Everyone has been talking about how they are afraid someone will get hit by a car when they are walking around the Cambridge Street construction.

Last week two women actually did bring out the fire trucks and the ambulances on Cambridge Street. But it still isn’t clear whether the construction had anything to do with their problems.

One woman fell on the sidewalk last Tuesday about 5:30 p.m. between the Charles Street Jail and the Charles/MGH T station. Joe Crowley of MGH said she was taken to the emergency room, but that she was not hit by a car. The area is full of construction, but it was also icy in places and very windy. Rescue officials were not sure what had happened.

Hawthorne Place resident Lillian Hallberg had worse luck. Hallberg was injured when she was walking home from her job as an assistant dean at Suffolk University’s Sawyer Business School about 10 o’clock on the evening of Monday, March 19.

There was a little bit of sleet and some snow. She got to the Brooks Pharmacy at the corner of Bowdoin and looked for a walk light. She couldn’t find any.

But she looked to her left at the two lanes of cars stopped on Bowdoin who were headed toward Cambridge Street and saw that they had a red light. So she started to cross the street.

“I got past the second car, and then I got hit,” she said “I never saw the car coming.”

Hallberg said evidently she was thrown up onto the hood of the car. She remembers sitting up in the intersection, being coherent and talking to the people who had gotten out of their cars and run over to help her.

The driver who hit her hadn’t seen her any more than she had seen him. “He was mortified,” she said. She said that he had had a green arrow that allowed him to turn left. Luckily, it seems he wasn’t going that fast.

An ambulance took her to Mass. General, where she stayed until 5:30 in the morning.

“I’m very bruised and sore, and my left ankle is broken,” she said. But she said she was sure she hadn’t walked against the light and it wasn’t her fault, nor was it the fault of the driver.

Her husband went out the next day to check for her. He found the walk light not working.

John Lepore, who heads the Cambridge Street reconstruction, said that his electrical team had not gotten to those lights yet. He said that he checked the walk light the next day and found that the bulbs were working, but that the wires were disconnected. He said the wires could have been lifted out by a snow plow, but that he really didn’t know how it would have happened. He also said that the city’s high-tech transportation center typically gets a feed that lets them know when a piece of equipment malfunctions, but that system apparently didn’t alert anyone.

Hallberg is not yet back at work — she’s too sore to sit for long periods of time. She said that she thought she was okay at first, but in the days after the accident, the sounds of the car hitting her and the people running and the sirens of the rescue vehicles are haunting her.

Boston Police Sergeant Tom Lema of Area A-1 said no other accidents were reported last week on the street.

CAPTION: It is hard to peek through this fence on Putnam Avenue, which surrounds a lot that may soon be for sale.

If you were able to look behind the tall, shadowbox-style wooden fence on the north side of Putnam Avenue, the walkway that joins West Cedar and Charles streets, you’d see what looks like an untended garden belonging to 80 West Cedar Street.

It’s not what it appears.

The messy garden is, in fact, a 1,480 square-foot plot of land all its own. The city valued it in FY2007 at $55,200. Twenty years ago Michael Zuromskis of Charles River Square proposed building on the lot, but the idea got shot down by neighbors.

Now Sal Mirabella, who said he represents the land’s trustees and is associated with Zuromskis in Charles Street Liquors, which Zuromskis owns, says the trustees are again interested in doing something with the land, perhaps selling it. Paula LaRosa is listed on city tax records as the owner of the land, the tax bill of which goes to Zuromskis’s address.

The Beacon Hill Times could not reach either Zuromskis or LaRosa.

Mirabella said he believes it is important now to see what kind of development would be supported by neighbors.

He thinks it could be made into a city park, or a multi-family or single family home could be built. He said the trustees would like to give someone in the community the opportunity to purchase the land before they advertise it nationally, with offers starting at $500,000.

But Mirabella has met some obstacles. City Councilor Mike Ross said the city would have trouble buying a new park when it struggles to take care of the parks it already owns. Ross said, however, he would attend any meeting that Mirabella scheduled to investigate such a move.

