Credit: Jacqueline G. Freeman
Caption #1: Acorn Street resident Karin Dumbaugh accepted the grand prize for the entire street, with neighbor Suzanne Besser.


Caption #2: Rebecca Jackson and Ellen White, both of Revere Street, were honored for their work on “Red and Yellow, Kiss your Fellow,” at 39-41 Revere Street.





Neighbors who spent the spring and summer beautifying the neighborhood by tending to their window boxes, tree pits and container gardens were given the accolades they deserved at the annual Window Box Contest awards ceremony on Tuesday, October 9.

In addition to a slideshow of the winner’s efforts, guests were treated to a lecture on container gardening and refreshments.

Prizes were provided by the following Beacon Hill Business Association members: Deluca’s Market, Koo de Kir, Cheers, the Otis House Museum, Bin 26 Enoteca, Linens on the Hill, Beacon Hill Framery, Rugg Road Paper Company and Rouvalis. Thanks go to the BHBA, the Beacon Hill Civic Association, the Beacon Hill Garden Club and Park Street School for hosting the reception.

Credit: Courtesy photo

Caption: Osmar Pauletti, assistant general manager; Betsy Toczko, general manager; Tom Kershaw, owner; and Markus Ripperger, corporate chef.





Two Beacon Hill establishments celebrate anniversaries this week. Art and design gallery Tesorino held a reception Saturday, welcoming friends and customers with cocktails and hors d’oeuvres. In addition to celebrating one year on the Hill, the shop commemorated its new partnership with Iris Galleries in Great Barrington, Mass., which features fine art photography. “They have great, quality photographs,” said owner Laura Littlechild. “We are very excited about this.” The Charles Street store features designer handbags, art glass, ceramics, jewelry, paintings, and photography.

75 Chestnut will end a week of festivities today, celebrating ten years since the eatery took over the Charles Restaurant. “We’ve always been big on anniversaries, so we figured why not celebrate all week for the 10th?” said owner Thomas Kershaw, who has lived on the Hill since 1964 and also owns the Hampshire House on Beacon Street and runs the Boston Common Frog Pond Foundation. The restaurant has given diners complementary cakes and commemorative cocktail glasses and also features a champagne bar and special menu items. “This is a way to recognize we’ve been around for ten years and part of the neighborhood, so everyone can celebrate with us,” said Kershaw.

The Boston city councilor-at-large candidates debate will be held Tuesday, October 23, at the Park Street
School (67 Brimmer Street) from 6:30 p.m. until 8:30 p.m.

The nine candidates competing for the four open seats will field questions concerning neighborhood issues, said event organizer Rob Whitney, board member of the BHCA. The moderator, Peter Nessen, will select questions from a list contributed from each of the eight neighborhood/civic associations sponsoring the debate.

The debate is scheduled to last 90 minutes, with the last half-hour allotted to a “meet and greet” with the candidates, said Whitney. If time permits, members of the community will be given a chance to ask questions.

When the last debate was held two years ago, only four associations were involved, said Whitney. This year, that number has doubled. “We reached out this year to get more people involved,” he said. “I think we have a more broad-based group to come up with questions.”

Whitney said he’s hoping to draw a large crowd of residents.

Among those sponsoring the debate are: the Beacon Hill Civic Association, the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay, the West End Civic Association, the Ellis South End Neighborhood Association, the Fenway Civic Association, the Bay Village Neighborhood Association, the Audubon Circle Neighborhood Association, and the Eight Streets Neighborhood Association.

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

Progress during the week of October 8 - 12

Traffic signals: No progress.

Street paving: No progress. The street in front the Hurley building cannot be paved until the trailer is moved.

Street lights: Still not working properly.

Median: Most plants looking healthy.

Police have succeeded in removing drug dealers from the Boston Common, but the offenders seem to have moved to Copley Square, said police Captain Bernie O’Rourke, who spoke at last week’s area A1 advisory meeting.

“We have seen an exodus, an increase at Copley,” said Officer Caroline McNeil of district D4. The D4 police captain has organized a walking beat of the area, a quality of life patrol, to address the issue, she said. “Honestly, they’re transient people,” said McNeil of the dealers. “We know that this may just move them around [again], without addressing the real problem.” Other city organizations, including the Boston Public Health Commission, are working together with police to draft a plan to better deal with homelessness as a whole, she said.

Bad judgment from firefighters

The two Boston firefighters who died in the line of duty last month at a fire in West Roxbury aren’t coming back. They made the ultimate sacrifice while on duty. For their families, their friends and their colleagues, they are gone forever.

Although the firefighters aren’t coming back, information regarding results from their autopsies released last week by a curious media that just won’t let go points to the fact that both men were carrying drug and alcohol traces in their blood systems when they met their end.

In addition, one of the two had enough alcohol in his blood to be considered legally intoxicated in the State of Massachusetts. This information is disconcerting, considering how close we are to the tragedy itself. During times like these, one hopes and prays families who’ve lost their loved ones are given a chance to mourn and to recover from the shock.

Adding a great deal of distraction to these revelations was the shocking and absurd statement issued by the head of the Boston Firefighters Union declaring that the union was asking for an investigation – not about why two of their colleagues might have been drunk or stoned when called into service – rather, the union chiefs wanted to know who gave up the information from the autopsy.

Never in recent history have union heads who ought to know better shown such a high level of unreality about an important issue that came before them. Why aren’t they concerned about the possible effect of such substance abuse on other members of the team? Firefighters should be looking out for one another, not becoming so drunk or high as to put other firefighters in jeopardy.

To his credit, Mayor Thomas Menino has called for the city to look into the fire department’s need for blood testing its employees to insure that such a scenario will not occur again.

The harsh reality of drunken or stoned firefighters suiting up, getting behind the wheel and racing to a fire is not a pretty one. That one of the two firefighters who lost his life in West Roxbury had lost his license following a drunken driving conviction doesn’t help. That he went to work, apparently driving to work after losing his license, is another black mark against him and his commanding officers, and the department itself.

The modern vision of firefighters as heroes is real. Many of us have personally been the beneficiaries of a quick and professional response. By and large, it is a reputation untarnished, except for situations like the one the Boston Fire Department is dealing with right now. We hope the fire commissioner will treat this incident with something more than unreality.

If he doesn’t, then we all lose and we are left to wonder, who will be harmed next? It could be the firefighters who accompany such a disabled team mate to a fire.