CAPTION: The latest rendering of Suffolk University's 20 Somerset building, which received the unanimous approval of the Boston Redevelopment Authority last week.

Last Thursday afternoon, the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) unanimously approved the plan by Suffolk University to build a new academic building at 20 Somerset. The process has been in the works for more than three years and has been a major bone of contention between Suffolk University and local neighborhood groups when the first proposal for the site was a 30-story dormitory.
“This has been a great process and will be an exciting addition to the neighborhood,” BRA Senior Project Manager Gerald Autler said at the hearing, referring to this project. “We are still working on mitigation benefits to the abutters.
The project, in addition to the new building, calls for a renovation to the Roemer Plaza that will also note the achievements of the former Metropolitan District Commission that occupied 20 Somerset and oversaw the vast amount of open spaces in the Greater Boston region for more than 100 years.
The building will be no higher than the existing structure and will include classrooms for 850 students enrolled in both the Massachusetts Art School and Suffolk University. Specific classrooms on Temple Street will be taken out of use and transferred into more passive use for faculty and administration. Many of the outdoor student activities that occur on Temple Street will be moved to Roemer Plaza.
Evelyn Tobin, chair of the Garden of Peace said, “We wholeheartedly support this project. We were in shock when the 30-story dormitory was proposed. Today, we look forward to continuing a relationship with Suffolk University.”
The final plans for materials on Roemer Plaza and the building are still under discussion and will be reviewed by the Suffolk University Task Force at its next meeting later this month.
No one voiced any opposition to the project at the BRA meeting.

The neighborhood has sounded the alarm for helping out neighbors displaced by last week’s fire at 7 Anderson Street.
No injuries were reported in the two-alarm blaze that began around 9 a.m. Tuesday on the third floor of the six-story building, and spread to the fourth and fifth floors. Fire officials estimated damages at $250,000. “It’s apparently tons more than $250,000 with smoke damage,” said civic association Director Suzanne Besser.
“We had so many people donating clothes over the weekend,” added Besser. “People have been really generous and are interested in helping them.”
The fire displaced 10 residents, including a longtime 90-year-old resident, Mildred Cochran. The woman found a place to stay with a neighborhood friend, Betty Fitzgerald, and City of Boston Neighborhood Services coordinator William Onuoha believes he has lined up a spot for her at the Amy Lowell House in the West End.
“She has first priority there,” said Onuoha. “We needed a place that’s not only elderly-friendly but cat friendly.” Unfortunately, Cochran lost her cat in the fire.
“She’s in great spirits, and she’s going to allow us to help her,” said Onuoha. The city and local residents are trying to find housing for the other displaced residents, said Onuoha, who added seven of the 10 residents were seeking housing, and that he was working directly with most of them.
Those looking for affordable area housing include a young couple, two young professional female California natives, and two men who were sharing an apartment.
The civic association had sent out an appeal e-mail to its online list Thursday. “We had just send out the e-mail, and we received help within minutes,” said Besser.
So many people called the civic association to provide money to the displaced, that the association will be setting up a fund. “If anyone would like to donate, you can write a check out to the Beacon Hill Civic Association,” said Besser. “We’ll work with the mayor’s office and decide what the fire victims need the most.”
Civic association chair John Achatz added, “At times like this, when a disaster hits some of our residents, we are reminded how fortunate we are to have such a caring and close-knit community.”

How to help:
The city is coordinating a clothing and food drive with the civic association. Donations of food, clothing or checks can be dropped off at 74 Joy Street on weekdays. Neighborhood coordinator Will Onuoha is also taking leads on rentals in the $1,300 a month range. He can be reached at 617-635-2679.

CAPTION: Beacon Hill businesswoman Ivy A. Turner.

