley branch, $17.2 million; Faneuil, $12.6 million; Fields Corner, $12.1 million; Roslindale, $10.2 million; lesser amounts are set aside for smaller improvement projects at other branches, including the South End library. At the Central Library, moreover, the site of previously lost, misplaced, fungus-challenged and water-damaged prints and manuscripts, some $15.7 million is being spent to safeguard the Rare Books and Manuscripts Department.

Part of a proposed redesign of the 26,000 ft Dudley Branch Library

Alongside the rebuilding program, the BPL is looking into mixed-use possibilities for their library renovation projects, including combining them with low-income and affordable housing (Fields Corner, Eggleston and West End). Another possibility is to make libraries part of an arts and culture district (Uphams Corner, where the Strand Theatre is located), or even to build libraries in consort with separate commercial developments, including perhaps a permanent location for a Chinatown library (now in temporary quarters in the China Trade Center) that could be part of one or another BPDA-sponsored development project over the Mass Turnpike.

Collaborations between the BPL and other major Boston cultural institutions is another exciting change, exemplified by the Toulouse-Lautrec exhibit now on display at the Museum of Fine Arts. More than 100 prints owned by the BPL are on loan to the MFA, which assisted in restoration and preservation work of the BPL’s Toulouse-Lautrec prints collection, and agreed to offer free admission to the museum for the month of June to anyone who owns a BPL library card.

Holders of a BPL card can visit the Museum of Fine Arts for free the entire month of June and view the Toulouse-Lautrec exhibit that includes more than 100 prints owned by the Boston Public Library

Services for homeless patrons at the BPL are still in their infancy, compared to, for example the San Francisco Public Library, but important progress is being made. A pilot project with the Pine Street Inn has brought a full-time social work navigator to the Main Library to work with homeless patrons, and have assisted them with obtaining housing. The BPL hopes to “add capacity” to this effort, said president Leonard. In addition, a program between the BPL and Simmons University is in process of being established, for their social-work faculty and students to work with “vulnerable patrons.” Another one-year pilot program launched last fall is for library users to borrow a “hot-spot” kit for free Internet service elsewhere. Each kit contains a hotspot device, Micro USB cable, adapter, and instructions in English, Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Haitian Creole.

A Gala celebration that launches the new fundraising arm of the Boston Public Library, called the Fund for the Boston Public Library.

Sustaining and expanding these initiatives and services will be expensive which is why the April launch of a new and improved BPL foundation, called the Fund for the Boston Public Library, is so important. Their opening event will be a June 7 Gala at the BPL, which expects to raise $8 million. A new executive director was hired recently, Mary Myers. The last director brought on by the Walsh administration four years ago for what was then called the Boston Public Library Foundation concluded within a very short time that the foundation was beyond salvation after years of well-meaning but incompetent leadership and patronage appointments. No-nonsense BPL trustees, after doing an in-depth study of the teetering organization, closed the BPL foundation down three years ago and began to envision a new, effective and more muscular one, from scratch.

Let’s hope they succeed. So far it looks good. The June 7 Gala will also be be the night when Mayor Marty Walsh will receive the Bates Medal for making significant contributions to the advancement of learning. From my perch of years-long Boston public-library advocacy, he has earned it.

The Twelfth South End Library Easter Egg Hunt Came at the End of a Long Rainy Spell, Ringing in the First of Many Spring and Summer Events in Library Park

FOSEL volunteers prepared Library Park for the Twelfth Annual Easter Egg Hunt. From left to right: Walter Newman, Easter Bunny Chris Fagg, branch librarian Anne Smart, Marleen Nienhuis, Gail Ide, Michael Cox, Maura Harrington, Jacqueline McRath, Michelle Laboy, Noah Fiedler, Josh Fiedler.

The crowd began to swell at 10:30 AM…

Last fall, it was not clear whether it was a good idea to plant spring bulbs in Library Park as their bloom time would most likely coincide with the Library Easter Egg Hunt. Should we not plant or not have the Easter Egg Hunt?

Easter eggs everywhere…

Neither was a good option, so FOSEL planted AND had the Hunt. The enthusiastic crowd of hunters carefully tipped around tulips and daffodils, knocking down only a few. Their spree to collect more than 1,700 eggs was over in minutes.

Nearly a dozen FOSEL volunteers had filled the eggs with chocolates, poems and knock-knock jokes the weeks before. Chris Fagg, our talented Easter Bunny, did a great job waving and giving hugs to whoever wanted one.

Tip-toeing through the tulips and daffodils..

The sun came out after a long rainy spell. Parents and children were happy. They took pictures. They chatted. They consumed all the refreshments. A little girl noted, “the bunny has a costume on,” but agreed to keep it a secret for the littler children.

A new season in renovated Library Park has begun.

Opening up the Easter eggs and finding poems, knock-knock jokes and..chocolates

The Easter Bunny was at the center of attention of little kids and their parents

Josh Fiedler and son Noah

Nick Altschuller and son Gus waiting with the crowd.

In 1968, Architect Romaldo Giurgola Proposed a South End Library Building with a Lower-level Children's Room Overlooking a Sunken Courtyard; an Entrance on Tremont Street; and Two Large Reading Rooms

Dan Kelley, principal in MGA Partners, the Philadelphia architectural firm that succeeded the award-winning Mitchell/Giurgola firm when they moved to Australia. Kelley gave a presentation at the South End library on March 12 about the architectural history of the South End branch.

