Storrow Drive’s neighborhood advisors expected to discuss traffic counts and other quantitative measures that mostly confirmed what they already knew — that Storrow Drive is heavily used.

But at the Storrow Drive Tunnel Project’s transportation advisory committee meeting on Wednesday night, they gave two clear directives to state officials in charge of figuring out how to repair the tunnel and possibly change roadway alignments at the Arlington Street exit and entrance.

Storrow Drive traffic should be reduced. This road is after all a parkway and should not be carrying the same burden per lane as the Mass Pike.

Furthermore, any proposals to change Storrow Drive around the Arlington Street exits and entrances must include an investigation of how locating Mass Pike on and off ramps somewhere in the Back Bay would affect traffic on the parkway as well as on Back Bay’s local streets.

“All the roadway systems are integrated,” said state Representative Marty Walz. “The issue of the ramps needs to part of this working group’s agenda.”

Making it a part of the agenda may be easier than it has been until now since at this meeting Elliott Laffer, executive director of the Boston Groundwater Trust and an experienced neighborhood advocate, was elected this Storrow Drive transportation advisory committee’s chair, and the chair helps set the agenda for the meetings.

“We can’t walk away from this,” he said. “This is part of the agenda.”

Meg Mainzer-Cohen, president of the Back Bay Association, the neighborhood’s business organization, also pushed for including ramps as part of the traffic investigation.

Mainzer-Cohen was frustrated by officials’ reluctance to bring up again what had been a controversial topic 20 years or so ago when plans for the Big Dig were being made. But now it appears that there is a growing consensus that ramps could solve more traffic problems than they would cause. “When is the appropriate time to focus on the ramp issue?” she asked. “The commonwealth needs to focus on this to make it work. We’re chomping at the bit.”

It is uncertain at this time how the group will acquire the funds needed to add this piece to the Storrow Drive investigations, which have been going on for about eight months. Another uncertainty, with a change of administrations, is who is actually in charge.

Meanwhile, transportation planner Tom Lisco presented data that was sobering to Storrow Drive neighbors. The busy parkway carries more cars per day — about 130,000 — than I-95 south of Route 128 or any of the harbor tunnels. It is about the same as the Mass Pike west of Route 128. The heaviest concentration of traffic is along the Back Bay, Beacon Hill and the West End, or from Charlesgate to Leverett Circle, with those ramps also carrying the most burden.

Per lane it carries as much traffic as I-93 and the Mass Pikc.

Some controversy emerged over the counts of local traffic, which might get on at Charlesgate, drive east, and get off at Arlington, versus through traffic, which might get on past the Harvard Stadium and get off at Leverett Circle. The percentages matter because some Storrow Drive advocates see through traffic as a good candidate for redirecting to the Mass Pike. At least one committee member, Peter Thomson of Beacon Hill, was getting different conclusions from the data than Lisco. That still has to be resolved.

Disappointingly to committee members, Lisco was pessimistic about getting drivers out of their cars and onto public transportation in this corridor. But Walz was disdainful of rejecting transit out of hand and wants that factored in. “Another way to frame the question is how can transit alleviate some of the traffic,” she said. “Don’t state it as a negative. How is the MBTA system a part of the solution?”

“God is in the details,” wrote modernist architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.

Now, it seems, God’s details will face judgment day by the Boston Landmarks Commission: Should the Christian Science Center, with its 19th-century church buildings and I.M. Pei/Araldo Cossutta buildings and plaza become a landmarked site?

The issue comes up now because leaders of the church, whose headquarters are located on a 14-acre site where Huntington and Massachusetts avenues meet, are engaged in a strategic planning process. Part of the process involves deciding what to do with the church’s extensive real estate holdings.

“I read an article that alarmed me,” said architectural historian and author Douglass Shand-Tucci of Commonwealth Avenue, who this week submitted a petition to the Boston Landmarks Commission to begin the landmark designation process. The article in question speculated that the church might sell some properties or lease them. Calling the Pei site plan with its reflecting pool a masterpiece and citing how the 1970s design enhances the original church buildings, Shand-Tucci believed that landmark status would give the area some protection. “It’s a potential threat,” said Shand-Tucci about any change the church might be considering. “At least we’ve succeeded in putting it on [the landmarks commission’s] radar screen.”

The landmarks commission agreed at its meeting this past Wednesday to study the petition, which is the first of several steps required to designate a property a landmark.

Christian Science church leaders said they are not opposed to a landmark study. “The plaza is privately owned but it benefits the public,” said Barbara Burley, senior manager for real estate planning and operations for the church. “It is the right thing to do.”

