Developer Jean Abouhamad’s plan to convert Zero Marlborough Street into luxury condos is one step closer to fruition. Last week the city’s Board of Appeals and Boston Redevelopment Authority approved his plans to convert the former Emerson dorm into condo units.

The plan is to return the building to its original use, said Abouhamad, president of Sea-Dar Construction, by restoring the building and creating 15 residential condominiums. Because of its prime location and scenic views, the building is well suited for high-end living, and Abouhamad’s dream is to create luxurious floor-through units on the upper levels, multi-million dollar condos each measuring more than 3,000 square feet — with the exception of the multi-tiered penthouse, which would be around 4,700 square feet with two levels of roof decks.

“It is very exciting to get approval from the city and now be able to focus on delivering beautiful units to the neighborhood,” said Abouhamad.

Construction on the high-end condos should wrap up in 2008, said Abouhamad. “We already have one unit under agreement and several other interested parties,” he added.

Beacuse the neighborhood voiced concerns and the Back Bay Architectural Commission vetoed Abouhamad’s plans to put parking under the building Abouhamad said he found a solution. “We’ll be renting spots in areas and [plan to] have a valet service for residents,” he said.

Abouhamad and Sea-Dar Construction have renovated townhouses on Beacon, Exeter and Marlborough streets and Commonwealth Avenue. Abouhamad heads a group of investors that bought Zero Marlborough Street (also known as 6 Arlington Street) from Emerson College on August 23, 2006, for $12.8 million. Built as floor-through apartments in 1929, the 12-story, 40,000-square-foot art deco building was used as a dormitory for the Katherine Gibbs School from 1953 to 1988, and as an Emerson dorm from 1988 to 2006.

Abouhamad and Sea-Dar Construction’s plans for the Marlborough Street building garnered support at the Board of Appeals and BRA hearings from the Mayor’s Office, City Councilor Michael Ross and the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay (NABB).

“As far as we were concerned the project is a good fit for the neighborhood,” said Will Onuaha of the Mayor’s Office. “With the Back Bay being one of the more sought after neighborhoods in Boston, adding more residential units helps meet the needs of the growing population there.”

Senate President Robert Travaglini has assigned Senator Dianne Wilkerson, who represents the Back Bay, to chair the Committee on State Regulatory Oversight. The duty of the committee is to consider all matters concerning competitive bidding on public contracts, public construction open meeting laws, state regulations, state agencies, lobbyists' reporting laws and such other matters.

This will be Wilkerson’s eighth time heading the committee.

“I’m delighted to again chair this important state committee,” said Wilkerson. “It has been very exciting in the past as it pertains to the lives of people throughout the Commonwealth.”

As the committee chair, Wilkerson said her first significant challenge will be her role as the senate’s point person for Govenor Deval Patrick’s plan to reorganize how the state deals with its competitive bidding, public contracts and public construction.

“This committee really deals with what state government will look like in the future,” said Wilkerson. “While we are about to go through another major reorganization, as we did when Govenor Mitt Romney was sworn in, I see the committee focusing on dealing with the state investment portfolios abroad.”

Right now, the state invests in companies or products in Darfur and Iran, and Wilkerson would like to see the state become more socially conscious.

“It’s a challenge to investigate how state money is used but I don’t want it used to fund genocide,” said Wilkerson. “Instead it should be used as it has been historically, to fund high profile-major development that improves the lives of the residents of Massachusetts.”

Aside from appointing committee chairs, Travaglini announced that he has reappointed the leadership team that has served with him over the last four years.

“This dynamic group of Senate leaders brought intelligence, creativity and passion to the chamber which has served the Senate well,” said Senate President Travaglini. “With their guidance, I am confident we will again accomplish our legislative goals this session.”

The leadership team includes Senator Frederick E. Berry, Majority Leader; Senator Marian Walsh, Assistant Majority Leader; Senator Joan M. Menard, Majority Whip; Senator Robert A. Havern, Assistant Majority Whip; Senator Therese Murray, Chair of Senate Ways and Means; Senator Steven C. Panagiotakos, Vice-Chair of Senate Ways and Means; and Senator Stanley C. Rosenburg, President Pro Tempore.