An early proposal by Romaldo Giurgola for a sunken courtyard next to the South End library, with a dug-out lower level

Some of the surprising details that came out during a captivating talk and PowerPoint presentation on March 12 about the architectural history of the South End library: Now located on West Newton Street’s corner, the building could have been sited on the Rutland Square side; the library entrance might have been on Tremont Street; the proposed design included a lower-level Children’s Room (now the basement) that overlooked a sunken courtyard; and there could have been two large reading rooms instead of the one cramped space the library offers today. What might have forced the decision to go for the current, arguably lesser, design? The 1960s budget, for one, suggested architect Dan Kelley in his presentation called Beyond City Hall. It was a grand total of $225,000.

A view from the interior of the library onto a proposed sunken courtyard

Kelley, a principal in MGA Partners, who worked closely with Romaldo Giurgola, the library’s architect, traveled to the South End from Philadelphia at the invitation of FOSEL’s advisor (and assistant professor of architecture at Northeastern) Michelle Laboy. Kelley’s talk focused on the genesis of the library’s architecture and the Philadelphia School, based on research he did in the Giurgola archives at the University of Pennsylvania. The award-winning architectural firm of Mitchell/Giurgola, which in the 1980s built the Parliament Building in Canberra, Australia, was part of a group of architects of he 1960s and 1970s that helped rebuild the city of Philadelphia. .

The 1962 Mitchell/Giurgola proposal for a new Boston City Hall. It came in second.

How Giurgola got the assignment for the South End library is a matter of some speculation, said Kelley. Giurgola, who was awarded the AIA Gold Medal by the American Institute of Architects in 1982, came in second in the competition to design a new Boston City Hall in 1962. Some think that the South End library assignment a few years later was the consolation prize. Progressive Architecture magazine wrote in 1963 that the Giurgola proposal should have won the City Hall competition as it succeeded better than the winner in proposing a design that was “an intimate part of the restructurization of the area, and not an isolated monument.”

Early designs for the branch showed the building on different sides of the lot on Tremont Street

In his talk, Kelley compared Boston and Philadelphia as two cities dating from America’s Revolutionary era that were similar in their once-upon-a-time history of wealth and glory followed by urban decline during the 1950s and 1960s. The Philadelphia School architects were recruited by George Holmes Perkins, dean of architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. They were assisted in the realization of their so-called Post-Modern approach to urban architecture by Edmund Bacon, Philadelphia’s city planner, who wanted to rebuild the city in a progressive way. That meant, among other things, to take into account the context, surroundings and social needs of where the buildings were located, as if they were “a fragment” of a larger whole, rather than an isolated structure imposed on an urban environment, explained Kelley.

The final design for the South End library, approved in 1970; it opened in 1971.

The tight budget for the construction of the South End library probably reduced the chances for the more attractive but expensive options of the sunken courtyard and the two large reading rooms on top of a dug-out lower level. Deficient site preparation led to the collapse of a trellis that surrounded the green space in the final design, making it unstable within a short period of time. An abutter to the library attending the presentation reported that refrigerators and other debris were thrown “down there.” In the 1990s the green space was replaced with a park surrounded by an iron fence, which is still there, today. 

Romaldo Giurgola (L) walking past the South End library’s construction site

The presentation was well attended by a number of local architects, as well as David Leonard, president of the Boston Public Library. Leonard commented that three ideas struck him: First, the centrality of Library Park to the building’s design; second, the evolution of the library’s architecture and the possibility that the final version of the proposed designs was perhaps not the stronger one and, finally, the question of how the form that suited the function of the library then, is different from what would be the case today, now that libraries have changed so dramatically in how they provide services to library users. Other architects in the audience also expressed interest in Giurgola’s initial designs for the library, especially the ones that included the sunken courtyard, lower level windows overlooking green space, and a library entrance on Tremont Street.

The South End branch of the Boston Public Library is on track for a major renovation and expansion in the next five years, which will begin with a $100,000 Programming Study sometime after July 1, so the history of its current design comes at an appropriate time. In the immediate future, the library will receive a so-called “refresh,” with new carpeting, fresh paint, additional electrical outlets, a reconfiguration of the furniture and new seating arrangements paid for by FOSEL’s private fundraising last year.

Zeitgeist Stage's Director David Miller and Playwright Jacques Lamarre Take on Staging a Play about Mass Shootings from the Perspective of the Family's Shooter in "Trigger Warning"

How does a play go from the pages of a script to a full-blown performance on stage? Last February 26, award-winning director of the Zeitgeist Stage Company, David Miller, took a stab at answering that question. Seated in a semi-circle with Miller and playwright Jacques Lamarre, three actors cast in his play, Trigger Warning, read through scenes that took a look at how a mass shooting impacts one family, that of the shooter. Two of the actors were part of earlier Zeitgeist plays: Steve Auger in Vicuna; Kelley Estes in Far Away, Hiding Behind Comets, Cakewalk, and Tigers Be Still. For Liz Adams Trigger Warning will be her first Zeitgeist show.

