credit: K. Dumbaugh
caption: Two bollards were hit and removed last week on Codman Island.






Codman Island, the small triangle of land that sits where Charles Street changes direction at Beacon Street, has been struck by a vehicle, again. The island, which is watched over by the Codman Island Committee of the Beacon Hill Civic Association and more specifically by Karin Dumbaugh and Peter Thomson, is hit by cars a couple of times a year, said Dumbaugh. “It is usually at the same time [of night], usually they are speeding, usually they are drunk,” she said. Almost always, said Dumbaugh, the perpetrator is caught or known and the committee seeks restitution from the driver’s insurance company.

But in the most recent incident, which happened during the night of July 3rd, the driver managed to escape unnoticed and took the two cast iron bollards he hit with him.

Dumbaugh said she and other volunteers have scoured the neighborhood looking for the missing bollards, which cost $1,800 apiece and weigh approximately 300 pounds.

The driver also damaged plantings, which are funded and maintained by the Beacon Hill Garden Club and neighbors as well as the committee. “It is a real community effort,” said Dumbaugh.

“We hope a witness to the accident or someone who sees the bollards in the neighborhood will call the Beacon Hill Civic Association at 617-227-1922.”

The Beacon Hill Times follows the progress, or lack thereof, on Cambridge Street through direct observation and interviews with the project’s supervisor John Lepore.

Progress during the week of July 2 - 6
Traffic signals: No work. Did Best Electric take the whole week off?

Plantings: Complete

Street paving: Todesca Equipment Company, the contractor, was on the street on Thursday raising the last castings in front of Charles River Plaza. The castings were marked “TCB” and “McCourt Communications,” and Lepore could not find the owners, so Todesca did the work.

Paving took place on June 30 from Charles Circle to Blossom Street. Paving should have taken place this past weekend from Blossom to Staniford streets.

Opening in September: Cambridge At Home

The aim of Cambridge At Home, according to its website, is to provide strong, practical mechanisms to help members remain confidently in their Cambridge homes as long as possible — rather than move to a retirement community.

Sound familiar?

The Beacon Hill Village, formed in 2000 by a small group of residents who wanted to stay put in their own homes as they aged, is still the only one like it in the country. But, not for long.

Cambridge At Home is the first organization to open that is modeled after the Village. “It is almost a clone,” said Susan McWhinney-Morse, a founder and now chair of the Village. Cambridge residents, having heard of the Village’s success, invited McWhinney-Morse to give a presentation last year, and more than 200 people came to hear how the Village operated.

Since then, several other Village founders continued consulting with the group, who “ have developed a wonderful program and hired an executive director,” said Judy Willet, executive director of the Village.

Cambridge at Home is the first to open, but two others are soon to follow in Washington, DC, as well as ones in Madison, Wisconsin, Palo Alto, California, and Bronxville, NY. “It’s phenomenal,” said Willet. The model has become so successful that in late April about 250 people from all over the country and Europe attended “The Building Blocks: How to Make your Neighborhood into a Village,” a two-day conference sponsored by the Village with Mass General Hospital and the MIT AgeLab.

“We now know of 300 other groups who are working on developing one in their own communities,” said Willett. The concept of the Village is brilliant because of its simplicity, and the core of it all is offering services and health care in the home. We can successfully run it this way here and meet the needs of our group of people. But there are many ways to skin the cat.”

So far, Cambridge At Home is most like the Village, except for the way it raises funds, said McWhinney-Morse. While the membership fees for the Village are $580 for individuals and $780 for households, Cambridge At Home set $900 and $1200, respectively.

“We raise money from the community to support the program and keep it going,” said McWhinney-Morse, “whereas Cambridge balked at raising their own funds to break even. We’re watching how they do.”

credit: Courtesy photo



Ten members of Beacon Hill Village went to the Adams National Historic Site in Quincy to tour the Adams family homes in June.

Betty Lou Sangiori, Venice, FL (here visiting her sister), Barbara Adams, Myrtle Street, and Ruth Barclay, West Cedar Street, joined the group, which rode the T from the newly renovated Charles Street Station.

Fred Rose has been a long-time, loved fixture in the neighborhood. His video store will close on August 31.




Fred Rose has announced he is closing Fred’s Video on Charles Street on August 31. He said that Comcast, Netflix and rising rents have made it impossible for him to continue.

