It was 90 degrees on June 1, and everyone’s patience was a bit thin.

Mike Curran of Revere Street was unloading groceries from his car—he had double-parked in front of his Revere Street home—when he heard a tremendous commotion. A “meter man” was yelling, “stop” to a driver attempting to navigate a large tour bus past his illegally parked car. But the tour bus driver, dead set on his mission to get from Cambridge Street to Charles Street (via Revere Street), would neither cease nor desist, and so continued to plow right into the car.

Tempers flared. Everyone started yelling at everyone else. David Mini, the traffic enforcement officer, tried to calm things down. “If you don’t stop yelling at the bus driver, I’ll cite you. You’re illegally parked,” Curran said he told him. Curran responded that it was common practice on the Hill to double park for five minutes when unloading.

But Mini told him he should have parked on the sidewalk instead, but Curran said he thought that was illegal. “It would have been the lesser of all illegals,” responded Mini, according to Curran.

What’s an illegal parker to do?

The tour bus took the side mirror and accompanying electric components off his car, which Curran described as “nondescript.” A silver Volvo parked legally on the other side of the street lost far more than its mirror: the bus sideswiped it from front to back on its passenger side.

Meanwhile the tour bus that was responsible for bringing all these illegalities to light was now stuck between its two victims. Mini called 911 for immediate assistance. Two police cruisers did, in fact, come immediately and ordered the retreat of the bus backwards down the hill, where it repeatedly became wedged at tight intersections and caused even more commotion.

“God only knows how many cars it took out going back down the Hill,” said Curran. “Looking back at it, the whole thing was quite a hoot. But, it seems like such a common sense thing. The bus just didn’t belong here.”

Neither Curran nor the bus company was cited by the Boston Police.

Eileen Kemps, owner of Kemps Motorcoach Tour Company of Avon, New York, was not available to comment as to why her driver, Robert Borchand, had taken a left off Cambridge onto Grove and then turned onto Revere Street on his way to Charles Street. Curran surmises that he was either lost, which would indicate a need for better directions on the company’s part, or his actions were part of a more grandiose scheme: to generate additional revenues for the tour company by driving past the Hill’s main attraction, Louisburg Square.

In either case, those who know confirmed that this tour bus did not, in fact, belong on Beacon Hill.

Vineet Gupta, director of planning for the Boston Transportation Department, said tour buses are just not allowed in Boston’s residential neighborhoods. “Typically, when there is a restriction on trucks, it applies to all oversized vehicles,” he said. “The MBTA is not allowed on residential streets, so I would say that tour buses weren’t either.”

Furthermore, the city of Boston publishes on its website a Boston Tour Bus map, which is annually distributed to tour bus companies before the tourist season. The map specifies which streets a bus can travel on, where it can stop and where it can load and unload passengers, as well as other regulations governing tour buses.

“This map is widely used by the industry and we try to enforce the rules the best we can,” said Gupta, who will call the companies who violate the regulations. The most effective tool they have is to fine the bus operator for idling, which is allowed for no more than five minutes. Idling buses have been fined for as high as $500 in the past, he said.

Smaller sightseeing trolleys do not belong on the Hill either, according to Sgt. Tom Tierney of the hackney division of the Boston Police Department. As part of the permitting process that allows a company to operate a sightseeing business, it is given a certain route to follow which also includes where it is allowed to stop. Those who violate the regulations are penalized, paying $30 for each of the 30 or 40 people aboard the trolley. One such company, Discover Trolley, has in the past been cited for driving down Mount Vernon Street and stopping at Louisburg Square.

Tom Godfrey
Gavin Stein, a two-year-old who lives in Newton, had eyes only for his bowls of tasty pistachio and creamy vanilla ice cream at the Scooper Bowl, held June 6 on City Hall Plaza. The annual ice cream festival benefits the Jimmy Fund.

