As residents transition from summer living to fall cleanup, the Beacon Hill Civic Association is planning to get even greener and cleaner.
The BHCA just finished distributing introductory packages of plastic bags to educate residents about the city’s new single-stream recycling program, which replaces those awkward and bulky blue bins with clear bags.
Already, residents are getting used to replacing those awkward bins with bags that are easier to sort, store and transport recyclables, although the city and the BHCA are still fielding questions, such as where to buy the clear plastic bags (most markets sell clear bags, but any clear bag will do), and when it’s ok to put out the bags (after midnight).
“They are really working hard, keeping every thing clean,” says Suzanne T. Besser, executive director of the Beacon Hill Civic Association.
Added BHCA’s Ross Levanto, “Over the last couple of weeks we’ve been working with the City of Boston to basically deliver to residences all over the hill, everything you need to know about recycling. The BHCA provided the manpower and delivered them. Basically the neighborhood is being very aggressive in promoting the single stream.”
Suffolk University has also educated its off-campus students in recycling tips. “They have been great,” said Levanto. The Beacon Hill Block Party on Sunday also hosted a recycling station for further education.
Levanto is a member of what is now called the Neighborhood Life Committee, with new members Rajan Nada of Garden Street, and Meghan Haggerty of Joy Street, as well as Janet Terlizzi of Mount Vernon Street. The committee also works on street lights and brick replacements.
They and the rest of the BHCA also aims to encourage more of the larger buildings to purchase toters, to get after dog owners to pooper-scoop for their pets, and to ask for street sweeping through the winter, rather than taking a break from November to April. “It makes a real difference,” Besser said.
When the leaves fall, the Hill’s fall edition of its twice annual Neighborhood Cleanup Day is Oct. 18. “The neighborhood get people to clean up the streets, and the city provides extra workers to pick up the bags, along with other fun activities,” says Levanto, who believes it will be similar to last fall’s event, which featured “Scare Street Stations” at the playgrounds, a neighborhood potluck at the BHCA headquarters, and T-shirts.
Levanto says the BHCA chuckles at itself when it goes through old photos and articles and letters, almost all of which are concerned with keeping the neighborhood clean. “Cleanliness is always an issue,” Levanto says. “We have three days of trash pickups, and things still get messy.”
But he also says that over the years, he has seen big changes. “What has really worked well is the aggressive towing posture by DPW Chief Dennis Royer,” he says. “They will do whatever they can to remove cars during street sweeping days. That has had a dramatic effect on Beacon Hill.”
Before the towing, residents were ticketed: “To be totally blunt, the ticket for being parked illegally was a parking expense to people, it was cheaper than parking it in a garage,” he says. “But he reality is, the street sweeper comes in at taxpayers’ expense, and it was useless because trash is trapped underneath the cars.”
He also praises the smaller street sweeper “green machine” that’s easier to get around the tight neighborhood. “The two or three days after move in day, Sept. 1, I walked down Myrtle Street 1 and it was a disaster,” Levanto recalled. When called up City Hall for the Green Machine, it did the trick quickly. He says the BHCA has also been able to request the machine to make extra passes around the neighborhood during certain special events, such as the garden tours.

