CAPTION: Gray Baldwin and Kerry Preston of New England Garden Ornaments. 

 

 


New England Garden Ornaments, importers of fine English lead and European antique garden ornaments, has relocated its business, according to the company's new owners, Beacon Hill resident Gray Baldwin and Beacon Hill business owner Kerry Preston.
Originally located in North Brookfield, Mass., New England Garden Ornaments is now in a 10,000 square-foot building right off Route 20 in Sudbury. Baldwin, who will serve as CEO, along with Preston, the company's president, took over this unique business earlier this year when the previous owner retired.

 


For Baldwin, being at the helm of New England Garden Ornaments brings together an extensive business background and great passion for gardening. Together with Preston, a landscape designer who is also the founder of Beacon Hill's Wisteria and Rose garden design and installation business, the new owners pledge to continue to build on the fine tradition that the company's founder, Nancy Grimes, established beginning in 1988.

 

 "English lead is perfectly proportioned for the smaller, cityscape gardens and perfectly suited to a Beacon Hill or Back Bay garden," said Baldwin. "In fact, if you look around many of the gardens on the Hill you will find this type of ornamentation. Now, with our new location, our Boston-based customers have easy access right off the Mass. Pike."

 


Peterson added, "I fell in love with garden ornaments the first time I visited New England Garden Ornaments nine years ago. Our hope for New England Garden Ornaments is to become the preeminent destination for the highest quality garden ornaments."

 


New England Garden Ornaments offers custom design from lead foundries and stone makers across England, as well as several mold makers and producers in the U.S. The company offers something for every house and garden, from the simplest urn to the grandest statuary. All items are made from traditional materials, such as stone, cast stone and lead, all of which weather beautifully and can be left outside year round even in the New England climate. No resin- or plastic-based materials are used in the New England Garden Ornament collection. 

 


New England Garden Ornaments is located at 25 Union Ave., Chiswick Park, Sudbury, and can be found on the Web at www.negardenornaments.com. The business can also be reached at 978-579-9500. The store hours are Tuesday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Saturday by appointment.

The Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) unveiled two alternatives for a proposed project that would link the MBTA’s Red and Blue Lines via a 1,500-foot connector beneath Cambridge Street last week.
The Red Line/Blue Line Connector would extend the Blue Line from Government Center Station to link with the Charles/MGH Station on the Red Line. The Red and Blue Lines are currently the only two lines that don’t intersect within the subway system, and the Blue Line - the system’s shortest line - runs a distance of a little more than seven miles between Bowdoin Station in downtown Boston and Wonderland Station in Revere.
According to MassDOT, the connector would allow Blue Line passengers to travel more efficiently to Massachusetts General Hospital and other medical facilities in the Cambridge Street area, as well as provide passengers from the northwest area of Greater Boston with a second airport connection and direct access to the Blue Line without making multiple connections. Another anticipated benefit of the project is to improve mobility and regional access for residents of Beacon Hill, East Boston, Cambridge and the North Shore. The connector would also upgrade a layover area for cars at the west end of the Blue Line through the creation of new storage and crossovers for rail vehicles.
The first alternative for the project would result in the elimination of Bowdoin Station. One approach would use cut-and-cover construction for much of the alignment of Cambridge Street, whereby contractors cut into the surface of the street and dig down to the depth of the tunnel to excavate it before covering the surface with metal plates while underground work is performed. Another approach would use cut-and-cover construction in the area east of Bowdoin Station and mined-tunneling – a less disruptive method - for the remainder of the alignment.
The second alternative would relocate the Bowdoin Station platform and track while preserving and upgrading its entrance and mezzanine level. The cut-and-cover approach would be used in the area of New Sudbury and Somerset streets, and mined-tunneling would be used for the remainder of the alignment.
In response to concerns about the project’s impact on Cambridge Street traffic, Mark Pelletier, vice president of the national engineering, architectural, planning and construction management firm STV Inc. and a consultant for the project, said, “We’re not going to close Cambridge Street. We’re rerouting traffic in the sections we’re working on.”
MassDOT is studying the benefits and impacts of factors including ridership, operations and service cost and maintenance in determining which approach to use. A no-build alternative is also being considered.
The Commonwealth is legally obligated to complete all environmental reviews and a design for the connector by Dec. 31, 2011, per a 2006 legal settlement with the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF), although Scott Hamway of MassDOT said that no funding was identified for construction of the connector in projections for the next 20 years.
In March of 2005, the CLF filed a lawsuit against the Commonwealth in which it claimed that the state was behind schedule on numerous transit projects that were intended to offset the traffic and environmental impacts of the Big Dig.
For more information about the Red Line/Blue Line Connector, visit www.eot.state.ma.us/redblue/.

CAPTION: Pictured, left to right, are May Nee, executive director of hopeFound; Beth Benham, treasurer of hopeFound; and Donald Greene, president of the hopeFound board.