CREDIT: Suzanne Besser

Hosts for this year’s annual spring fundraiser, a gala event held June 8 at the Boston Athenaeum by the Nichols House Museum, included many of the Spring Fete committee members (front row, left to right) are Heidi Legg, Jessica Vaule, Dana Lewis, Leslie Adam, Sarah Biller Gekas and Yulia Minina. In the back row are Becky Velander, Lynne Rickabaugh, Mary Thomsen and Ashley Cole. Most of the proceeds raised at the event, which attracted more than 200 people, go toward the conservation of the House Museum itself and its furniture collection.

“I am told that a strong heart muscle and thick stomach lining will serve me well in my future endeavor to build a home here on Beacon Hill,” airline pilot George LaPerle told The Beacon Hill Times three years ago.

LaPerle’s words proved prophetic. The Pinckney Street resident spent the last three years appealing City building decisions and shouldering lawsuits from neighbors who oppose his plans to develop the lot that he owns at 45 Beaver Place.

He appeared before the Beacon Hill Civic Association’s Zoning & Licensing Committee last week, seeking a variance that will allow him to bypass a setback requirement and build his dream home in the scale he desires. The committee voted three to one to oppose LaPerle’s request. Two members abstained, but LaPerle said that he remained “hopeful they will reconsider in a private vote.”

“I think we’re very close. I have a pretty good feeling that we will be able to continue with the support of the neighbors,” he said.

LaPerle received permission last year to build a four-story residence on the 1,700 square foot lot, with 3,000 square feet of livable space and an additional 800 square feet of non-livable space, including two street-level garages, a basement storm drainage system, and a mechanical room for the elevator LaPerle has designed for his mother.

The variance LaPerle seeks will allow him to ignore a 10-foot setback requirement from the south wall of the Union Boat Club, thereby increasing the building’s square footage to 4,800. LaPerle’s distinction between habitable and non-habitable space, an important zoning factor that determines whether a structure complies with Boston’s floor area ratio (FAR) zoning requirement, disconcerted neighbors, according to committee chair Tom Clemens.

The measurements LaPerle requests could yield a FAR as great as 3.5, nearly twice the 2.0 FAR granted by the city’s zoning codes. The FAR guidelines were established in the 1950s to discourage wanton construction by forcing builders to seek variances on a case-by-case basis, according to Clemens. “Almost all the houses on Beacon Hill exceed the 2.0 FAR,” he said.

For example, the two-story living room LaPerle planned only counts as one floor of habitable space. “He’s been quite aggressive in calling parts of the house not livable,” Clemens said.

LaPerle began persuading legislators to buy the dilapidated triangle of land at the corner of Mugar Way and across from Fiedler Bridge seven years ago. The lot, owned by the Metropolitan District Commission since the early 20th century, had become a pit for trash, glass from broken car windows, and homeless people. He purchased the land for $457,000 in 2003.

“It was so dark and foreboding that people used to be afraid to walk by,” LaPerle said. He argued that extending the structure towards the boat club would eliminate any opportunity for people to congregate in the alley between the two buildings. The Union Boat Club, which also bid on the lot, opposes LaPerle’s plans due to the shadows the structure would cast.

At 46-feet high, the building LaPerle has planned is well below the neighborhood’s 65-foot zoning limit and shorter than the 55-foot tall abutting Union Boat Club. Still, neighbors say that the structure will block their views and cast shadows over their buildings.

“Zoning regulations, in my view, are there to protect one property owner from benefiting at the expense of other property owners,” said Paul Milbury of Beaver Place.

Milbury, with several other property abutters, filed two suits last year against LaPerle, alleging misrepresentations in floor area ratio calculations and definitions of open space.

The first suit, which also listed the Beacon Hill Architectural Commission and Inspectional Services Department as co-defendants, was found in LaPerle’s favor. He is now petitioning to recover lost legal fees. “The original lawsuit was insubstantive and malicious,” LaPerle said.

The second suit lists the Board of Appeal and the Inspectional Services Department as co-defendants. LaPerle is also contesting a suit filed by a different group of neighbors at 95 Beacon Street.

“It was never intended to be built upon. The fact that it will be built upon is detrimental to many in the neighborhood. I don’t think a variance is appropriate,” said Linda Soohoo, a plaintiff at 95 Beacon Street.