A reading of extensive depositions and voluminous court papers on file in Suffolk Superior Court reveals that from the start John Winthrop and his colleagues on the co-op board at 68 Beacon Street did not want John Walsh as a fellow tenant.
And in the end, Winthrop, et al, got their way but at a cost of $2.2 million, the price of a settlement reached with Walsh, who claimed he was rejected by the co-op board at 68 Beacon not just because he was Irish, but because his ancestors didn’t land in the New World on the Mayflower.
Two boxes of depositions and legal documents weighing about 30 pounds details the expensive and complex legal jockeying that went on between lawyers representing Winthrop, an architect, descended from the Plymouth landing Winthrop’s and Walsh, a builder an entrepreneur, the owner of the Elizabeth Grady skin care salons.
By all accounts this was a classical example of old wealth American gentry paying lip service to the notion of doing what is just and right while making every effort to exclude the new wealth Walsh.
“The case is about Jonathan Winthrop’s scheming to reject John Walsh as a potential buyer of the unit at 68 Beacon Street,” wrote one of Walsh’s lawyers, Peter Antonelli of McCarter and English, LLP, the Franklin Street law firm.
Antonelli indicated that the cooperative’s by-laws provided that Walsh was entitled to purchase the ground floor unit in the building that is located at the corner of Charles and Beacon Street so long as he, Walsh, was not reasonably objectionable.
Walsh alleged Winthrop and the co-op’s membership were driven by improper, discriminatory motives, such as Mr. Walsh was not of the same social status as the other members of the board.
For their part, the co-op board members denied Walsh’s allegations.
A central figure in the case was Boston Globe columnist Steve Bailey. He wrote four articles, the first appearing in the Globe in October 2006 after Walsh was deemed reasonably objectionable by the co-op board.
Bailey titled his first piece, “An American Dream Denied.”
He described Winthrop and Walsh as two men who come from very different worlds – and, he wrote, “Jonathan Winthrop has every intention of keeping it that way.”
Bailey was forced into being deposed by the co-op board’s attorneys. During lengthy depositions, the board’s attorneys attempted to link Bailey with Walsh. However, Bailey had no relationship with Walsh other than to interview him for the articles he wrote, court papers reveal.
Bailey was represented by Jonathan Albano of Bingham McCutchen, LLP, the Federal Street law firm.
The effort to keep Walsh from buying into the co-op apparently ruffled the feathers of other members of the Winthrop family.
In a third Bailey piece appearing in the Globe in November 2006, Bailey quoted a cousin of Winthrop as stating he resented being tarred with the brush of snobbery and classicism.
“John Winthrop speaks for himself and his discriminating neighbors and not for the family,” said the Winthrop family relative.
The defendants in the case Walsh brought to Superior Court are Winthrop, F. Taylor Mudge, Ann Righter and Francois Poulet as members of the board of 68 Beacon Street.
They were represented by Daniel Lissner of Boyle, Morrissey and Campo P.C. the Atlantic Avenue law firm.
Wlash, according to records, detailed an extensive renovation of the first flour space. His plans revealed the use of marble akin tot that one could find at the Ritz Carleton Hotel.
According to Mudge’s deposition and to statements allegedly made by Winthrop and Righter, the trustees were concerned during the interview with the Walsh’s that they talked about and made reference to the lobby of the former Ritz Carleton Hotel – with mention of marble.
“We had issues with that,” said Taylor-Mudge, according to court records. Taylor-Mudge also pointed out that Winthrop is an architect and that Mrs. Righter is married to an architect.
Walsh, a builder with a no nonsense demeanor, did not impress the co-op board members. In fact, his effect on them was just the opposite.
Mrs. Righter, a social worker, in fact, made a comment that she was afraid for Mrs. Walsh after listening to Mr. Walsh and viewing his demeanor.
“I’d be afraid to get into the elevator with Mr. Walsh,” she said, according to court papers reviewed by the Beacon Hill Times.
The imbroglio began in 2006 when Walsh approached the Sovereign Bank, co-op members and owner of the unit he wished to buy at 68 Beacon Street.
Walsh negotiated a deal with the Sovereign Bank to purchase the unit. However when the co-op board learned of his intentions, they approached the bank in order to buy it for themselves, court records reveal.
Walsh submitted detailed plans for the nearly $1 million renovation of the first floor space.
Co-op board members were apparently fearful that Walsh was going to use the unit for commercial purposes despite Walsh’s willingness to place a stipulation in the deed disallowing commercial use. The co-op board members said that Walsh’s plans were too invasive.
Both Winthrop and Walsh ran up huge lawyer’s fees in their efforts to prevail.
In the end, Winthrop and the co-op board members settled with Walsh in order to put the case to rest.
There is an ancient Latin phrase that the law is impartial, considers the respective claims, not the social position of the litigants. (Quaestio fit de legibus, non de personis.)
In the matter of John P. Walsh versus John Winthrop, et al, nothing could be further from the truth.

History repeating itself

The great philosopher and historian Emmanuel Kant wrote that history repeats itself, that even though all of history is idiosyncratic, that historical events have replicated themselves and will always do so as a natural part of the eternal flow of the river of history.
Four years ago, one of our own, Senator John Kerry, was in a very close race to become the next president of the United States.
President Bush’s presidency was already in serious question. Iraq was a mess and a question. Our foreign policy initiatives – the Bush Doctrine – was proving to be a disaster with nearly all of our closest allies strained at trying to remain our friends.
The economy was readying to implode. The divided nation was growing increasingly divided. The Congress was at odds with itself and so was the Senate.
In such a scenario, the Democrats were smacking their lips and counting the weeks and days until the election. While doing so, the Republicans were doing what they tend to do best – that is – they were plotting Kerry’s demise.
First, they managed to take a bonafide Vietnam War hero and reduce him to bum status in one of the cruelest turnarounds in the annals of recent presidential elections.
Then they piggy backed on that turnaround and made the case that only President Bush could lead us through these difficult times when the nation needed a strong and uncompromising commander and chief in order to survive.
The long and short of this discussion is that Kerry, who might have been president, lost. And in reviewing the events of the past four years, itg is believable and likely that he was the better man.
If there was a question about his heroism in Vietnam, there is no question that Senator Kerry’s historic appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1971 helped to end the Vietnam War sooner rather than later. The echoes of his famous words decrying the war before the late Senator Fulbright’s Foreign Relations Committee will go down through the ages as Senator Kerry’s greatest moments.
Fast forward four years.
Now the Republicans are busy destroying Senator Barack Obama’s reputation in an effort to discredit his ability to think, to reason and to speak in order to win the presidency for another four years.
The Republicans winning another four years, frankly, would be a national tragedy.
The Democrats deserve the win this time around.
But thinking you are going to win, as Kerry did, and winning, as Obama wants to do, are two entirely different things.
The Republicans are presently fighting with all their know how to clutch victory out of the mouth of defeat.
And once again, they seem to be doing a much better job of it than the Democrats.

Get out and vote

There is a primary on Tuesday that is of importance to our neighborhood.