Back Street Update
The Back Bay Sun will provide weekly updates on Boston Water and Sewer’s Back Street project. According to Thomas R. Bagley, manager of Community Services for the BWSC, work for the week of December 4 through December 8 will be done on the block of Back Street from Embankment Road to Berkeley Street. They will be excavating and replacing the sewer line and drain line and installing drainage galleys.
Residents should call Torry Lecornec at 617-413-2121 if they have parking questions and BWSC at 617-989-7000 if they have other questions about the project.





Beacon Street residents who endured this summer’s Boston Water and Sewer project outside their Beacon Street front doors may fear the same disturbance out their back doors with the start last week of a nine-month project along Back Street.

But the hours, size and nature of the project will not resemble the Beacon Street work, said Thomas R. Bagley, manager of Community Services for the BWSC. “That [Beacon Street project] was huge compared to this,” said Bagley.

The Beacon Street project relied on trench-less technology, said Bagley. The BWSC cleaned and lined the sewer rather than replacing it. The large machines needed to pump the liner into the sewer will not be used on Back Street. Liners will be used in the Back Street project, but only from Exeter Street to Massachusetts Avenue, said Bagley. “The trucks used will be considerably smaller,” he said. The Back Street project also has a different contractor and subcontractor. The sewer lining will be completed by Insituform, said Bagley.

In addition, the sewer itself is much smaller. Bagley said the Beacon Street pipe is six feet in diameter. The sewer line on Back Street is 18 inches and the drain line is an additional 12 inches, he said.

Finally, the work hours are limited on the Back Street project from 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. unless there is an emergency or problem, said Bagley.

SIDEBAR:
Effective immediately, parking for displaced Back Street residents will be provided by the contractor D'allessandro Corp., at the Boston Common Garage. The Boston Water and Sewer Commission had previously reported that displaced residents would be given placards to park at metered spots on Beacon Street. This is no longer the case, said Bagley.

credit: Jacquelin Yessian

Croma, the eatery on Newbury Street between Fairfield and Gloucester, hosted residents of 02116 (and others) at a party for the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay on November 20. Melissa Bevelaqua, Marlborough Street, and Mary Ann Hill enjoyed the event.

credit: Jaclyn Trop



Massachusetts Avenue resident Lisa Pauli, 19 months, played beneath the Copley Square Christmas tree Wednesday night before Mayor Menino’s official lighting ceremony.

For the first time since 1960, the U.S. Olympic Marathon trials will be held in Boston. More than 100 of the country’s fastest female runners will race around Boylston, Beacon and Arlington streets and down Commonwealth Avenue for a spot on the 2008 Olympic team in Beijing.

“This is huge,” said Jack Fleming, director of communications for the Boston Athletic Association, which is sponsoring the event.

The women’s trials, which will be held on Sunday, April 20, 2008, the day before the 112th Boston Marathon, will start and finish on the traditional Boston Marathon finish line on Boylston Street.

From Boylston Street, runners will run a 2.4-mile loop around downtown Boston by heading east onto Tremont Street, around Park Street over to Beacon Street, and continuing on to Arlington Street. The course will then feature four six-mile loops that proceed down Commonwealth Avenue, cross the Massachusetts Avenue Bridge, run east, and then west along Memorial Drive. The Boylston Street finish line completes each loop.

Between 110 and 135 women are expected to compete for a place on the three-person Olympic team. The fourth and fifth place winners will continue to train as alternates, Fleming said.

The BAA, founded in 1887, hosted 12 track and field trials between 1908 and 1960, all of which followed the traditional marathon course. The 2008 trials will be the first to feature scenic downtown Boston and make “some of these iconic images part of the course,” Fleming said.

The BAA submitted a bid in January to USA Track & Field, a federation under the U.S. Olympic Committee umbrella organization, and was awarded the honor in June. Jacquelin Yessian, president of the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay, said the association commends Mayor Menino and the BBA for their successful bid.

“It is good for Boston to be the location for this prestigious event for the nation’s athletes. We are happy for the city and the attention and business it will generate,” Yessian said. “As the same time we urge, as we do for the marathon as a whole, that there be the minimum necessary disruptions for the people who live in the Back Bay."

The BAA will work with the mayor’s office and neighborhood associations to ensure minimal disruption to traffic patterns in the area. There are no specific plans for managing race traffic yet, according to Jennifer Mehigan of the Mayor’s Office, although she said precautions will most likely be similar to those taken for the Boston Marathon.