Beacon Hill resident Beth Benham was among the individuals and corporations recognized last month for their work with hopeFound, a longtime Boston homeless services non-profit organization.
“I’ve been in Beacon Hill for quite some time and worked downtown for many years, so I was quite familiar with Boston’s homeless problem,” said Benham, who works as the CFO of Cambridge-based Hunt Alternatives Fund, a social change non-profit founded by Helen and Swanee Hunt in Denver, Colo., in 1991.
Benham now serves as the treasurer of hopeFound and has been a board member of the organization since 2000. Before that, she volunteered with St. Francis House, a Boylston Street-based non-profit that serves Boston’s homeless population.
Other recipients of the 2009 hopeFound Community Champion Awards include State Street Corporation, the Lemuel Shattuck Hospital, Caritas Communities and Board President Donald J. Greene of Bank of America.
“One of our organization’s core beliefs is that ending homeless requires the active participation of the broader community,” said Mary Nee, executive director of hopeFound. “These companies and individuals are outstanding examples of how, when we work together, we can make a difference for the homeless men and women of Boston."
While Benham is honored to receive this recognition, she said the most rewarding aspect of working with hopeFound is being a part of the organization’s evolution.
“This has been my first only participation with a non-profit as a board member, and I’ve enjoyed helping the organization with its stabilization and growth,” Benham said. “We are night and day from where we were when I joined the board.”

Koo De Kir was burglarized around midnight last Tuesday, police said.
On Oct. 27 at 12:04 a.m., Area A-1 officers responded to the home-accessories shop at 65 Chestnut St. after the alarm sounded.
A Koo De Kir employee was on the scene with a key and let officers inside the store, where they observed a small broken window on the side of the establishment and the door to the cash register lying on the floor behind the counter.
The employee told officers that it appeared only $100 was stolen and agreed to file a supplemental report with police, if anything else was found to be missing.
Officers searched the area to no avail.

The Impact Advisory Group overlooking the Government Center Garage development proposal is in general agreement – the Government Center Garage should be torn down and replaced, with a multi-use structure of retail, hotel, office and residential; the project should be situated on the optimum five acre parcel that would include about four acres of the present footprint of the garage, as well as an extra acre of City owned land, Boston Redevelopment (BRA) land and land for the NStar air rights.
In addition, the IAG agrees the site would also definitely include a new police station and a possible new school.
However, the rub for the IAG of the Government Center Garage is two-fold. First, how to get that extra acre of city owned land conveyed to the developers and secondly, does the project have to be as large as the 3 million plus square foot project that the developer is seeking permission to build from the BRA.
These two concerns dominated the IAG meeting last Wednesday night.
IAG member Bob O’Brien presented a letter (see letter on page 6) from the IAG members to Kristin Kara, Senior Project Manager outlining their concerns not only about the size of the project but also the role of IAG. The IAG members are seeking a more proactive role in the process.
“Everything that went before the official start of this project shows this spirit,” O’Brien said.
“We want this project not to be overstated but we will work to have it right especially Phase I,” IAG member Jane Forrestall added.
“I know what the North End is thinking and what is proposed is unacceptable,” IAG member Mark Paul said to the developer. “Beacon Hill and West End don’t want to see these towers either. We want to work with you on what is built.”
Peter Gori from the BRA planning division overseeing the Greenway told the IAG that his team reviewed the proposed (Government Center Garage) project and are thinking that a smaller scale project of between 12-18% less square footage would be a better.
“It would never make sense to build something smaller,” Rebecca Mattson of the development team said. “Something smaller can not financially get off the ground. This level of density is what is needed to demolish the garage.”
Gori also added that there are several projects proposed around the Greenway. IAG members asked for other perspective projects that are being planned not only around the Greenway but in the neighborhoods like the West End. Their feeling is that the Government Center Project should not be considered in a vacuum but as a part of an entire development.
Gori also added that the BRA planning team views the Government Center Garage project as the catalyst to help unlock the potential for the surrounding areas like City Hall Plaza and Bowdoin Street area.
“Until you resolve the size of the parcel and the plan for the area,” Rep. Marty Walz said, “there is not a lot for the IAG to do.”
The IAG will meet again on November 16 at which time Gori will present the proposed projects around the Greenway.

Get out and vote

Election Day is upon us.
We urge all registered voters to get out and to vote.
The neighborhoods of Beacon Hill and Back Bay should set the example in the voting trend on Election Day.
It would be a wonderful example to set.
It would be meaningful if two such important neighborhoods and voting districts proved that voter apathy and indifference have been buried at the ballot box.
It is a time and an age of voter ambiguity.
It is an era when voters, in their anger and frustration, have given up on government or tend to express themselves by failing to get out and to vote in meaningful numbers.
Many simply don’t care and they will tell you so.
This comes against a backdrop of so many who used to care so much about the political life and times of the city, the state and the nation.
This is how it was when many of us were growing up, when the nation, the state and the city was a far different place than it is today.
We have transited from a time and place of abundant voter participation to a time when many more voters stay away than actually come out to vote.
Many younger people are utterly disinterested.
Many older people feel the same way, although it is older people by and large who can be depended on to participate at much higher percentages than any other group of voters.
There is a much higher degree of voter interest in reality television shows than in the mayoral election.
The Patriots next Sunday will pull a larger crowd of neighborhood viewers than the numbers who will vote for city councilors this time around.
It is the age of wonder. It is the age of indifference.
Everyone wants to have a say but no one wants the responsibility for changing anything.
Voting remains our only link to the notion that we are descended from patriots who fought for that right and for that right alone.
Get out and vote.