Trigger Warning’s genesis was a Boston Foundation announcement that it wanted to award grants to the Boston theatre community for new work, explained Miller, who contacted playwright Lamarre to commission the play. Lamarre had just finished reading the memoir A Mother’s Reckoning by Suzanne Klebold, mother of Columbine’s High School mass shooter, Dylan Klebold. Lamarre asked Klebold if he could adapt her memoir. She declined. Zeitgeist did not get a grant from the Boston Foundation, either. But the play, Trigger Warning, will open on April 12 at the Boston Center for the Arts.

Lamarre lives in Hartford, CT, the town where Colt Manufacturing Company created the town’s gilded age by producing weapons for the Civil War and later, as Lamarre commented wryly, guns for the country itself, including mass shootings. He lives minutes from the site of the Hartford Distributors shooting where nine people were killed in 2010; Newington, where five Connecticut Lottery employees were murdered in 1998; and one hour from Newtown, CT,  the site of the Sandy School Elementary School shooting of 20 students and six teachers by Adam Lanza, who also killed his mother earlier that same day at the home they shared.

To demonstrate a play’s evolution, the three actors read from two scenes, the first followed by a discussion with the library audience about the main subject of the play, the role of guns in the American family and its consequences. In the scene, the parents of the shooter, Travis, who has fatally shot a number of people, injured his 16-year-old sister and killed himself, are alone for the first time at the home where the shooting took place. The father, a contractor, is a gun owner whose guns, though locked away, had been used by his son for the mass shooting. The injured daughter had left her parents’ house to live with her aunt.  The parents bantered back-and-forth in a manner that at some level felt surprisingly normal, the way any couple will go back and forth, but with comments and questions that alluded to the devastating turn their lives had taken and to their having entered the unknown territory of being shunned by their community, the fictional town of Plainville.

“What’s going to happen to us,” they asked each other, and “I lost two clients today” and “should we sell the house?”  and “did you love Travis?” and the answer: “Yes, but I wish he’d never been born.” Playwright Lamarre talked about the killers’ families, the other victims of shootings who generally are not acknowledged even though their lives, too, have been destroyed by the shooter.  They become families at war with themselves: What could they have done differently? The mother of Dylan Klebold, for example, went from a well-respected member of the community to someone who had to go into hiding to mourn the loss of her son who had killed the children of families in that same community. At some point, she had to acknowledge her son had become “a monster.” Likewise, the mother of Adam Lanza, Sandy Hook’s mass shooter, had lived in fear of her son. But the fictional parents of Travis in Trigger Warning had known something was wrong, and had taken Travis from therapist to therapist, without finding something that helped their son. No one had an answer. 

Director Miller, whose plays were nominated last month for nine Small-Stage awards by the Independent Reviewers of New England (IRNE), told the audience that Zeitgeist Stage always produced plays that reflect “the spirit of the times,” so mass shootings was a relevant subject. There had been numerous documentaries, and plays, but never from the perspective of the shooter, he said. The initial title, Thoughts and Prayers, as in the usual comments offered, was determined to be too passive. Trigger Warning is both a general warning for events that may trigger trauma but, in this case, the word “trigger” has a more appropriate duality, he said.

After the cast held a read-through of the play’s first draft in December, followed by an in-depth discussion with Lamarre, the playwright returned two weeks later with a revised draft. “It evolved organically,” he said. “You never see the shooter. He had added several characters who each represented another aspect of the story: A  minister, who asked the shooter’s mother not to come to church anymore to avoid upsetting the other parishioners; and a lawyer, to fend off the lawsuits by enraged parents.  The Klebolds were bankrupted by their son’s ass shooting at Columbine, as was their insurance company. Scenes evolved further with the mother talking to the minister and the father to the lawyer, each describing from different points of view being cast out from the community they were a part of.  The daughter, living with the mother’s sister, moreover, attends a “Never Again” rally in town, multiplying the arguments for a law suit against the parents. 

Lamarre said he wanted to capture the depth of the rejection by the community of the parents of the shooter: How can you go on when no one is on your side and there is no spiritual comfort or legal protection, and relentless media coverage turning the violence into entertainment? He noted that in Columbine, fourteen trees were planted to memorialize all the students killed, including the shooters, but those trees were cut down.

Director Miller said Zeitgeist Stage had once before staged a play about a school shooting, called Punk Rock. It was 2015 and the company was in rehearsal for it when the Marathon Bombings occurred. When the play went on stage, three weeks later, there were numerous discussions about mass shootings after the performance. “People felt they wanted and needed to talk about it,” Miller said. 

At the library’s Page to Stage discussion, several audience members brought up a 1,000-page book by Andrew Solomon, titled Far From the Tree. Miller and Lamarre had read it as part of the preparation for Trigger Warning as it deals with so-called expectations violation, when parents find themselves in a situation through their children that is not the norm. “No parent wants to be seen as a failure,” Lamarre said, but what do parents do when they experience expectation violation, whether through their children’s mental health issues, dwarfism, or mass shootings?

Trigger Warning will be performed at the Boston Center for the Arts from April 12 through May 4 and will be the last play of the last season of Zeitgeist Stage Company which has announced it will close. The staff and the cast will leave a big hole in the South End theatre community. Lamarre’s next play is an adaptation of Wally Lamb's holiday novella., called Within’ & Hopin.’

