Jack Gurnon runs the neighborhood hardware store, a craft he learned from his father, Dick. Jack lives above the business that his father built with his wife Cassie and two twin girls, Emilie and Sarah, who both attend the Advent School, a few blocks away.

After school the children, age 10, go in to the store to say “hi” and “run around,” said their father. Sometimes he gets them to help out with the business, stuffing envelopes or tackling other tasks.

For Jack, 52, who started working for his father in the hardware store “as soon as he was old enough to dust and tall enough to make change,” this is what makes Charles Street Supply special.

“It has a homey feel,” he said.

Neighbors agree. Last night at its annual meeting the Beacon Hill Civic Association presented father and son Dick and Jack Gurnon of Charles Street Supply Company with its tenth annual Beacon Award.

The award is given to a Beacon Hill resident or institution that has made a long-term contribution to the neighborhood.

Originally from Danvers, Dick first started working on Charles Street in 1948. His day-job was as a salesman, and he would call on different hardware stores in the area, selling wares direct from the manufacturers.

This was how he met the owner of the hardware store in a Charles Street basement. Soon he started working there after he finished his “regular job,” Jack said.

With Dick came customers. People liked his friendly, helpful nature and soon Dick was a partner in the business. Twenty-five years later Dick bought the business outright. After a fire in 1963, Dick re-opened the shop at 54 Charles Street and expanded into 56 Charles in 1985.

Jack said he worked at the store as a kid because “as the son of hardware guy, that is what you do.” He said it was great fun to come in because there was always something “crazy going on.”

But Jack’s parents pushed him to try other jobs growing up. “I have done a lot of other things, but I always came back to this,” he said. “It is a great way of life.”

Dick passed his ability to “fix anything” on to Jack. “My dad taught me everything he knew. I thought we were total opposites until I got older,” said Jack. “The I realized, ‘Oh my God, I am just like him.’” Now Jack uses his fix-it skills to help Hillers solve their problems.

Dick, 81, who raised his family with a strong work ethic, retired in 1997, but checks on the business frequently. He now lives in Florida.

For Jack, growing up in the store was good, but the best part is living over it. “It is about being a good neighbor,” said Gurnon, who is always happy to lend ladders during decorating day or brooms during a clean-up. “I have a responsibility to serve our neighborhood. We are a little oasis because we are independent. We can do things differently.” Differently for Jack means opening the store in an emergency or making a home delivery if a neighbor needs it.

To neighbors, Charles Street wouldn’t be Charles Street without Charles Street Supply. But to the Gurnons, it is a two-way street. “People don’t have to shop here. We are still here because people in the neighborhood get it. It is their choice to shop here, and we really appreciate it,” said Jack.

CREDIT: Suzanne Besser

CAPTION:
#1 Ellen Plapinger tended to her Joy Street garden, one of eleven private gardens open to visitors last Thursday during the 78th annual Hidden Garden Tour, sponsored by the Beacon Hill Garden Club.

#2 The tour may be a rite of spring, but this year’s visitors shivered and shook as they waited in long lines to navigate through the nooks and crannys leading to the hidden gardens on display. Visitors to this Joy Street garden were surprised to come upon a large stone patio with a good-sized swimming pool, ready and waiting to cool off the families that share it on a much warmer day.

In an effort to update Suffolk University’s long-term institutional master plan that addresses the future growth of the campus, school officials have identified five possible areas of expansion in the city.

School representatives met last week with members of the Boston Redevelopment Authority, representatives from the mayor’s office and the Suffolk Task Force, a group of seventeen community members appointed by the city from Beacon Hill, the North End, the West End, Downtown Crossing and the Ladder District, to discuss the possible options.

The five areas of potential growth, identified by the school with input from the task force, are Temple Place/West Street in the Ladder District, Bromfield/Tremont Street, the Court Street area, New Chardon/Staniford Street and the Bulfinch Triangle.

“Those areas have changed in scope and size due to input from the task force,” said Suffolk spokesman Michael Feeley. “They were chosen as a result of factors including density of development, proximity and a combination of not wanting to overly burden any one area.”

The long-range plan that looks forward ten years is in large part an effort to accommodate the need for more housing for the school’s undergraduate population. Currently the school houses 765 of its 4,500 undergraduate students on campus, but it is working toward housing 50 percent of its undergraduate students by 2017 to comply with an initiative from the mayor for all city universities. Enrollment at the school is expected to cap at 5,000 by 2010, and school officials said they hope to house an additional 274 students with the creation of a new dorm at 10 West Street in the Downtown Crossing/Ladder District. Suffolk originally proposed the dorm be located at 20 Somerset Street but that plan was abandoned because of neighborhood objection.