The church is putting together a team to assess the best use of its real estate and to begin a master planning process. This fall the church sold founder Mary Baker Eddy’s Chestnut Hill and Lynn homes to a foundation, according to reports in the Christian Science Monitor, the well-regarded newspaper that Eddy also founded.

“The sales agreement is part of a comprehensive plan the church announced in April to make significant changes in its real estate holdings, citing a desire to focus more single-mindedly on its spiritual ministry and to devote less time and money to property management,” said the article. “Real estate-related expenses currently absorb 25 percent of the church budget.”

Church officials believe that landmark status will not compromise their planning, and they do not know yet if it will help, said church spokesperson Norman Bleichman.

There is still a question about whether Church Park should be included in any landmark designation. It is the apartment building that lines Mass. Ave. across from the plaza and was designed as a buffer for the site. Another technicality is whether the site would be considered as an individual site or as a district.

In any event, Shand-Tucci hopes the plaza and its reflecting pool will be preserved and the means will be found to maintain the 35-year-old installations. “It’s one of my favorite places to be,” he said, describing it as serene and contemplative. “I live in the Back Bay and I love it.”

CAPTION: Students gathered in front of the newest addition to the Fisher College campus, One Arlington Street.
CREDIT: Courtesy photo


Fisher College opened the doors of One Arlington Street to its students and administrative officials last week and plans soon to invite its neighbors in as well for a glimpse of the impressive interior that still retains some chandeliers, marble fireplaces, paneling and wall coverings of its past.

“With this purchase,” said Fisher College President Charles C. Perkins, “the college expands its campus and signals its commitment to positioning itself as a vital baccalaureate institution.”

Restoration and renovation work began last summer and is still ongoing in the new building, which overlooks the Public Garden and has views of the city’s skyline and the Charles River. When the work is completed, the elegant building will house the admissions, bursars and financial aid offices. A ballroom on the second floor will be used for public and alumni events, and faculty offices and classrooms will occupy the fourth and fifth floors. The athletic department and an exercise area will be located in the basement.

One of the first buildings in the Back Bay, One Arlington Street was built in 1861 by John Simmons, a clothing merchant whose endowment later established Simmons College. Gridley J. F. Bryant and Arthur Gilman, architects of the Arlington Street Church and Commonwealth Avenue Mall, designed it, according to information provided by the college,

William F. Weld, grandfather of the former Massachusetts governor, purchased the residence in 1862 for $55,000 and lived there for 17 years. The Catholic Archdiocese had owned the building since the 1930s, and the League of Catholic Women used it as a social club for decades. In the 1970s, it was home to the Boston School of Modern Languages, Emerson College used it for office space in the 1980s, and most recently it was home to a health care staffing firm.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony for the public will be held in March.

credit: Suzanne Besser
caption: Newbury Street resident Jo-Ann Leinwand, a new member of NABB’s board of directors, co-chairs the committee.





The City Services Committee of the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay is not afraid to talk dirty — that is, about things like trash maintenance, rodent control, street cleaning and graffiti. At the very core of the committee are 18 folks who really care about the community and are willing to spend their time working with their neighbors to rid themselves of such filth.

They are the block captains, although some call them alley captains because they are most frequently seen walking through those long narrow passageways so characteristic of the Back Bay and so prone to collecting litter of all sorts. And rats. Big ones.

Newbury Street resident Jo-Ann Leinwand, a new member of NABB’s board of directors, co-chairs the committee with Sandi Gaskin of Marlborough Street. At least once a week Leinwand walks the length of the alley she’s responsible for — Alley #434 which runs between Exeter and Dartmouth streets, Newbury Street and Commonwealth Avenue — to check for litter, unclosed trash dumpsters, improperly stored trash and other problems which attract rats. Some block captains who park their cars in the alley check them even more frequently, she said.

And when they find something, they go right into action. On a walk through her alley earlier this week, Leinwand found a dumpster that was not closed tightly. It is a pet peeve of hers because overloaded dumpsters or ill-fitted ones that don’t close properly leave plenty of room for rodents to crawl in. “It’s like giving the rats dinner,” she said, “and in the case of dumpsters owned by restaurants, it’s giving them a very gourmet dinner.”