LaPerle and his architect Terrence G. Heinlein say that the size of the building they have planned is necessary to keep in scale with the neighborhood.

“The building has a very interesting geometry,” said Heinlein. “To maximize the site, it needs to hug the property line.”

LaPerle said the building he has proposed will match the neighborhood’s skyscape. “We need to punctuate the ends of the block with buildings that are not miniscule.”

Bob Matson of Revere Street agreed with LaPerle. “Architecturally, it ties in the ends of the block.”

“I agree it should be developed into a beautiful home, but not at the expense of the neighbors,” said Dave Podolsky, a plaintiff who owns 93 Beacon Street, which faces the site.

Lesley Hall, a friend of LaPerle’s who lives in the South End, spoke on his behalf. “George is a great neighbor, and if you guys gave him a chance, you’d see that. He’s fully entrenched in Boston,” she said.

Despite public opposition, an informal vote among meeting attendees showed the room to be split, with 15 in favor of granting the variance, 14 opposed, and one abstention.

“The committee routinely does not oppose variances in regard to open space, but I’m not as complacent about that in the current situation,” said Clemens. The setback LaPerle seeks to eliminate, Clemens added, is not of particular benefit to anyone. “I’m quite sure he can never make 100 percent of the neighbors happy,” he said.

LaPerle will go before the Zoning Board of Appeal and the Beacon Hill Architectural Commission, pending last night’s decision by the board of the Beacon Hill Civic Association.

Editorial

Mysteries

There are strange things going on around the neighborhood and inquiring readers have asked us to explain.

We can’t. We suspect no one else can either.

Here’s an example: A week or so ago the sidewalk in front of the Somerset Club was littered with horse droppings. Why was there a horse on the sidewalk? Why in front of the Somerset Club? The Somerset is a bastion of propriety, yet the droppings were left there for some time. It’s odd.

The swans’ nesting area is protected. But the swans, as your crack reporters at The Beacon Hill Times reported a year ago, are both ladies. Why is the nesting area protected if there are no nestlings in the nest?

Then there is the sign in the median of Staniford Street announcing that cars are entering the West End. But on one side is the Hurley Building and on the other is Charles River Park. Ahead is the Bulfinch Triangle. If you’re coming from the Bulfinch Triangle right ahead of you is Beacon Hill. The sign is random, but we’re hard pressed to suggest another location. Where is the West End? No longer are there agreed upon boundaries for this neighborhood, which right now seems to also be called Charles River Park.

Then there is the Hurley Building itself. It is a challenge to find your way in. Ramps lead to doors that are closed. Once inside you’ll find hallways that are confusing. Part of the building serves the mentally ill. If you’re not mentally ill when you go into the building, you will be by the time you leave, thanks to Paul Rudolph, the much over-rated architect who gave us this bunker. Why would anyone impose such a confusing, dirty clunker with scratched windows on any neighborhood?

Another long-time mystery that we investigate from time to time with no resolution: Why do pedestrians in the walking city have to press a button to get a walk light when walking citizens in all other American cities just go with the light? If it’s for our safety, it doesn’t work. Since we get tired of waiting, we just zip out whenever we see a break in the traffic. If the button is for our safety, it accomplishes the exact opposite.

Why is General Hooker memorialized in front of the State House? The trolley tours tell of his handsome looks and the fallen women who became his namesakes. But what did he do to deserve a statue? Why didn’t we make a statue instead of Sam Adams, Paul Revere, John Adams, Joseph Warren or a any one of a host of notables from the early years of the United States? It ought to be a lesson in statue-making and memorializing. Sometimes what seems like a good idea at the time looks pretty silly in bronze after several years have passed.

Why do Massachusetts’s public schools have a February and an April vacation and then stay in session until the last of June, unlike public schools in other states? Not that we would want them to start early in August, as apparently some southern states’s schools do.

We can’t answer any of these questions. Nor do we want to. This is a city in which some circumstances are better left unquestioned. The answer may be too ridiculous to bear.