Joan Diver, a Subject of J. Anthony Lukas's "Common Ground," and Author of "When Spirit Calls: A Healing Odyssey," Found a Spiritual Common Ground as Faith Healer

January 15 was an auspicious day for claiming to be “on common ground.” It was the day of a reading by a distinguished former South End resident, Joan Diver, who returned to her former neighborhood’s library to read from her debut memoir, When Spirit Calls: A Healing Odyssey. The Divers were one of the three families profiled in the award-winning book by J. Anthony Lukas about the South End’s struggle with school integration and forced busing, titled Common Ground. January 15 would have been Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s 90th birthday and, as Rev. Tim Crellin of St. Stephens Church who introduced the author pointed out, also claimed “common ground,” for humanity regardless of the color of their skin.

Rev. Tim Crellin of St. Stephen’s Church introducing Joan Diver.

Father Crellin captured the anticipation in the room where Joan Diver explained her quest for a spiritual life after devastating pain from an injured back forced her to seek relief in non-traditional venues and methods in cultural settings of both East and West. “Some of you may be joining us this evening because you know Joan from her days living just around the corner from where we are right now,” Rev. Crellin said, “or from her nearly two decades leading the Hyams Foundation, or from her leadership on boards like the Associated Grant Makers, the United Way and countless others. Perhaps you came because you know at least part of her story from reading Tony Lukas’ now classic book.  Or maybe you came out tonight because you’ve heard about Joan’s commitment to healing: physical, emotional, spiritual. Regardless of why you’re joining us tonight, you’re in for a treat.”

Joan Diver answering questions from an engaged audience about her spiritual voyage

Diver, who with her husband Colin, had hoped to raise their two boys in the South End in the 1970s but was thwarted by the constant battle over street crime and school choice, said she will always be connected to the South End. Moving to Newton to access better schools for their sons was traumatic. They grieved over it and felt guilty for not staying to face the challenges of raising a family in the South End.  When Lukas sought them out to profile their experience for the book he was writing about busing, she was very reluctant at first but then relented. “Tony told our story, which was a healing experience for us,” adding, “I could never have written my story of healing without the Boston story.”

Longtime South End resident Ann Hershfang reconnecting with Colin Diver, who became Dean of the U. Penn. Law School after leaving the South End, and subsequently served as President of Reed College (OR)

She fondly remembers the rich diversity of the South End, and requested a few moments of silence. “I want to talk about why I left a job I loved to write my healing story,” she said. “It was both an adventure and a love story and a tale of discovery of universal love that connects us and is the ultimate common ground. The adventure took me from West Newton Street to Newton Corners, from convicts hanging out on our street corner to watching people led to their execution in China, from an operating room at Beth Israel to a healing room in Santa Fe. These were never planned events but ones that called on me.”

Her medical crisis led her to surgery, after which she experienced certain phenomena, like a blinding white light that came and went, and a growing psychic awareness of “some challenges that come from dimensions that we’re not familiar with,” as well as a growing sense of the existence of “a universal consciousness.” A friend, a psychic, suggested this was part of a re-balancing of physical, mental and psychological energy. Diver became convinced that turbulent times, in a personal and a broader sense, represented “a great breaking open,” something that is “coming up for its healing, like a boil.”

On various trips she took after her surgery she became familiar with members of  healing communities with whom she was able to communicate in a spiritual understanding. She  experienced a “crossing of boundaries” into previous lives she may have lived, including ones where she had been raped and committed suicide. “I felt love and forgiveness after that,” she said, “like I had become a different person, one with more confidence.”  Lurching from painful medical crises to recovery and back again several times, Diver traveled a parallel path of the mind that led her to want to train as a healer, hoping to help others who were in psychic and physical pain. She participated in healing initiations that took her to Egypt, India, China and Mount Sinai. She became convinced  that we were “all led in some way, in our mind or by something beyond our minds,” but kept wondering, “what was driving me?” 

 Diver began to connect a new-found spirituality to certain decisions she had made,  including of a medical procedure that she had suspected she did not need but left her in pain for nine months. She focused on whether there are “multiple messages” to help determine what one should do but concluded that “you need to open up to it.” 

Southenders standing in line to buy a copy of Joan Diver’s book and having her sign it…

Members of the audience asked her to expound on this, pointing out that some people may see signs that lead to good places and others to bad ones. “How do you know the difference?” they asked. Diver answered that “everyone has their own path but if each of us, and enough of us, open our hearts a whole population can shift. It’s a shift of consciousness.”

Diver described how a certain incident had caused her family to leave the South End: Husband Colin had hit a burglar with a baseball bat, and became terrified he would hurt someone even worse in the future.  “But now you see it as a call,” someone asked her. 

“Whether we are led or called, we all have these signals,” she said. “Some see it, others don’t.”

Delicious Platters of Food, Fabulous Jazz Music by the Pat Loomis Band & Trombonist Jeff Galindo, and a Crowd of Library Supporters Made the South End Library Holiday Party the Best Ever

FOSEL board members, library staff and volunteers dishing out delicious dinners for all

Saxophonist Pat Loomis and Special Guest Jeff Galindo on trombone

Each year, the South End library’s holiday party gets bigger and better: time for a bigger library to accommodate it all. On December 18, a crowd of more than sixty people stood in line for a holiday dinner featuring platters of delicious food prepared by the chefs at the South End Food Emporium on Columbus Avenue, generously donated as their holiday gift to the South End library. In addition, library supporters, Friends of the Library’s board members and library staff brought cheese platters, scrumptious appetizers, (non-alcoholic) mulled wine, jambalaya, hot chocolate with all the trimmings and an outstanding selection of cakes and desserts.

