An unprecedented group of over 450 of Boston’s civic and community leaders gathered today as part of the 2008 Boston Civic Summit at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center to make new connections, share ideas, and identify common priorities.
The summit, a one-day event convened by an advisory committee co-chaired by Boston City Council President Maureen E. Feeney and James Rooney, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority, included networking sessions for participants, best practices workshops, engaging speakers, and a 21st century town meeting, which resulted in a preliminary report issued today with this release.
“Today was a wonderful celebration of civic engagement in Boston. By creating an opportunity for our community leaders to share best practices and discuss their vision for more civic engagement, we started a conversation that I hope will continue beyond today,” said Council President Feeney.
“So much of this day is about recognizing and celebrating the work of our city’s civic leaders who, each day, make our neighborhoods stronger and more vibrant,” said Rooney. “What we did today was create a needed opportunity for these leaders to meet and learn from one another about ways to invigorate and broaden civic engagement.”
In a high-tech interactive afternoon session, the nationally recognized organization America Speaks facilitated a “21 Century Town Hall Meeting,” summit participants shared their collective vision for civic revitalization and discussed what can be done to reach that vision.
The group agreed to focus on four key areas to improve civic life in Boston:
• Create an after school mentoring and tutoring program engaging area retirees and college students
• Expand the city program for summer employment for at-risk youth
• Create a civic association exchange program
• Organize annual civic summits at the citywide and neighborhood levels

Participants committed to action teams to work on a road map for addressing these issues, and agreed to reconvene in these groups on June 3rd at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center.
Summit participants also identified “education and youth development, “the environment” and “public safety” as the most important issues facing our city. Participants in the afternoon session, 55% of whom were ages 45-64, also identified low youth participation as a key area of concern in terms of building greater civic engagement.
In addition to the town meeting, the summit included major addresses from Alan Khazei, Co-founder of City Year and CEO of Be the Change, Ron Bell, Director, Commonwealth’s Office of Civic Engagement, and Dr. Thomas Sander, Executive Director, Saguaro Seminar: Civic Engagement in America at the John F. Kennedy School of Government. Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino also greeted participants at the beginning of the day.
The morning included “best practices” workshops in communication, fundraising, zoning and development, effective organization building, and political activism. Workshop presenters included attorney and former City Council President Larry DiCara, media and political consultant Joyce Ferriabough, veteran Boston newscaster John Henning of Denterlein Worldwide public affairs, author of Building Powerful Community Organizations Michael Jacoby Brown, Universal Hub founder Adam Gaffin, Mass VOTE Director Avi Green, and AIDS Action Committee Development Director Kelly Gaule.
In a poll taken during the event, 90% of participants said they learned something new during the day.
Those who attended the summit were also given business cards to facilitate networking among civic leaders within and across neighborhoods, a further goal of summit organizers.

The event was funded through the generosity of corporate and foundation sponsors led by State Street Corporation, and including Bank of America and the Boston Foundation. The Massachusetts Convention Center Authority donated the meeting space for the event at its Boston Convention & Exhibition Center.
“It is important that this spirit not end here, that this event is seen as the beginning of the conversation, not the end,” said Council President Feeney.
In addition to issuing a preliminary report and convening action teams which will meet on June 3rd, the Boston Civic Summit Advisory Committee will reconvene to evaluate the event and discuss next steps.

The New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) hosted a benefit dinner Sunday night, April 27th, at the Algonquin Club in Boston with distinguished author and Cornell University historian Mary Beth Norton. Norton's topic, "Re-examining History: Using Genealogy to Understand Our Past" was based on her recent bestseller In The Devil's Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692. The evening was a fundraiser for the Society's Bringing Your Heritage Home Campaign.
Pictured, left to right, are NEHGS Conservator Deb Kossi andHenry Lee of Mt. Vernon Street.