A 60-day comment period will be open through July 9 on the new 10 West Street dorm, and a public meeting will be scheduled on the project sometime in June, according to BRA officials.

In addition to housing, school officials said they need more room for academic space, a better student center and an improved athletic facility — all part of the long-range planning process.

The Beacon Hill Times follows the progress, or the lack thereof, on Cambridge Street through direct observation and interviews with the project’s supervisor from Mass Highway, John Lepore.


Plantings: Eighty of the 100 trees are planted. Shrubs are predicted for this week.

Traffic lights: There is a problem. Best Electric and the contractor have a dispute over money. Lepore said the situation is annoying him, and he is trying to work it out. The equipment is all in, but who pays for it is still in question. Lepore can’t pave until Best Electric finishes its work. “Now it is crunch time and I don’t need this game to be played at the community’s expense,” he said.

Paving: Lepore is shooting for June 8 and 9. There are still a few castings that haven’t been raised to accommodate the new layer of asphalt.

Rose and Sofia Nakhoul, sisters who work at Phoenicia Restaurant, admire new maple trees on Cambridge Street. Eighty out of the 100 trees destined for Cambridge Street were planted last week.

Selfish and shortsighted
The trees went in last week on Cambridge Street. Neighbors were pretty happy. The maples were tall. The sycamores were thick and looked good. The Hill Tavern’s staff were looking forward to setting out their tables in front of the three pale green maples that edged their sidewalk.

But a few were furious. They banged on the door of the construction trailer and phoned the city. The trees were blocking their signs (The signs were ugly, but never mind.) One business owner threatened to chop the trees down. “That’s why God made axes,” he reportedly said.

The complainers, looking out for themselves at the expense of everyone else, should rethink their selfish behavior. Those trees and the street’s new design came out of meetings more than 15 years ago in which the neighborhood asked for them.

The intention was to improve the business climate, since surveys showed that few neighbors then shopped at the businesses on Cambridge Street since the street was so unappealing.

Partly because of Whole Foods, partly because of the promise of the street’s rejuvenation, partly because there are better shops and restaurants, more Beacon Hill neighbors have been patronizing Cambridge Street businesses. These complainers should be grateful that their closest neighbors 15 years ago set this plan for trees in motion.

A hint to neighbors: don’t patronize a business that doesn’t take good care of its trees.

A nice story

The Charles/MGH T station is a success. From the street one can see people walking on the platforms. From the station one can see up Charles Street, down to the colorful plants and flowers in front of Top Shelf market and through the other side toward the old jail.

Chris is there to help you buy your Charlie Card. He shows you how to insert your credit card in the machine and tap it against the light at the gates.

The station is so clean and contemporary that one passenger thought she had gotten off inside MGH. “Where’s Oncology?” she asked. Chris gave her directions to the actual hospital.

The Boston disease

A titan of industry wants to move into a cooperative building on Beacon Hill. When the trustees reject his application, he decides it is because he grew up poor and Irish. Others automatically jump to the same conclusion.

Only in Boston would something so silly happen. There is a class/tribe disease here that infects otherwise reasonable people. Of course there is meanness in every level of society. But the assumption that “Brahmins” will snub others just they are not Brahmins is ridiculous. First of all, there are precious few Brahmins left. Second, the Brahmins who survive come in unexpected varieties. For example, this writer’s Brahmin son-in-law is half-Chinese.

We do not know the facts of the case or the person who was rejected. We also will not make any judgment about the legislation that would restrict cooperative apartments’ powers.

But after almost 40 years of living here we do know this neighborhood.

It is perhaps the most welcoming neighborhood in Boston to people of different colors, styles of life and backgrounds. If you can afford to live here and you are a cooperative person, your neighbors will invite you to their parties, the local shops will let you to establish charge account, and, if you volunteer for neighborhood activities, civic association leaders will ask you to join their board. This is a community that has actually created housing for low-income neighbors. (Perhaps the neighborhood’s tolerance comes from the fact that more than 70 percent of Beacon Hill residents were born out of state, so by birth they don’t have the Boston disease.)

Our caution to those who have the Boston disease is not to make hasty judgments. Those who are rejected might not have been the victim of discrimination. They might have just been a jerk.