Antonio Loomis, Pat Loomis and Colescott Rubin weaving great music into the holiday party’s cheer

That was only the beginning: Pat Loomis and his fabulous Band of Friends managed to book a star performer, top trombonist Jeff Galindo, who graduated from Berklee College of Music, and has played with the greats, including Chick Corea, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, the Artie Shaw Orchestra, the Village Vanguard Orchestra and the Boston Pops, among others. The Loomis band included Pat Loomis, alto and soprano sax; Antonio Loomis, guitar; Jim Dower, piano; Colescott Rubin, bass; and Benny Benson, drums. The music they played together was fantastic.

The concert between-the-book-stacks featured O Tannebaum, Jingle Bells, the Christmas Song, Winter Wonderland, Silver Bells, Christmas Time is Here and Santa Claus is Coming to Town. By eight o’clock, all the food had been consumed and the libations had been drunk, except for what had been put aside for the musicians by vigilant food servers who ant them to return next year...

Retired library staffer Deborah Madrey returned to see her friends and supporters

Young and old enthralled by the musical performance

Hot chocolate with all the trimmings for the children provided by library staff

Sewing for Success for Teens and Tweens on Six "Sewing Fridays" from 3:30 PM to 4:30 PM. Call to Register.

So your teens and tweens don’t know how to sew? The South End branch will offer six one-hour “sewing Fridays” in October and November for teens and tweens. Kelli Bos (Sewing for Success) has installed a lovely display about sewing in the library’s park-side window, featuring a sewing machine, many books about sewing, fabrics, samples of finished pieces and various props.

The first session will be on October 12, followed by instruction hours on October 19 and 26 and November 2, 9 and 16. All dates are on Fridays, from 3:30 to 4:30 PM. Fabrics and sewing materials will be provided. For further information or registration, contact Anne Smart or Margaret Gardner at the South End branch at 617 536-8241. Or call Kelli Bos at 617 455 4547, extension 800, or #sheiskellibos.

Mayor Walsh Adds Funding to FY19 City Capital Budget to Keep Renovations of South End Library and Library Park on Track

Mayor Marty Walsh speaking at a Coffee Hour in Titus Sparrow Park in early May about his commitment to South End's needs, including the renovations of Library Park and the South End Branch Library of the BPL

The proposed layout of the South End library's downstairs interior representing Phases One and Two by architect and FOSEL board member Michelle Laboy

Library Park's redesigned space, for which construction will commence the week of July 16, 2018. In addition to the design above, enthusiastically approved by the South End Landmark District Commission in April, the work will include major infrastructure work to remove any obstacles still buried underneath from the early 1970s when it was first built, and re-grade the park's surface.

Library Park in its previous state, with a large area of broken pavement and limited usage options. The new design, featured above, will have multiple seating arrangements. The construction, which began late July, may take three months.

 The Friends of the South End Library (FOSEL) is very happy to report that, late last week, capital funding of $400,000 was restored in the FY 2019 budget for Phase Two of the South End library's interior renovation. This means that our efforts to quickly improve a cramped and outdated branch by means of a pubic/private partnership between the Boston Public Library (BPL) and FOSEL will succeed. It is the first  partnership for a Boston branch library in the history of the BPL in which private contributions raised by FOSEL from local library supporters combined with a dedicated BPL capital allocation is used for an accelerated library renovation. In addition, money was added to the Parks Department budget to start the reconstruction of Library Park. 

The current 2019 city budget, linked here, shows two capital allocations for the South End branch, $100,000 for a program study leading to a major overhaul and expansion of the library; and $400,000 to be spent on short-term improvements outlined in Phase Two. Both projects will be subject to public hearings. The proposed redesign for Phases One and Two is illustrated in the drawing above. Further details are on our website, linked here.

There are many people to thank, but first and foremost Mayor Marty Walsh, who visited the library several times since his election and each time pledged his full support for the branch's renovation, and for the redesign of the library's adjacent green space, Library Park. This spring, both library and park projects were suddenly delayed, each for different reasons, but both were put back on track with the same solution: the Mayor's strong support for more funding for these two important and long-neglected civic spaces in the South End. 

The unwavering efforts on our behalf by District 2 Councilor, Ed Flynn, was another key factor. Flynn and his staff rallied the South End's other two councilors, Frank Baker (District 3) and Kim Janey (District 7), and all at-large councilors (Michelle Wu, Ayanna Pressley, Annissa Essaibi-George and Michael Flaherty), to sign their letter requesting the necessary funding from BPL President David Leonard and Mayor Walsh. Flynn met separately with the Mayor, as well, to plead FOSEL's case. The signature of City Council President, Andrea Campbell, who grew up in the South End, moreover, was at the top of the list.

Faisa Sharif, the South End's liaison to the Mayor's Office, performed a yeoman's job going through the budget details with David Leonard to secure city dollars for park and library, and kept FOSEL in the loop at all times. Our State Rep., Byron Rushing, a BPL trustee since 2009, assured audiences at several South End events recently that 'all would work out fine.' Did he know something we did not? Who knows: He was right. 