One obvious buyer would be a direct abutter who would make use of the property as a garden. But Mirabella said he has had no response to notes left in abutters’ mailboxes. He said a real estate broker told him that owners in adjacent condominiums would be unlikely to be able to afford the price he was mentioning. The Beacon Hill Times’s efforts to contact direct abutters were unsuccessful.

Some nearby property owners have looked at the site, but they have been discouraged by the perceived obstacles.

Someone interested in building on the site would face hurdles. Beacon Hill’s zoning would allow building on half the lot up to four stories, if the height were under 65 feet.

But variances would be required for a front-yard setback of 20 feet, and side- and back-yard setbacks of 10 feet each. There is also a requirement for one parking space and 150 square feet of open space per unit, according to Jessica Shumaker, a spokesperson for the Boston Redevelopment Authority.

Shumaker said it might be possible to obtain variances since no Beacon Hill building fits within these parameters and city planners like buildings to line up with neighbors.

It also might be financially feasible, said Gray MacLetchie, an experienced builder who recently built the new building on Lindall Place. Because of abutters’ support, he was able to get a number of variances. He said he paid $375,000 in 2001 for his vacant parcel, which measured about 1,000 square feet.

Even if a buyer paid the half million dollars Mirabella said he was asking, a buyer could build a house for about the same amount as one he or she could buy. “You should be able to build a new building for around $300 a square foot,” MacLetchie said. With zoning allowing a building of 2,960 square feet, which is about the same as many on Pinckney and Revere streets, it could be a good investment, he said.

For someone like MacLetchie, who is a general contractor with lower costs than a homeowner hiring a contractor, the property could be attractive. “There might be some money to be made,” he speculated. But access is minimal, he warned, and construction could be labor intensive.

But the big problem for the property could come from the fire department. “The fire prevention code states that with new construction, you have to have a hard-surfaced, all-weather fire lane at least 20 feet wide within 25 feet of the building,” said Steve MacDonald, spokesman for the Boston Fire Department.

The distance along Putnam Avenue to the property line in each direction is more than 25 feet. It is not clear how flexible the fire department would be in such a case. MacDonald said his department would have to see plans.

As June Hutchinson turned off the lights in her Chestnut Street home two weeks ago, she suddenly realized it was quiet. In fact, she said the silence was deafening.

Since January she had been kept awake for several hours each night by a loud grinding sound coming from one of two exhaust fans, part of a heating, ventilating and air conditioning system mounted on the rooftop of the Linconshire at 20 Charles Street, which houses condominiums as well as the Upper Crust and Bin 26 Enoteca.

It was an excessive noise that bothered other residents in the neighborhood as well as occupants of the building itself, who also were bothered by strong food odors that, they said, made some of the apartments difficult to live in.

But determining which fan was the source of the problem proved difficult, and it wasn’t until recently that it was attributed to the smaller one pulling the exhaust from Upper Crust. One of the pizzeria’s owners, Jordan Tobins, said he had received no complaints about it for five years until January, when it was crushed by scaffolding installed by Raymond Properties during the repointing and conversion of the building to condominiums.

The night the noise ceased at the Hutchinson home was the night Upper Crust turned on its new venting system. ZVI Construction engineered and installed a more powerful fan motor that is housed inside a new, large insulated hood located within the restaurant above the stove. The old fan motor unit was removed from the rooftop.

And, it wasn’t cheap. Tobins said it cost him almost $15,000. “We spent the money so we could never have any more problems with noise,” he said. “Now it is silent. You will never again hear a noise out of my vent.”

John Natoli, who lives in the building, said the excessive odors in lobby and elevators had cleared up, but one could still smell exhaust in the units at the Lincolnshire, facing Charles Street. He said residents would most likely ask the Boston Environmental Commission to take odor readings to determine if the smells were excessive.

But the problems are not over for the much larger fan that was installed for Bin 26 by Raymond Properties, the building’s developer who still controls the building. Raymond Properties did not return phone calls to The Times, but according to Bin 26 owner Babak Bina, that fan was installed to replace the chimney vent used by the former occupant, Torch restaurant, because of potential fire hazards associated with grease buildup in chimneys.

However, when city officials first came to inspect the noise and odor issues, they discovered that Raymond had not received approval from the Beacon Hill Architectural Commission for the unit, which is visible from a public way, Bina said.