The great poet T.S. Eliot wrote in his magnum opus, “The Wasteland,” that April is the cruellest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain.
He wasn’t writing about Beacon Hill real estate. For if he had, he would have certainly noted that April was anything but cruel.
In fact, Beacon Hill experienced a spectacular sale of an especially high-priced home, with high priced listings apparently scaring no one away even during these days of an apparent recession proving that at the higher end of the marketplace, sales remain unusually strong.
A 5,300 square foot single family home at 4 Chestnut Street sold for $3.8 million. With six bedrooms and five-and-a-half baths and no deeded parking.
In the ready for sale category, Hammond Residential is offering an 11-room Beacon Hill masterpiece built by Cornelius Coolidge, one of Beacon Hill’s late, great architects, for $11.5 million. Built in the 1820’s and restored with preservation in mind, it has 5 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms with one half bath, 5 fireplaces and 4 garage parking spaces. Obviously, an extraordinary property offered at an extraordinary price. Helen King is handling the sale.
Hammond is also offering a magnificent, 6 level 4 bedroom plus, 5 bathroom fully renovated Chestnut Street townhouse with 11 rooms, 9 fireplaces and fine architectural details. There is also a roof deck with panoramic views of the city. Listing brokers are Kay Flynn and Jared Wollaston. The property is being offered for $6.850 and was advertised in last week’s Beacon Hill Times.
Raveis is also offering two brilliant Beacon Hill properties: a $1.28 million 2 bedroom 2 bathroom floor through with 14’ ceilings, French doors, balcony, marble kitchen and with views of the Advent Church. Merredeth Streett is in charge of this sales effort. And a second property, a 2 bedroom 2 bathroom duplex near Luisburg Square with mahogany trim and a landscaped private roof deck with spectacular views. Alison Fisher is showing this unit which is priced at $1.5585 million.
A Beacon Hill home on Walnut Street with 5,000 square feet, which was totally renovated this year, with parking and an elevator, is for sale for $5.5 million. Rob Cohen of Boston Realty Advisors Residential is handling the marketing. Also, Cohen is brokering the sale of floor-through units at a 20 Beacon Street property, 2310 square feet, with 3 bedrooms and 3 baths, which are being offered from $1.895 million to $2.195 million.
William Raveis real estate brokerage is offering a Beaver Place Beacon Hill residence with 4300 square feet on 2 ˝ stories for $3.895 million. Victoria Hokenson is handling the marketing for the sale of that property.
Gibson’s, Sotheby’s Beth Dickerson is the exclusive listing agent for two impressive Beacon Hill properties. The first, offered at $3.995 million is a renovated Pinckney Street 4 bedroom residence and second, a grand Beacon Street residence – a 3 bedroom floor through with deeded parking for $5.9 million.
The seemingly impregnable and resilient Boston condominium marketplace appears to be weakening, according to a study of sale reports.
Sales of condos in the 12 core markets of Boston – and this includes Beacon Hill – droped by 23 per cent in the first quarter of this year compared with the first quarter last year.
Median prices dropped fractionally by 1 per cent.
The difficulty of obtaining jumbo mortgages due to the restrictions placed on such loans as a result of the recent banking and sub-prime loan fiasco, is causing a tightening up in the marketplace.

Two important meetings are planned for tonight, Tuesday, May 6. The first meeting concerning the final use and design of Phillips Street Park will be held at Mt. Vernon Street Firehouse starting at 6:15 p.m. and will be hosted by the Boston Parks Department. The meeting will focus on the future use of the 4,000 square-foot park. The city has committed $400,000 to renovate the park.
The second meeting, sponsored by the Beacon Hill Civic Association and held at 74 Joy Street, starting at 6:30 p.m., focuses on gathering information on future uses of Boston Common, such as the number of events that could be held there or setting aside a permanent space for dogs and their owners to use.

Parking meeting

The Beacon Hill Civic Association held a public meeting last Wednesday night with Boston Transportation Commissioner Thomas Tinlin. Tinlin told the audience that there are approximately 3,100 parking stickers for 750 available street spaces. The meeting centered around ideas such as reducing the number of cars that can have parking permits, especially for multi-unit buildings. Tinlin added the technology for catching errant stickers has improved, with hand-held sets that meter maids currently use. Beacon Hill has between 10-15 meter workers out of a force of 164, who walk the Hill on daily basis, making sure that parking culprits are nabbed and ticketed. Lastly, if you see a car that is blatantly taking up an illegal space, then take a picture of it and send it to the Civic Association, who will forward it to the correct department.