In cases like this, the block captains have a certain protocol, lest they be seen as vigilantes. They first call the dumpster’s owners several times to ask them to fix the problem. If that fails to succeed, they then post a bright orange flyer that looks like a fine but is in fact a “friendly trash reminder from NABB” which begins by saying “We have noticed that you have put your trash out in a way that is causing problems for all of us.” The block captain then indicates what exactly the owner is doing wrong, such as placing trash out at the wrong time (should be no earlier than 6:00 a.m. and before 8:00 a.m. on the day of pick-up), not securing it properly (must be placed in barrels with tight-fitting covers or in two-ply trash bags, not in open containers or paper bags) or having littered sidewalks and alleys (residents are responsible for keeping the alleys and the sidewalks in front of their building clean and free of litter.)

If the property owner still does not solve the problem, the block captains will ask for help from NABB, report repeat violations to Code Enforcement or contact the mayor’s office. City Councilor Mike Ross has been very helpful, Leinwand said, and last December organized alley cleanings involving the city’s graffiti busters and public work employees.

But there are times when the city can’t help. Pedro Torres of Inspectional Services, who is most often referred to as the city’s rat guy, can’t help get rid of the vermin on private property, for example. Residents who leave bags of trash in the opening of alleys when landlords don’t provide adequate trash storage are hard to find, educate and ticket. The cleanup of trash remaining on the sidewalk after pickup by the city or spilled by trash pickers is the responsibility of the building owners. And, trash that is not picked up attracts more trash, said Leinwand. “It becomes a cycle,” she said, “and the rats become a chronic problem. Maybe you can’t ever get rid of them, but you can at least lessen them so that people won’t see them.”

“The block captain program is really making a difference,” said City Councilor Ross. “It’s a very effective initiative. They tackle some of the daily problems and bring about solutions. In a dense neighborhood with a lot going on with the residents and the restaurants, it’s a lot of hard work. The city can’t do it alone. You need to have an active citizenry like this.”

Besides Leinwand, the block captains doing all that hard work are Joan Hyde (414), Marie Doherty (415/416), Fran Duffly (416), Elisabeth Lay (417), Christa Kaufman (418), Fay Dabney (421/422), Aline Cullen (425), Ellen Steinbaum (426), Sherry Robinson (429), Debbie Roth (431), Mary Crozier (433), Nancy Tavitan (437), Barbara Papesch (905/908), Sandi Gaskin (418/425) and Calla J. S. Adams, Jack Gregg and Robert Beech (sections of Back Street). But, Leinwand said, they are less than half the number needed to cover every block. Her goal is to get more block captains every year.

We need better design

Last week there was some confusion about a decision made by the Back Bay Architectural Commission. The Sun did a story on the commission’s January hearing, and after getting everything right for ten months, we misinterpreted the commission’s directive on one matter. It involved the solar-powered trash compactors now lining Boylston and Newbury streets. We said they were not approved, but in fact they were.

We made a correction last week. On the same day, the Boston Globe did a story that further confused the reading public. For awhile there was a little flurry of “what’s going on?” What was going on was that the commission liked the compactors’ function but not their design, and felt stymied in that they didn’t have much of a choice.

But whether the compactors are approved or not is only one question. The larger issue is why can’t the companies that bring us such innovative equipment as the compactors do a better job in the first place in designing the look of their products?

It reminds us of the plumber who joins every pipe permanently so that there are no leaks but runs it awkwardly across the ceiling of the floor below — or the electrician whose lights always work even though he puts the switch in the middle of the wall. All those who have ever had work done in their home appreciate and hire again the plumber or the electrician who takes as much care with the aesthetics as he does with his techniques.

But the design of fixtures along our streets often suffers. Let’s take traffic control boxes as one example. They should be smaller. They could be black. They could be buried in the street where they would take up no space at all.

Street lights are another problem. In this city there are several different kinds depending on the era in which they were installed. Big globes line some streets. Rigid right-angled posts shine elsewhere in the city. In a perfect world, all of Boston’s streets would have uniform lighting with only two or three different styles depending on the type of fuel — electricity or gas — powering the light.

Street signs in this city, if they are present at all, are also unfortunate. They are green, unless you are in the Longwood Medical Area, where they are blue. The signs are often bent, sometimes stolen or stuck on poles that impede progress down the street. We could mention that the city of Paris has figured out how to put up street signs that are in plain sight, easy to read and affixed to buildings on every corner. There is evidence on some buildings in the older parts of the city that once Boston’s street signs were wooden, better looking and affixed to buildings, but these have mostly disappeared.

It’s not only Paris that has perfected the design of certain street fixtures and other items. London telephone booths, buses and taxi cabs are iconic. The designs of some of these are changing, perhaps not for the better.

The company that makes the trash compactors promises it will return to the architectural commission with a more appropriate design. We’ll welcome that. Who knows? Such a design might be appropriate for every neighborhood in our city and might become a beloved symbol of a city that needs better industrial design.