I’m worried. It’s about a surface parking lot. It seems silly to worry about a parking lot, but that’s the way it is. Maybe it will turn out okay, but things have a way of getting out of hand. Let’s hope I’m wrong. This parking lot lies on the Esplanade near Charles Circle. That...
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Here Comes Summer
The Supreme Court has ruled that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act passes muster with the Constitution. Mitch McConnell and company have had their chance to sputter, spit and go spastic over Justice John Roberts’s betrayal. So summer can now begin. Summer, at least in the way New England celebrates it, is the...
Envy? Not Us by Karen Cord Taylor
It’s looking as if we might have to put up with Mitt Romney for awhile. We have found out what we expected—he is a rich man, not just in the top 1 percent, but in the top .006 percent. And Mitt says we envy him. Mitt, you don’t know from envy. There aren’t many...
Beating Back the Banks
One result of the agitation over the flood of banks displacing loved and needed businesses has been to point out how Boston could do more to provide the best environment for small, local business success. We know a lot about how small businesses succeed in a city and it has little to do with...
The Happiest Valentines
Perhaps you’ve been following the trials (literally) and the tribulations of a tycoon named Ronald O. Perelman. Perelman, in case you don’t know, is the chairman of the board of Revlon, Inc. He is also the head of MacAndrews & Forbes, a company that owns a lot of other companies. Coincidentally, Perelman is one...
Downtown View: It Takes a Village
That’s what our streetside litter basket has required. Some readers may remember that in June the city installed a mesh litter basket on the lamp post in front of our house at my request. It was an experiment. Would our sidewalk and tree pit be free of cups, crumpled paper and those little plastic...
When Will DeLuca’s Market Reopen?
It was on July 8 last year that a basement electrical fire closed DeLuca’s Market, the grocery store that Beacon Hillers have loved or hated, sometimes at the same time, for more than 100 years. The market is still not open, and Virgil Aiello, whose uncle started the market and who owns it now...
You moved here in September. Now get involved.
You’ve probably heard people say that city dwellers never know their neighbors. Whoever said that doesn’t know this city. Plenty of ways exist to meet people in downtown Boston. Of course, you could get a dog or have a child, because dogs and children seem to bring people together. But I was thinking of...
Aliens among us
I’ve got a secret. We have an illegal alien in our family. She lives outside of Massachusetts—that’s all I’ll say. She is my cousin’s mother-in-law. Call her Mary. My cousin’s wife was born outside the U.S. but is now an American citizen. Mary came legally to visit her daughter. She stayed. My cousin’s...