Bina then called the commission staff, who subsequently cited Raymond Properties for an architectural violation and summoned them to appear at last week’s meeting. At that time the commission asked Raymond to consult with an engineer about reducing the size of the fan, to consider alternate placements and visibility-reducing alternatives, such as screening the unit, and to return to the April 19 hearing.

The Beacon Hill Civic Association’s zoning and licensing chair, Tom Clemens, said the Upper Crust and Bin 26 are not the only Charles Street restaurants to have neighbors complain about noisy vents. “It’s a real problem on the street,” he said. “Residents and restaurants live cheek to jowl. Despite the high cost to the restaurants, it seems a good idea for them to buy a piece of good will with their neighbors [by fixing their vents], Clemens added.

Artu’s, solved its problem by covering the system with a muffler, and Toscano’s and The Paramount are both currently investing in new systems. When the new owners of Toscano’s appeared at the January zoning and licensing meeting to request the committee not oppose the transfer of the liquor license from the previous owner, they too met with complaints from a neighbor on West Cedar Street who had been particularly disturbed by the loud fan noises, especially when sitting in her garden at night.

Consequently, Manager Richard Cacciagrani said their engineers have designed and upgraded the system to meet their obligations to their neighbors. They will replace their aged 15-year-old system with a new fan and motor and are considering placing it farther from the edge of the building.

The Paramount owner, Michael Bissanti, ran into a similar situation when he appeared at the March zoning and licensing committee meeting asking support for his plan to add cordials to his beer and wine license. That a neighbor stood up and complained about the loudness of his system surprised him because he had not heard complaints for years. However, he was aware that his HVAC system was “antiquated, old and dirty, and not efficient.” He hired an engineer to develop a new system and is facing a much larger bill — estimated between $60,000 and $70,000 — because he must replace the ductwork as well as install the new fan system, make electrical repairs and even repair the roof where the old system was.

“It’s a big expense,” he said. “But it is important. We live in a residential area. If you don’t respond to neighborhood concerns, it flies in the face of what a restaurant should be. You have to give what you can.”

Traffic lights are the only story this week. Those at the Grove Street intersection are installed and working, and the old ones have been removed.

Drivers coming from Charles Circle have a left turn arrow that leads them to Mass. General. But the left turn arrow in the other direction is gone and won’t return.

“Cars can still turn left onto Grove,” said John Lepore, who manages the Cambridge Street project for Mass. Highway. “But they’ll have to yield to cars coming in the other direction.

Lepore said the change was necessitated by the new walk light situation, in which pedestrians will walk across both directions of traffic in the same cycle, no longer having to stop on the median. If cars were turning, especially making a U-turn as they often do at that intersection, there could be a conflict between pedestrians and cars.

The electricians also worked at Blossom Street last week, and if all goes well, the old equipment at that intersection should be removed early this week.

All the trees for the median are tagged and ready to go, said Lepore. The people who install the irrigation system have also been out to plan it.

After a simple letter announcing Senate President Robert Travaglini’s intentions to resign was read and accepted by the members, the man who led the body for fours years through some tumultuous times stood and addressed his colleagues in the senate.

“As you can well imagine this was not an easy decision to reach and it didn't happen overnight,” said Travaglini. “But what it does is allow me to become more of a husband and a father to my wife and my children.”

Travaglini said that for the last 25 years that he has held elected office, he has had the opportunity to meet a variety of different people and during that time has made more friends, had more fun and had more of an effect as president of the Senate than he’s had in the rest of his life.

“To say that serving as president of this distinguished body has been a privilege and an honor would be an understatement,” said Travaglini.

Travaglini touched on the numerous issues that faced the senate during his tenure as president. From eliminating a $3 billion budget deficit, authorizing stem cell research, doing health care reform and economic stimulus, Travaglini said what the senate was able to achieve was nothing short of remarkable. “You name it, we've done it, and I couldn't be any prouder of each and every one of you for the energy, the commitment and the passion you brought to this (body).”

During his speech Wednesday, Travaglini became emotional when thanking two people who had helped shape his life and political career.