Our BPL partner in the public/private enterprise, President David Leonard, has reached out to us to plan the next steps in the library project in meetings that will include Faisa Sharif, Ed Flynn and Byron Rushing. We are looking forward to continuing our productive relationship to benefit the South End library and its users. You will be kept apprised of important details.

Last but not least, we thank you, our loyal supporters, and every member of the FOSEL board, for emailing and phoning our elected representatives and the BPL. The turnaround could not have happened without you.
 

The South End Landmark District Commissioners Approved the Proposed Library Park Redesign; Construction to Start in June

On April 3, the South End Landmark District Commission approved a revised proposal for the redesign of  Library Park, as presented by the Boston Parks Department (see below). With their approval, came a compliment from the commissioners: "Thank you for having heard us," they told the Parks Department team. Construction is scheduled to start in June. 

At the previous presentation to the SELDC in January, project director Lauren Bryant was asked to come back with an amended proposal to include the commissioners' concerns about protection of the park's oak trees root systems, easy flow of foot traffic unimpeded by park furniture and an upgraded, more interesting hardscape that would include some details of typical South End materials like brick, slate or bluestone. The redesign of the redesign was different enough to require a second public hearing about Library Park's future, which was held at the South End library on March 22. The commissioners praised the more dynamic design and the care that was taken to protect the trees. 

The proposed re-design for Library Park that was presented to the South End Landmark District Commission on Tuesday, April 3

The March 22nd public hearing solicited a number of comments, including a request to create more intimate spaces through seating and paving areas. There was a question about what to do with the granite blocks that are a play opportunity for kids, but uncomfortable to sit on; a request to inset tables with game boards; and a concern that the seating feels restrictive given that it lines both sides of the plaza. The single chairs of the current park appear to be in good shape and will be re-used and matched in style with additional curved benches, cafe tables and chairs. The oak trees will be pruned.

A large part of the work will be devoted to improving the park's infrastructure, including the clean-up of the site, underneath which there is expected to be a great deal of remnants from previous housing, including oil tanks and a lot of bricks. The soil will be improved and re-graded to enhance future landscaping. Another important aspect of the reconstruction will be groundwater management and water filtration to benefit root systems of trees, shrubs and plantings.  

At the first public hearing in November last year, Parks Department's Bryant and Brandon Kunkel, landscape architect with the Weston & Sampson design and engineering firm, presented attendees with three proposals. The one below was favored by the audience and was presented to Landmarks in January, but has been altered to comply with Landmarks's comments.  

The re-design of Library Park proposed in January but not accepted by South End Landmark commissioners concerned about root system protection, foot traffic flow and the quality of the concrete hardscape.

After deducting the cost of design services, the remaining budget for the reconfiguration is $115,000, a small amount, which will be augmented with private fundraising efforts by the Friends of the South End Library until a more comprehensive renovation of library and park will take place in the next few years. Further information about the current project can be obtained at the Parks Department website, linked here.

BPL President David Leonard Helps Elect the New FOSEL Board, Praises the Public-Private Partnership with FOSEL to renovate the South End Library

At the January 30 Annual Meeting of Friends of the South End Library (FOSEL), BPL President David Leonard was among the audience that helped elect its new board. It now  consists of officers Marleen Nienhuis, president; Barbara Sommerfeld, treasurer; Kim Clark, clerk; and directors Gary Bailey, Marilyn Davillier, Maura Harrington. Licia Sky and Duncan Will. The Friends' advisory board members include Nick Altschuler, Liane Crawford, Susanna Coit, Michael Fox, Don Haber, Ed Hostetter, Gail Ide, Stephen Fox, Michelle Laboy, Jaqueline McRath, Jon Santiago, Anne Smart, Lois Russell and Karen Watson. Details and bios are available at the website's ABOUT page, linked here. 

From left to right: board members Licia Sky, Don Haber, Maura Harrington, Michael Fox, Liane Crawford, Ed Hostetter, Jaqueline McGrath, Marleen Nienhuis, State Senator Sonia Chang-Diaz (not on the board), Kim Clark, Barbara Sommerfeld, Michelle Laboy and Marilyn Davillier and Chris Fagg( not a board member). Chris assists FOSEL in cleaning and raking Library Park. 

The BPL president, who was appointed president less than two years ago, praised the first-ever public-private partnership between the South End library's Friends group and the BPL to renovate a branch. He expressed enthusiasm for the other BPL branch renovations, including the recently completed ones in East Boston and Jamaica Plain, and those now underway at the Dudley branch in Roxbury and Lower Mills in Dorchester, among others. In addition, he was pleased to announce the opening of a temporary Chinatown branch at the China Trade Center on Essex Street on February 3 (a permanentChinatown library will be constructed on a yet-to-be-determined site). Its predecessor, the Tyler branch, was demolished in 1956 as part of urban renewal plans, more than six decades ago; the intervening years saw no library services in Chinatown at all.

Answering questions from the audience about the South End branch's improvements, Leonard said he expects the selection process for a designer for the Phase One renovation project to happen “within weeks.” It will include a public hearing for the community to comment on the proposed redesign for the downstairs interior. A South End resident himself, Leonard joked he had to be careful about what he said ("you know where I live"), but that the BPL has also requested funding for FY 2019 for a second, more comprehensive program study for additional renovation phases of the entire building at 685 Tremont Street. This study would typically take nine to 12 months to complete, at a cost of $75,000 to $120,000. He expects that the entire approval and construction process for such a comprehensive overhaul would take between three and five years.