Rose bought the video store 11 years ago when it was called Beacon Hill Video and owned by Jim Hoopes, who established the neighborhood’s first video store on Cambridge Street in the early 1980s. Hoopes later moved that store to Charles River Plaza, where it eventually closed. He opened the Charles Street store as a satellite to the Cambridge Street store in 1986.

The New Jersey-bred Rose began working in the Charles Street store in the summer of 1990 while he was a student at Emerson College. He continued to work part-time after he graduated and bought the store at the first opportunity in 1996.

It was two years ago when he realized that the days of video stores might be in jeopardy. “Things were changing,” he said. “It was significant and noticeable.”

But he hung in there, moving from Beacon Hill to Quincy to save on rent. It wasn’t his love of movies that kept him going. It was his love of Beacon Hill. “The thing I love about the store is the neighborhood,” he said. “I will miss the wonderful people of Beacon Hill and how great they have been to me.”

He said kids bring him souvenirs when they go on trips, and that he has watched hundreds of kids grow up.

Neighbors were not happy to learn the news. “It will totally change Fred’s Friday Night Flicks at the Gurnon household,” said Jack Gurnon of Charles Street. The Gurnons’ 10-year-old twin girls, Sarah and Emilie, are Fred’s regular customers, as are the parents.

“Oh my gosh,” said Beth Herbert of West Cedar Street. “My kids will be absolutely crushed. They love him. He’s a cross between an uncle and a big brother.”

Herbert said her three children, Vivian, age 9, and Prescott and Kingston, age 5, often rent and re-rent the Ninja turtles movies. She said they are very loyal to Fred’s and don’t use Comcast or Netflix because they enjoy going to Fred’s so much.

“He’s an amazing role model,” she said. “He is kind and very patient and very helpful in selecting movies for the kids. Then he’ll pick one out for Jack and me.” (Jack is Herbert’s husband.)

Because of their friendship with Rose, the Herbert children were sad to learn that Fred’s was leaving.

“He has the best videos and dvds,” said Prescott Herbert. “He’s Kington’s best friend. He’s a really, really nice guy.”

Gurnon said he is concerned about another local store that is great for the neighborhood going out of business partly because of raised rents. “Someday the only people who will be able to afford the rents will be real estate agents,” Gurnon said. “How many real estate agents do you need in life?”

Rose said he will do business as usual until right before the closing when he will probably have a “rent-to-buy” sale of his movies.

Rose does not yet know what he will be doing after the store closes. He’ll take some time off and look for a job. He said he hadn’t put together a resume for a long time, and thought he must not have many skills. But as he considered the last 11 years in which he has been keeping the books, managing stock, hiring and managing employees and performing all the other tasks that running one’s own business entails as well as participating in several volunteer organizations and events, he said he realized he had a good track record afterall and felt it would not be too difficult to find something else to do.

Where we stand

A little booklet put out by the Taxpayers Network, which calls itself a non-profit social welfare organization, has a host of interesting rankings of these 50 united states taken from various sources over the past four years. Here is how Massachusetts stacks up in selected areas:

High rankings
#13 in population
#3 in housing costs
#4 in housing value
#4 in median family income
#8 in property taxes per capita
#6 in public welfare expenditures per capita
#1 in outstanding state debt per capita
#1 in state economic competitiveness index
#7 in farm income and production
#5 in patents issued
#6 in public school expenditure per pupil
#7 in relative health of population
#4 in public school science scores, grades 4 & 8
#1 in math and reading scores
#4 in natural gas prices

Low rankings
#46 in population growth between 2000 and 2006
#31 in per capita spending on natural resources, parks and recreation
#29 in state and local tax burden as a percent of income
#41 in percent of population in poverty
#49 in interstate and arterial conditions
#51 (?) in fatal crashes per billion miles traveled
#47 in infant mortality
#49 in teen birth rate
#35 in number of full-time state and local government employees per 10,000 residents
#49 in state tax appropriations for higher education operating expenses
#43 in relative government burden on small business
#46 in federal “pork” per capita

If these rankings are true, they show that Massachusetts residents are healthier, richer, better educated and less burdened by taxes (as a percentage of income) than are residents of other states.


They show that despite our wealth, we do a bad job of keeping up our roads, state universities and parks.

Make of this what you will.