Close to home

Mayor Thomas Menino last week announced an incentive package to have JP Morgan remain in Boston and by doing so, add more than 400 new jobs. JP Morgan currently leases space that is about to expire at 73 Tremont Street and also at One Beacon. Office space will be kept at One Beacon Street and the staff from 73 Tremont Street will be located in new space in the South Boston/Convention area. John F. Palimieri, director of the Boston Redevelopment Authority, said, “This will represent an important expansion of the city’s financial district to the South Boston waterfront neighborhood.”


Hill House dash

This Saturday, starting at 11:30 a.m., the annual Hill House Dash will be held on the Esplanade at Fiedler Field. Everyone is invited to attend this annual fun event. For more information, visit the Hill House Web site at www.hillhouseboston.org.


Civic Summit
A huge success

The Boston Civic Summit that was held last Saturday at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center was a success in any terms that maybe described by the more than 450 participants. The daylong workshop focused on ways to make Boston a better place to live and work. The goals of the workshop were to give the participants the tools and training to make civic involvement easier, a place to meet other community leaders, and a discussion to revitalize city life because, as Co-Chair-City Council president Maureen Feeney said, “We need more and newer civic leaders because today there are too few and they are too tired.”
There were several workshops hosted by Boston leaders. In one workshop led by Lawrence DiCara, former city councilor and attorney with Nixon Peabody, LLP, he stated that there is a tremendous growth of associations that all seek a place at the table. He noted that, in his opinion, Quincy Market would not have been rehabbed effectively if the several associations there had promoted their individual causes and hadn’t worked together on the overall project. The fact that there are several associations is good, but the associations need to have a common plan to be effective, he said. He noted that in the South End alone, there are associations for almost every street in the neighborhood.

LEWIS, LOUISE ANN, Back Bay businesswoman and prominent environmentalist, died on April 26th, from the effects of ALS, at age 75 in her home in Boston. Born in Roxbury, Massachusetts on March 20th 1933, Louise was the daughter of the late Harold and Viola Silbert.
Louise was an active conservationist, and was instrumental in protecting vital areas of the Boston waterfront from over-development in the late 1960s. Louise organized a team of architects to successfully change the design of a Boston waterfront park. An early advocate and lobbyist for cleanup and protection of Boston Harbor, she worked closely with then Senate President Joseph J. Moakley to help establish the Boston Harbor Islands and surrounding waters as a state park long prior to their designation as a national recreation area.
As a founding member of the Sierra Club in Massachusetts, Louise was a tenacious volunteer for the Club for more than three decades. She was instrumental in recruiting new volunteers, many of whom continue to be active to this day. She was Chair of the Chapter’s Transportation Committee, chair of the Club’s North-South Rail Link Committee, and led numerous efforts to promote public transportation. Louise frequently, and successfully, lobbied congress for rail transportation funds for Massachusetts, including organizing a congressional briefing in Washington for funding the North-South Rail Link.
Louise initiated a federal lawsuit to enforce key Clean Air Act provisions related to the Central Artery Tunnel project.
Louise was member of the Bridge Design Review Committee (1991) to advise the Mass Highway Department on the ill-conceived “Scheme Z”, part of the CA/THT project. This effort led to the redesign of the Charles River crossing.
Louise was active with the Sierra Club until very recently when her illness prevented her from continuing her work.
Louise was a former commissioner for the Back Bay Architectural Commission and a generous supporter of the Boston Ballet and the Cambridge Early Music Society.
A Barnard College graduate, Louise married John Lewis in 1955. A 9 month honeymoon followed, the couple traveling through most of Europe, from Naples to Paris, via bicycle. Louise and John returned to Europe a few years later, purchasing and repairing a 35 foot wooden Bristol Channel Cutter which they then sailed from England, over the course of a year, back to America via Spain, the Canaries, and the West Indies. She and John regularly sailed their boat out of Boston Harbor along the Atlantic seaboard.
Louise was co-proprietor of John Lewis, Inc, an original-design fine jewelry store in continuous operation since first opening in 1958 on Newbury Street.
Louise is survived by her loving husband and collaborator of 53 years, John Lewis, and her brother, Martin Silbert of South Carolina and his children.
A memorial service will be scheduled in the future. The family wishes that memorial donations be made to: Massachusetts Sierra Club, 10 Milk Street, Suite 632, Boston MA 02108, or a worthy charity of your choice.