Leonard said that he could make no specific guarantees for funding at this time because BPL funding is dependent upon City of Boston's budget priorities. "We are but one department in that organization," he said. Mayor Walsh had stated previously that he has allocated $100 million for library repairs and renovations for the next five years and, in the current fiscal year, has already spent $19 million on library projects. 

The Friends' capital campaign fundraising co-chair, Maura Harrington, reported that more than 200 contributions have been received so far, amounting to nearly $90,000. Of these, about half were donations for $100 or less and the other half for amounts of up to $10,000. Of the total, $50,000 has been allocated to the first phase of the planned renovation, which also includes $132,000 in public funding.

The South End Historic District Commission Requests changes in the proposed Library park Redesign to reflect concerns about traffic flow, protection of trees and a more attractive pathway look

The Parks Department took its proposal for the redesign and upgrade of Library Park to the South End Historic District Commission (SEHDC) on Tuesday, January 2.  During the presentation before the Landmark commissioners, the Parks Department project managers were asked to adjust the proposed redesign to reflect commissioners' concerns about three issues. These included the location of a bench near the library entrance that might impinge on a easy flow of foot traffic; how to best  protect the root system of an oak tree near a proposed expanded patio between the library and the park; and how to enrich the proposed new concrete pathways by adding 'accents' in materials that are historically appropriate for the South End landmarks district, such as thermal bluestone, or brick. Commissioner John Amodeo pointed to an alley way between the South End's Cathedral gymnasium and its high school that featured such accents which, he suggested, made an otherwise dull concrete surface more interesting. The Parks Department will return with the changed proposal to SEHDC in the next few weeks.

A previous public hearing on the proposal was held at the South End library on November 29, 2017 and attended by a small but very engaged group of local residents. At the November hearing, Parks Department's project manager, Lauren Bryant, and Brandon Kunkel, landscape architect with the Weston & Sampson design and engineering firm, presented attendees with three proposals for Library Park's overhaul. Two designs preserved the current layout of the park, while the third offered a different configuration. The latter was the one favored by the audience, and that is the one that was presented for review by the Parks Department. 

In the proposal, the deteriorated bluestone pavement will be replaced with a new one made of shaded concrete. In addition, the patio between the library and the park's entrance will be expanded to accommodate outdoor events; two garden circles will be established on the Tremont Street side of the park; and curved benches and to-be-determined seating arrangements will be included, together with substantial infrastructure improvements. After deducting the cost of design services, the remaining budget for the reconfiguration is $115,000. 

With public and SEHDC comments in mind, the Parks Department will produce a final design which is scheduled to be put out to bid sometime in February. Construction, weather permitting, will start in March. The park is scheduled to reopen in late summer. Further information can be obtained at the Parks Department website, linked here.

An Interview with retiring library staffer Deborah Madrey and two decades' worth of observations from behind the circulation desk

By Michelle Laboy, member of the board of the Friends of the South End Library

This December, we say goodbye to our long time librarian Deborah Madrey, who will retire in January. Deborah has been part of the South End Library for the past 22 years.  She started at the Boston Public Library as a student in Emerson College, working part time at the Copley library from 1971 until 1973. She graduated with a degree in education and moved to Los Angeles in 1978 to work as a teacher. In 1995 she moved back from California to her native Boston, and thanks to her previous experience at the BPL and the good impression she left with former colleagues, she was offered a full time position with the library. She started in the South End in October of 1995 and has worked here since.

She still remembers how the library felt when she arrived. The renovation in the late 1980s that added an elevator had just been completed, and the interior was freshly painted. She describes many changes that happened since, when the library started to get computers and when tapes and DVD’s became a “hot commodity,” so much so that she thinks libraries helped put Blockbuster out of business.  And of course she notes with some reservation the increasing availability of digital books for Kindles. But the biggest changes have been people's tastes in reading. She recalls how popular V. C. Andrews was back then, especially the novel Petals on the Wind. She has not seen western novels and science fiction in a long while, noting, “Now they watch it more than they read it”. She recalls when urban fiction became very popular, with the work of Terry McMillan, which open the door for other black writers who became well known. 

Deborah has also noticed how much the neighborhood changed during her time at the library. She still loves the South End where she observes, unlike other branches, a more diverse population coming together at the library: poor and rich, white, Hispanics and blacks, native-born and immigrants. She has seen the neighborhood get more “yuppified” and welcome many more families. For Deborah another important constituency is her doggy friends, for whom she keeps a box of milk bones behind the desk, to go outside and greet them with a treat every day. Library patrons who love sports will also remember her passion, as a self-described rabid Patriots fan who has won tickets to their games three times. She also loves to watch tennis matches. According to her co-worker Margaret Gardner, the children’s librarian, many teenagers who grew up coming to the library still come by to say hello to Deborah. Many other library users know her for her kindness and welcoming greetings as you pass the circulation desk or check out a book. When mentioning how much people say how nice she is, her answer says so much: “It's harder to be to be nasty than to be nice".