A few local residents are in tune with fundraising, with the February 7 Calliope concert to benefit St. Francis House.
West End resident and Beacon Hill business owner Ivy A. Turner of Ivy Associates Inc. Real Estate, will play the cello in a concert to benefit the largest day shelter in New England. Turner will play a movement from the Piano Trio by Boston composer Amy Beach. “This is my first time playing with Calliope,” said Turner.
Other members from the Back Bay and Beacon Hill area participating in this concert include Lillian Enright, Edith Walker, Christina Liu and Marianne Staniunas.
Calliope is a nonprofit volunteer music organization serving the Boston community. Membership includes about 28 singers, more than 20 instrumentalists, and several nonperforming members.
"’Celebrating Women, Celebrating Men" is the theme for this concert, mirroring the work that St. Francis House does - helping men and women get back on their feet so they can make a contribution to their world, their community,” said Music Director Julia O'Toole. “This is the first concert Calliope is holding as a benefit for St. Francis House.”
Each year, Calliope chooses one non-music organization in Boston and the surrounding area for which to do a benefit concert. The program selected for that benefit concert reflects the mission or philosophy of the organization chosen. “The program celebrates men and women who have made great contributions to our world, including writers, composers, performing artists, and sacred and secular figures that are particularly inspirational,” said O’Toole. Featured artists include Mozart, Lewis Carroll, Marian Anderson, Jesus, Abraham Lincoln, Venus, Emily Dickinson, Virgin Mary, Amy Beach and Louis Armstrong.
A Bose Sound System will be raffled off at the concert, which is at 7:30 p.m. at Old West Church at 131 Cambridge St. Individual tickets, $35 general admission; $25 (students, seniors); $40 premium seating.
The nonprofit, nonsectarian St. Francis House provides food, clothing, daytime shelter, legal help, job skills, housing placement and medical and rehabilitation services for more than 800 men and women every day.
“Last year, we did a benefit for the New England Shelter for Homeless Veterans, and the program featured Vaughan Williams' ‘Dona Nobis Pacem,’ based on the writings of Walt Whitman, and other similar pieces,” she said.

Longtime Harvard professor and American political scientist Samuel P. Huntington, 81, of Brimmer Street, died December 24 at his home on Martha’s Vineyard.
Huntington was the author of "The Clash of Civilizations?," a 1993 essay examining whether conflicts were based on divisions among cultures rather than nation states. He expanded the essay into a best-selling book, “The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order,” examining the post-cold war world. He was the author, co-author, or editor of 17 books and over 90 scholarly articles.
Cited as “one of the most influential political scientists of the last 50 years” by Huntington's friend and colleague Robert Putnam, Huntington saw his theories resurrected when examining the September 11 terrorist attack and the US “war on terror,” when attention focused on the split between the Judeo-Christian West and Islam.
Putnam told Harvard, "What was most rare about Sam, however, was his ability to combine intensely held, vigorously argued views with an engaging openness to contrary evidence and argument. Harvard has lost a towering figure, and his colleagues have lost a very good friend."
"Sam was the kind of scholar that made Harvard a great university," Huntington's friend, Harvard economist Henry Rosovsky said to the Harvard News Office. "People all over the world studied and debated his ideas. I believe that he was clearly one of the most influential political scientists of the last 50 years. Every one of his books had an impact. These have all become part of our vocabulary."
Born in New York City, son of Richard Thomas Huntington, an editor and publisher, and Dorothy Sanborn Phillips, a writer, he graduated from Stuyvesant High School, received his B.A. degree from Yale in 1946, served in the U.S. Army, earned an M.A. from the University of Chicago in 1948, and a Ph.D. from Harvard in 1951, where he had taught nearly without a break since 1950.
Huntington's first book, the controversial 1957 "The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations," is now in its 15th printing, and is about how military affairs intersect with the political realm. It was the subject of a West Point symposium last year, on the 50th anniversary of its publication.
In part, "Soldier and the State" was inspired by President Harry Truman's firing of Gen. Douglas MacArthur. At the same time, it praised corps of officers that in history remained stable, professional, and politically neutral.
From 1959 to 1962, he was associate director of the Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University. At Harvard, he served two tenures as the chair of the Government Department - from 1967 to 1969 and from 1970 to 1971.
According to his wife, Nancy, Huntington was a lifelong Democrat and served as foreign policy adviser to Vice President Hubert Humphrey in his 1968 presidential campaign. In the wake of that "bitter" campaign, she said Huntington and Warren Manshel co-founded the then-quarterly journal Foreign Policy, of which he was co-editor until 1977.
Huntington was director of Harvard's Center for International Affairs from 1978 to 1989. He founded the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies, and was director there from 1989 to 1999. He was chairman of the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies from 1996 to 2004, and was succeeded by Jorge Dominguez.
He served in the White House in 1977 and 1978 under President Jimmy Carter as coordinator for security planning for the National Security Council. In the 1980s, he was a member of the Presidential Commission on Long-Term Integrated Strategy.
In 2000, he was co-editor of "Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress". His most recent book was 2004’s "Who Are We? The Challenges of America's National Identity," a scholarly reflection on America's cultural sense of itself. He was beginning to explore religion and national identity until his health began declining in the fall of 2005. He retired in 2007, after 58 years at Harvard.
Huntington is survived by his wife of 51 years, Nancy Arkelyan Huntington; his sons Nicholas Phillips Huntington of Newton and Timothy Mayo Huntington of Boston; his daughters-in-law Kelly Brown Huntington and Noelle Lally Huntington; and his four grandchildren.
A private family burial service was held on Martha's Vineyard, where Huntington spent his summers for 40 years. In the spring, there will be a memorial service at Harvard.

