Beacon Hill experienced two attempted robberies on two consecutive days last week, leading to one arrest.
At approximately 9:55 p.m. on Tuesday, May 19, officers spoke with a victim who stated she was walking her dog and talking on her iPhone when a group of black and Hispanic teenagers approached her at the corner of West Cedar and Mt. Vernon streets, according to Boston Police. One suspect grabbed the iPhone out of her hand and fled with the rest of the group. The victim chased the suspects as they ran at the corner of Beacon and Spruce streets. Three witnesses stopped and restrained a 17-year-old suspect, who was held until police arrived. The suspect was identified by the victim and arrested on the scene.
One day earlier, on Monday, May 18, at approximately 11:15 a.m., a 22-year-old Fisher college student was walking down Charles Street from the Charles/MGH MBTA station towards his Beacon Street apartment when a group of three or four black males approached him from the front. One suspect, whom the victim described as a tall, light-skinned black male in his late teens to mid 20s wearing a grey sweat suit, pushed him to the ground and attempted to take the victim’s iPod. The victim screamed, “No,” refusing to give up his iPod. The victim, who suffered a wrist injury, got up from the sidewalk and ran down Charles Street towards Beacon Street. The suspects then fled in the direction of Charles Circle. No arrests have been made to date.
Three additional robberies were also reported in the vicinity of the Boston Common and the Public Garden during the same timeframe, police said.
Captain Bernard O’Rourke of BPD Area A-1 said police were investigating a connection between these incidents, as well as two previous robberies that took place in the area of Pinckney Street on Feb. 16 and March 21. In both earlier robberies on Beacon Hill, the suspects were described as groups of youths. A 17-year-old male from Roxbury was arrested in connection with the March 21 robbery.
The Beacon Hill Civic Association and Hill House will co-sponsor a Town Meeting in regard to the robberies at the firehouse at 127 Mt. Vernon St. on Thursday. May 28, at 7 p.m. Captain O’Rourke and City Council President Mike Ross are expected to be in attendance.

The Red Line/Blue Line Project Working Group held its second public meeting last week to discuss a proposed project that would link the MBTA’s Red and Blue Lines via a 1,500-foot connector beneath Cambridge Street.
According to officials from the Executive Office of Transportation (EOT), the state agency overseeing the project, the Red Line/Blue Line Connector would extend the Blue Line from Government Center Station to link with the Charles/MGH Station on the Red Line. The Red and Blue Lines are currently the only two lines that don’t intersect within the subway system, and the Blue Line, the system’s shortest line, runs a distance of a little more than seven miles between Bowdoin Station in downtown Boston and Wonderland Station in Revere.
EOT officials said the connector could allow Blue Line passengers to travel more efficiently to Massachusetts General Hospital and Cambridge, as well as provide passengers from the northwest metropolitan area of Greater Boston with a second airport connection and direct access to the Blue Line without making multiple connections. The connector could also clear a layover area for cars at the west end of the Blue Line through the creation of new storage and crossovers for rail vehicles.
Mark Pelletier, vice president of STV Inc. and a consultant for the project, outlined several options for tunnel construction and two mining alternatives, adding that their costs, potential disruption to MBTA service and other possible impacts would be evaluated.
STV, a national engineering, architectural, planning and construction management firm, is currently looking at eight connector designs involving two scenarios – one anticipating the closure of Bowdoin Station, the other relocation of the station. The two most popular connector options, based on a consensus of the Working Group, will be submitted as part of the Alternative Analysis Report in September, Pelletier said.
Bob O’Brien, a Working Group member and executive director of the Downtown North Association, suggested that connector planning take into account a proposed redesign of Government Center Station that would create an additional entrance and exit near the John F. Kennedy Building on New Sudbury Street, largely eliminating the need for nearby Bowdoin Station.
Scott Peterson of the Central Transportation Planning Staff unveiled the Regional Transportation Demand Model, which will be used to examine Red and Blue Line ridership based on transportation data from 2006 and projections for 2030. Findings from the model would help inform the Alternative Analysis Report and be incorporated into the Draft Environmental Impact Report, due in June of 2010. (The EOT is legally obligated to complete all environmental reviews and a design for the project by Dec. 31, 2011, per a 2006 legal settlement with the Conservation Law Foundation).
Nancy Farrell, the meeting facilitator and manager of public involvement for the Boston public relations firm Regina Villa Associates, said the next Planning Group meetings would be held in July and September. The May 18 Planning Group meeting followed an introductory meeting on March 24.

The Beacon Hill Garden Club’s 80th Anniversary Tour of the Hidden Gardens of Beacon Hill took place on Thursday, May 21, and featured the gardens of 12 members, four of which were open to the public for the first time. The tour also included four additional non-member “ribbon gardens,” which were cordoned off with ribbons so tour-goers could view but not enter them. Another highlight of the event was a performance by the Community Music Center Jazz Trio in the garden at the Church of the Advent on Brimmer Street.

PHOTO 1 CAPTION: Beacon Hill Garden Club members Deb Hamley and Joan Lee are seen at the information booth on Charles Street.

PHOTO 2 CAPTION: The “ribbon garden” at 29A Chestnut St.

PHOTO 3 CAPTION: Tour-goers stroll through the garden at 8-A Walnut St.