Her best memories of working at the South End Library are the holiday parties and the jazz concerts. Seeing people that come in during evenings for author talks really makes her feel like the library is doing something good for the neighborhood, that they are rendering a service. She is always impressed by how much we do in such a small space. Deborah loves that she knows many people here, and she will miss the patrons the most. She will also miss her doggie friends and the staff.  She shares how happy it makes her to know that she has many friends in the community, and proudly says that some of the homeless who frequent the library are her friends too; evidently knowing a few of them by name and noticing when they are going through an especially difficult time.

She loves the library, and loves books, which she says, “take you places”. Her friend and long time South End resident Ms. Fanny Johnson stopped by to talk to Deborah, and shared with us the incredible importance of the library to her as a child. “If you grow up in the inner city, the library opens your world; it lets you know that it is bigger than these three or four blocks.” Deborah worries that children don't read as much anymore, especially when she observes them wanting “as little text and as many pictures as possible.” And she cannot understand why some are more interested in the movie than in the original book, noting that they will be miss the imagination that reading inspires.

For Deborah, the most important role of the library is to give people an opportunity to gain knowledge. But she also sees the library as an essential resource to so many who come to do their taxes, or to use a computer to search for homes and jobs, to do resumes, or use the free resources available to the community. While she recognizes that “we cannot be Bates Hall” and that it is important for a neighborhood branch to be able to be a little bit louder sometimes, she stressed that she will not miss some of the bad behavior that she has experienced on occasion from some of the library users. She is concerned about the challenges the library faces, as she says they cannot be everything to everyone. She knows the library is an important place for many, including the homeless who need a place to be; but she acknowledges that doing all of these things comes with challenges that they grapple with every day.

As we look towards the future without Deborah in the library every day, and we prepare to embark on a new renovation to allow the library to better serve the functions the community needs, her wisdom from years of experience working in this space should be treasured. When thinking about the future of the library, Deborah says that she hopes real books are preserved and that the library does not go all-digital. She thinks there is wisdom in hardcopy books that is shared and passed on from one user to the next.  When asked what the library needs the most, she said she would like to see that dedicated teen space, but that we don’t need a coffee shop!

These few blocks hold many memories of Deborah’s youth. Growing up, she attended the church just across the street at the corner of West Newton and Tremont Streets. Deborah is the youngest of seven children, born and raised in a house on 741 Shawmut. She moved to Roxbury when she was three, and still lives in the same house. She remembers how growing up she felt she had to have a library card. Deborah describes herself as extremely shy, and while she taught in school, she claims that her ability to speak in public was learned in church. The last few years Deborah lived with her brothers; one of whom passed away recently, and she still has another brother who lives in Jamaica Plain. She misses her siblings dearly. But she looks forward to retiring and having time for many new things. She wants to do some traveling, especially to Europe, although she is not crazy about planes.

Deborah will be missed by so many friends of the South End library. We were fortunate to have her kind presence in the library for so many years, and we will remember her always. Most importantly, we want to take this moment of her retirement to celebrate the great community that Deborah helped cultivate in the library, the heart of our beautiful neighborhood.  We wish Deborah a happy and healthy retirement, full of wonderful trips, many new friends, and a few more wins for the Patriots. And we hope that when she is not traveling, she continues to join us during summer concerns, holiday parties and author readings. All the very best wishes to you, Deborah!

Mayor Marty Walsh has appointed an outreach manager to assist homeless patrons using the Boston Public Library

Homeless patrons in the South End branch of the Boston PublicLibrary, their suitcases lined up nearby

In an important move for the Boston Public Library system, Mayor Marty Walsh stepped  up to the plate and appointed a full-time outreach manager for the many homeless individuals who use the main library and its branches for shelter and services. The positive development both acknowledges the difficulty for library staff to manage the growing number  homeless in public libraries --some of whom have mental health, behavioral and addiction problems-- with the rights of homeless to use the public library and the need to develop comprehensive strategy for services to a population that has nowhere else to go for simple needs like using restrooms or shelter from inclement weather. To that point, the BPL plans to hire a reference librarian who specializes in health and human services and make available guides to addiction recovery and housing.

Library patrons waiting in Library Park for the library to open

Boston is following in the footsteps of other public library systems that have used a variety of strategies to both manage homelessness among their patrons and develop creative library-based programs to assist . In 2008, the San Francisco Public Library was the first to hire a social worker specifically to reach out to homeless patrons and coordinate the extensive social service system already in place near their main library of meals distribution, such as finding housing, providing medical care and assisting with other services. In Pima County, AZ, the library system hired a public health nurse in 2012; its branches are served by 16 to 20 nurses provide services either once a week or once a month. In Denver, library staff shows residents of a women's shelter how to use a computer and sign them up for a library card. In Dallas, public library staff get homeless patrons and staff members together twice a month for Coffee and Conversation. At a recent talk about HIV awareness, a member of the health community was on hand to answer questions. After the talk about 15 attendees got tested for the virus, according to a PBS News Hour  article. 

The BPL outreach manager, Mike Bunch, who was employed in a similar position at the  Pine Street Inn,  is bilingual in English and Spanish. Before he came to Boston, he worked with shelter and treatment providers in Austin, Texas. He is a former Peace Corps volunteer and will be stationed at the Copley Central Library, while assisting staff in branch libraries where needed.