Just when we all needed to drown our sorrows in orange soda, cocktails and fudgy things, the governor seeks to raise $121.5 million starting April 1 through a “fat tax” - by hitting the Bay State’s sweet tooth and eliminating the sales tax exemption on all candy, soda, sweetened beverages, and liquor.
To boost state revenues and head off additional budget cuts, Gov. Deval Patrick’s so-called “sin taxes” would include adding five-cent deposits to juice and water bottles, which would add $20 million to the state’s coffers; increasing the meals tax by 1 percentage point, to 6 percent; increasing the hotel tax by 1 percentage point, to 6.75 percent; eliminating the 5 percent tax exemption on sales of alcohol, soda, and candy; and adding bottle deposit fees to noncarbonated beverages like sports drinks, water, and juices. So far, he’s not touching doughnuts, bakery items and cookies. New Jersey and New York have a 6 to 7.5 percent sales tax on candy and soda.
Other tax hikes include Registry of Motor Vehicles (RMV) fees, and deleting a tax exemption for telecommunications companies. Republicans panned the budget for its tax increase proposals. Members of the Mass. Republican Party said the move would “strangle the economy … With unemployment nearly 7 percent and 17,000 people laid off last month, the absolute last thing we need is to increase taxes.”
So will a meals tax increase be met with an increase in restaurants’ empty seats? Will it just encourage people to decrease spending, to stop the weekend getaways or eating out one night a week? Local business owners weighed in.
“This is NOT the climate to increase taxes in our industry,” said Babak Bina, who owns Bin 26 Enoteca, Lala Rohk and the new Bina restaurant and market in downtown.
“I hope they won’t raise the tax,” said Lucia Ristorante’s manager Peter DiNardo. “From a business point of view, nobody’s too happy about it. I’m not sure what the best thing is to do.”
Liquor store owners already lose many to those who save money and can buy bottles without deposits over the border. Frank Anzalotti, executive director of the Massachusetts Package Store Association, said that consumers will just buy their alcohol in New Hampshire. But for neighborhood package stores, they don’t have that kind of customer.
Beacon Hill Wine & Spirits owner Gene Beraldi said his business would be able to take the tax hike, but he also thought about all the things he and other small business owners will now need to start collecting taxes. For example, many businesses may have to hire bookkeepers, he pointed out. He recently set up his computer, and now he’s aggravated that he’ll have to figure out a new system to compute the taxes.
“We’ll be fine,” Beraldi said. “I think this is how you help the community, to help the most amount of people, even if it costs me a few customers. But I’m probably one in 10 who feels this way. You’re taking a guy like me who doesn’t pay a sales tax, and now I have to set up my business for this. I guarantee most people don’t have bookkeepers but will need to hire one to do the sales tax. They didn’t give us much time. I just got a new computer, and now I have to redo it to calculate the taxes.”
Beraldi is also not looking forward to his sales going from, say, an easy $12.99 to $13.24 with tax. “That’s going to make a lot more change,” he pointed out.
Beraldi also wondered if the tax increase would mean having to hire more state workers, which could negate a lot of the money raised. “The biggest problem in the liquor business is you have money in hand,” he said. “They spend the money before they pay the sales tax, so there better be a new committee to hire to watch over this.”
Taxing candy? That’s going too far, said one Back Bay candy vendor, who wasn’t sure why his chocolate store needed to be included in the Sin Tax category.
“I can see the rationale behind the idea, even though it seems a little harsh to bunch us in with alcohol and tobacco, from the point of view as a health impediment,” said Teuscher Chocolates owner Stefan Bieri, who is predicting that the tobacco and liquor lobbyists will successfully work against the proposal. “A lot of our chocolates doesn’t contain a lot of sugars, so you choose your level of poison. We have anything from 37 percent cocoa to 99 percent cocoa in terms of chocolate bars.”
Bieri counter-proposed a hike in the gas tax. “It cuts down on road use and maintenance and pollution,” he said.