The race will begin at 8 a.m. on Sunday morning and conclude by 11 a.m., according to Fleming. “Even the slowest runner at the trials would take under three hours on a bad day,” he said.

Competitors must qualify by running a sanctioned marathon after January 1, 2006, in less than two hours and 47 minutes. Those who have completed a marathon in less than two hours and 39 minutes will have their travel expenses paid by the BAA. In addition, top finishers will share $250,000 in prize money.

As part of its sponsorship obligations, the BAA, which trumped bids from Akron, Ohio and Minneapolis-St. Paul, will also host the 2007 women’s USA National Marathon championships. Fleming said he hopes the events will attract more runners to the Boston Marathon in the coming years. “It will be an opportunity for runners to familiarize themselves with the city and our springtime climate,” he said.

Fleming said that with two Americans earning medals in the 2004 games in Athens (bronze for Deena Kastor of Mammoth Lakes, Calif. and Meb Keflezighi of San Diego), long-distance running is making a comeback. “In a lot of respects, the United States is back on the world running map,” he said.

The men’s trials will be sponsored by the New York Road Runners and will take place in New York City on November 2, 2007, during New York’s marathon weekend.

The best and worst of Boston

Last spring, when Mayor Menino suggested building a 1,000-foot building — a “bold, beautiful contemporary icon,” in the BRA’s words — on Winthrop Square, many Bostonians rolled their eyes.

As a comparison, Boston’s current tallest building, the John Hancock, stands 790 feet tall with 60 stories.

When only one developer submitted a proposal — 75 stories with a garden at ground level, designed by Renzo Piano — those same Bostonians felt that their skepticism about such an idea was vindicated. Most real estate developers are smarter than to sink money into a 21st century fantasy, they seemed to say. Furthermore, it’s only a proposal. The thing isn’t financed or permitted or built yet, they point out.

But this week comes the news from the New York Times that architects have submitted daring, dazzling designs for a tower in St. Petersburg, Russia, that is three to four times the height of the grand, historic, low-rise landmarks the city is known for. The city’s historic preservationists and architects are scandalized. The proposal’s advocates have trotted out the usual arguments for economic development.

In the same issue of the New York Times is an article about a white, curved and layered church designed by Richard Meier. While its size is not significant, its materials are. Its coating is said to devour smog and clean itself.

Rome, St. Petersburg and Boston. They share some characteristics — good looking, historic, walkable cities where urban life can be as good as it gets. To what extent should cities like these incorporate modern possibilities? How do cities like these honor their past without being shackled by it? How do they take advantage of the future without following every new trend that comes along?

We can’t write knowingly about the attitudes of the dwellers of Rome or St. Petersburg. But we do know Bostonians, partly because we are of the species.

As is the case for individuals, collectively our strongest attributes are both our best traits and our worst. For example, we value and try to preserve the smaller scale that characterizes some parts of Boston. But we will too often trade beauty for smaller scale — the Darth Vader building at the corner of Boylston and Exeter, built a couple of decades ago, is a good example of this tendency. Another example is 75 State Street, an office building designed by Graham Gund. Even though its top is flat, it has considerably more interest than most of Boston’s buildings in the Financial District. But community pressure lowered the height, so that its fanciful top is hidden. If this now-squat building had been taller it would have improved Boston’s skyline.

Another example in which our best characteristic is also our worst is in technology. Although the Boston area is known for its high-tech inventiveness, we are happy to keep things the way they are in our public services. Let’s take the Charlie ticket and Charlie card. Are we the last city in the world to enter into electronic ticketing in our transit system? There was no public outcry when years went by and we were still handing our change over to a person sitting in a 1920s-style booth and toting our tokens around until they were used up. It is a small matter, but a telling one about our attitude.

Now that the lights are once again strung on the Commonwealth Avenue Mall, we are reminded of the brouhaha that was unleashed in 1999 when the lights were first put up. We ran an article about it in the only newspaper we then published, The Beacon Hill Times, because we felt it was a disagreement that could occur only in Boston. In any other city, the lights would have been lauded, but in the Back Bay a good number of people complained. They said the lights were inappropriate — maybe even common. With the support of several influential people, including Henry Lee, president of the Friends of the Public Garden, who said that Christmas couldn’t be too gaudy for him, the lights were strung. We’ve heard few complaints in recent years, so we assume that the opponents have accepted their fate.

Our conservative traits sometimes protect us. Sometimes they make us act foolishly. They are not necessarily right or wrong. But in all our decisions about our public realm, we must be aware of these attitudes and tendencies and realize how they can help us or hurt us.