First of his mother, Josephine Travaglini, Travaglini said she was the person he aspired to be. “(She) has allowed me to become all that I am.”

A few years back Travaglini underwent treatment for cancer and then endured bypass surgery. At that critical juncture in life one man stood beside him and became a rock of support for his wife, Kelley, and their three children.

“When you go through adversity and when you face physical challenges, that's where you measure your friends,” said Travaglini. “And when I was confronted with some difficulties a few years back and my wife was confused and concerned, and very upset, one man made some phone calls and put my wife at ease. I have been his friend for 35 years, but I became more of his friend when he went out of his way to make sure that I was going to be okay and my wife was comforted. That's Mayor Tom Menino.”

Menino, who has lost a political ally and friend on Beacon Hill, said the real people that lose out on not having Travaglini as a senator are the countless non-profits.

“It’s these groups that Travaglini really fought for,” said Menino, who served alongside Travaglini in the Boston City Council. “They are the most vulnerable when it comes to funding and Travaglini always had compassion for their work in the state. He has made a difference in so many people’s lives because of his caring and generosity.”

Senate members quickly voted to elect Travaglini’s successor, Theresa Murray, as the state’s first female leader of either house in a unanimous vote.

Travaglini will form a partnership with lawyer, close friend and confidant Thomas Kiley. The duo will arguably become a lobbying powerhouse on Beacon Hill. Their combined efforts and ability to easily navigate the halls of Beacon Hill and Boston City Hall could attract big-name clients.

Travaglini’s departure also sparks a race for his senatorial seat that includes a small portion of Beacon Hill. A special election will likely be set 90 days from now with candidates like Representative Anthony Petruccelli, Revere City Councilor Dan Rizzo and Tim Toomey, a councilor and representative from Cambridge, all vying for the post. The district includes East Boston, Revere, Winthrop, the North End, Beacon Hill and East Cambridge.

Spring problems

Move your car

It is officially spring. One would think we wouldn’t complain. But spring brings a few problems. We hope you’ll help solve them.

On April 1, the mechanical street sweepers return. Parking enforcement officers will walk ahead of them and ticket cars. The machine will buzz down the street. Neighbors will hear the noise and be hopeful.

But they’ll hope in vain. About half the time the cars will block the sweepers’ progress, and the curb will remain soiled. We know because in 2003 we tracked the street sweepers’ effectiveness and found that, due to parked cars, they could get to the curb only half the time.

These sweepers come to each street only two times a month. That’s not enough, but it is what we’ve got. Please, please, please move your car so that our streets have a fighting chance.

Dogs

We’ve heard it all over the Hill. People are complaining more than ever about the dogs. Over the winter, dog owners have become more and more irresponsible. The mess is everywhere. The owners who clean up after their dogs aren’t much better. They leave their plastic bags for someone else to pick up.

Compared to a decade ago, there are many more dogs on the Hill. People who have them not only enjoy the canine camaraderie, but they also make new human friends as they let their dogs play and exercise. Dogs can be wonderful.

But they can also be awful, if the owners let them. We urge dog owners to pick up after their dog and dispose of the bags appropriately. Don’t leave them on someone’s doorstep or in their tree pit.

Don’t let your dog pee on trees and tree pits. Fresh urine is hard on trees.

All of us, and especially dog owners, should confront the dog owners who aren’t playing by the rules.

You should make your dog a welcome addition to our neighborhood, not a scourge.

Rats

We’re back to dogs again — but this time trash is part of it. Our neighborhood is over-run by rats right now. Dog doo is beloved by rats, says Pedro Torres, the city’s Rat Guy. When you throw your bag on the sidewalk, you attract rats. So again, dispose of it properly.

Your trash also attracts rats. The best way to keep rats away from your door is to keep your trash off the street until a few minutes before the truck arrives.

Because this past winter was so warm for so long, the rat population grew. If you think you have rats nearby call Pedro at 617-635-5352.

Window boxes
Now that your greens have turned brown, remove them from your window boxes and replace them with spring bulbs or new greenery. And wash your windows. Nothing makes us all feel like spring more than seeing windows emerge from the winter doldrums with flowers in front of them.