A few area hotel owners and managers expressed concern but not alarm at the proposed tax hike, as long as it went toward a good cause.
“I think this is a really difficult time for the commonwealth,” said Beacon Hill Bistro and Restaurant owner Peter Rait. “While I realize people are objecting to hotels and restaurants being singled out, I believe it’s up to us to make sure things like education won’t be suffering. We have to think about the long term, not the short term. I don’t think a 1 or 2 percent change in tax is going to change the level of clients we get, or change whether a person is going out for dinner.”
“Taxes are never something business people support, but I don’t think this is unreasonable,” said Liberty Hotel chief Richard Friedman. “I think it will have a minimal impact on business.”
His hotel only opened last year, so he couldn’t say if revenues were down compared to last year because of the economy. However, he proposed the governor should use some of those taxes that hotels raise toward tourism promotions.
“I think it’s the fair thing to do,” said Friedman. “More visitors are what the state so desperately needs, which will have a multiplier effect. But that takes more money. There’s no question tourism is off. Massachusetts has relatively low tourism funding, compared with other states. Each dollar of tourist promotion has a dramatic effect. They come, they buy stuff, they eat, they hire taxis, they go to retail stores, they hire people. There’s a huge domino effect.”
Boston hotels feeling the effects of the downturn are predicting fewer business travelers and tourists. PKF Consulting, a national hospitality data analysis firm, forecasts that revenue per available room locally will drop this year to $96.68, down 6.5 percent from 2008’s $103.45.
Paul Sacco, president of the Massachusetts Lodging Association (MLA), said 35 percent of the current hotel tax goes toward tourism, so if more taxes are raised by upping taxes, that’s more tourism dollars.
“We obviously support any money going to tourism from hotel taxes,” said Sacco. “But increasing that is not reasonable. If, in fact, the statewide tax is increased, the portion that will go into the tourism fund will proportionally increase.”
“The MLA would prefer any efforts to mitigate this crisis does not include occupancy tax increase,” said Sacco. “However, that said, we understand the commonwealth is in need of budgeted dollars, which will result in the pursuit of increased revenue, which will, in turn, increase occupancy taxes. “
But before that happens, not only should the state extensively research this tax increase; it should also look into taxing corporate and vacation rentals, which currently aren’t taxed for some reason, said Sacco. He’d also propose keeping a cap on local occupancy taxes, which can go as high as 4 percent if a town chooses to add a tax on top of the state occupancy taxes. “There’s your 5.7 percent tax, then there’s the local option tax that can go up to 4 percent, so in some areas it’s 9.7 percent,” said Sacco. “Our feeling is if there’s a tax increase, it should be on a statewide basis, and kept to a minimum.”

The Boston Redevelopment Authority’s (BRA) approval last Thursday of Suffolk University’s proposal of its 20 Somerset site brings to an end one stage in the community relationship but opens another more promising and long-term relationship.
First, we congratulate all parties who were involved in this long process that lasted more than three years. The dedication of the Suffolk Community Task Force, representatives of Suffolk University and BRA Senior Project Manger Gerald Autler should be duly noted as the major contributors to the project’s success. However, what is most encouraging about the final outcome of this process has been the cooperation between Suffolk University and neighborhood organizations. For too long, that relationship could be compared to a reluctant corpse and a determined gravedigger. Suffolk needed to expand its university, and that meant more buildings and students in the already crowded neighborhoods of Downtown, West End, North End and Beacon Hill. The first proposal for 20 Somerset site was a 30-story dormitory. Today, the building that is planned will be no taller than the existing building, with classrooms that will pull students off crowded Temple Street.
Today, there is a new respect between these parties. There is the acknowledgement that Suffolk University needs to expand but also the knowledge that this expansion cannot come at the expense of any single community. Today, there are written agreements that lay out non-expansion zones for Suffolk University.
We hope this spirit of cooperation and respect between the parties will continue well into the future. We also hope that all parties will abide by the spirit of compromise where everyone wins.