PHOTO CREDIT: Channing Johnson

PHOTO CAPTION: twoAM founders Karen Webster and Patty Franchi Flaherty.

While the main objective of “Consignment for a Cure” is to raise money for the fight against breast and ovarian cancer, the June 7 fundraiser at the Park Plaza Hotel is also a testament to the strong friendship between two women.
In 2005, fledgling Dana Farber Cancer Institute Trustee Karen Webster first met her Dana Farber mentor and fellow trustee Patty Franchi Flaherty at a board meeting. Webster, a breast cancer survivor, and Franchi Flaherty, an ovarian cancer survivor, soon became close friends.
Two years later, on the fifth anniversary of Webster’s diagnosis with breast cancer, she met with Franchi Flaherty for a cup of a coffee, and together, they conceived the twoAM Fund to find a cure for breast and ovarian cancer.
“We decided that since there are 10 times as many breast cancer survivors as ovarian cancer, we should do something to bring the communities together and find links between the two diseases,” said Webster, who recently moved to Pinckney Street. “Ovarian cancer doesn’t have the support community that breast cancer does because there aren’t enough women who survived ovarian cancer to form groups, organize and raise money.”
The three simple objectives of twoAM, which stands for “two women on a mission,” are to unify the communities of breast and ovarian cancer survivors, raise funds to research both diseases at Dana-Farber and use this research to explore the links between the two types of cancer. Heading the research are Eric Winer, MD, and Ursula Matulonis, MD - Webster and Franchi Flaherty’s Dana Farber doctors, respectively.
Last April, twoAM Fund held its first fundraiser, “Martinis, Makeovers and a Mission,” at Neiman Marcus at Copley Place. The event was highly successful, but it was also a bittersweet occasion because Franchi Flaherty was very ill at the time and would succumb to cancer that August.
“It was a hard decision to go forward without Patty because she was such a force, but we want to keep her memory alive” Webster said, adding that Consignment for a Cure is, in many ways, a tribute to Franchi Flaherty.
Webster said this year’s fundraiser also has the economy in mind, with individual tickets starting at $100 and a clothing-consignment theme.
“We want women to come who really want to have a good time and want to contribute to something important,” Webster said. “We want it to be inclusive.”
Among the high ticket items are a Hermes Birkin Bag, which Webster said currently has a three-year waiting list, and two Donna Karan gowns, with a combined value of $25,000. Other consignment items include new and vintage clothing, jewelry and handbags and accessories from top designers, such as Hermes, Marc Jacobs, Dolce & Gabbana, Armani, YSL, Chanel, St. John, Akris, Escada and Ralph Lauren. All proceeds benefit the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s Breast and Ovarian Cancer Research.
For those who can’t attend the fundraiser, “Consignment for a Cure” is also offering five items on eBay, including a Hermes handbag, a Chanel jacket, Van Cleef & Arpels vintage alhambro earrings with diamonds, a Fendi Sellaria vintage handbag and a mother-of-pearl antique medallion. The eBay auction ends June 7.
“Boston’s most fashionable women have donated gently used and, in some cases, new items,” Webster said. “It’s an opportunity to get designer clothes at a fraction of the price, and we like to think it’s all in good fun and for a good cause.”
“Consignment for a Cure” takes place at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel, 64 Arlington St., on Thursday, June 4, at 6:30 p.m. VIP sales begin at 5:30 p.m. To purchase tickets, visit www.dana-farber.org/twoAM. For more information, contact Kelly See
at 617-582-7916
or via e-mail at Kelly_See@dfci.harvard.edu.

Important safety meeting …

E-mails from residents and talk on the streets of Beacon Hill have been flying as news of last week’s five robberies became known.
While Beacon Hill residents can boast of being some of the most educated and youngest in Boston, with our property values still rising, the recent robberies on the Common, Public Garden, West Cedar and Charles streets prove that Beacon Hill isn’t an island.
The social problems that are plaguing other neighborhoods in Boston are having their effect on us.
While the arrest of one suspect was the direct result of the victim and three other concerned citizens holding the suspect until police arrived, this type of action isn’t wise. The ultimate end for the victim and the concerned citizens could have been much more serious had the suspect been armed.
What seems to be most disturbing in all the e-mail traffic is the fact that a resident spotted a group of teenagers hanging around in the neighborhood and alerted the police, but police response seemed very slow. We know the person who made the call, and this wasn’t a needless call.
We urge all residents to attend the public hearing this Thursday at 7 p.m. in the firehouse on Mt. Vernon Street.
In the end, this problem of robberies will be solved by vigilance and good police work.
We have come to know Captain Bernie O’Rourke, who heads the police department in our neighborhood. O’Rourke has always been sincere and honest in addressing the crime problems and finding the solutions.
We urge all residents to heed O’Rourke’s advice on what to do. We also hope that O’Rourke will address this problem of lack of immediacy to the police response of a concerned citizen in reporting a potential problem.
If we are to keep the Hill safe, we need teamwork from both residents and police. We also need to have one voice directing us. We can rest easy if that voice is Captain O’Rourke.
At this meeting on Thursday, let’s focus on the solutions and preventive measures – we know all too well the facts of the case.