Senate President Travaglini also named Senator Stephen J. Buoniconti to chair the Financial Services Committee and the Senate’s newest members, Senators Gale Candaras and Ben Downing to head the Mental Health and Substance Abuse and Public Service Committees respectively.

District Four Police Officer Billy Kelly does not like to refer to himself as an “expert,” but in truth the veteran officer is a walking, talking database of graffiti crime in the city of Boston.

Kelly, who worked for years in Brighton, under then District-14 Captain William Evans, started focusing on graffiti crime in that neighborhood after making a number of arrests. When Evans moved over to D-4 and the Back Bay earlier this year, he brought Kelly with him because of Kelly’s background and track record of success in halting the graffiti crime wave in Brighton.

“Over the years, I’ve photographed graffiti tags from every arrest I’ve ever made and it has all gone into a three-ring binder, to create a kind of database of known taggers,” explained Kelly earlier this week. “I wouldn’t say that we completely stopped graffiti crime in Brighton, but we’ve seriously slowed it down. To the point that I was confident the neighborhood would continue to fight against the crime, I left to come over to the Back Bay.”

That three-ring binder, Kelly’s expertise and local volunteers have already begun to stem the tide of graffiti crime that was washing over the Back Bay just six months ago.

“The bottom line with graffiti is that if you stay on top of it, they (the taggers) will move away,” said Kelly. “They get tired of wasting their paint and risking getting caught if every time they leave a tag it gets cleaned up right away.”

One of Kelly’s first acts when he arrived in District D-4 was to meet with the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay (NABB) sponsored Graffiti NABBers, to help them devise a plan of attack to fight against graffiti crime.

“Kathleen Alexander, a local realtor and co-chair of Graffiti NABBers, said the group has a three-pronged approach to combating graffiti in the Back Bay.

“First of all, we work on removal where we can,” said Alexander. “We’ve worked with the city to get permission to remove tags from public objects like lampposts, parking meters, signs, fences, trash cans and places like that,” explained Alexander. “We hope to deter the graffiti by removing it right away. The second part of the approach is to work with property owners and business owners to obtain permission slips to allow the city to remove larger tags from the sides of buildings.”

Alexander and Kelly both explained that graffiti tags in the Back Bay’s alleys are a particular area of concern. Over the years taggers have felt emboldened to deface the backs of buildings in the alleys, partly because there is less likelihood they’ll be caught, and because past inaction in those areas has left many taggers with the impression that it is acceptable to spray graffiti in the alley.

The third prong of NABB’s approach is to follow up on prosecuting those taggers who have been caught.

“That includes testifying at the trials, providing victim impact statements and taking photos of the graffiti as evidence,” said Alexander. “The hope is to prevent future graffiti crime by holding accountable those people who are responsible for tagging in our neighborhood.”

Meanwhile, Kelly said he and Captain Evans have started to work with officers in other precincts and neighboring cities to expand the tagging database and track taggers who may be operating in several areas of the city or in other cities.

“We’ve worked at sharing information (between precincts) more and more over the years, but now we’re trying to make it more organized by holding a meeting once a month at the District 4 headquarters,” said Kelly. “That way if government center station catches a kid and we can match his work to one of one crimes, we can charge him with more crimes and increase the penalties.”

Both Kelly and Alexander said that one of the best allies the neighborhoods have in fighting against graffiti crime is the city’s Graffiti Busters unit, which operates out of the city’s property division.

“Mike Bartosiak and his people do a great job of responding to requests to remove tags,” said Kelly. “I’ve seen the Graffiti Busters working on Friday afternoons before a long weekend, to make sure that new tags are not around for the whole weekend.”

And limiting the visibility of new tags is one of the surest ways to discourage taggers from returning to an area.

“There’s a whole subculture that is based on having their tags seen in unique places and getting respect from other taggers,” explained Kelly. “If you remove the tags those two things don’t happen and the taggers move on to other areas.”

“The other thing is that there is a real cost to graffiti crime,” noted Alexander. “In areas where the city can’t remove a tag, a private company has to be hired to do that work. One Back Bay condo association spent $10,000 having tags removed from the side of its building last year and that can really impact how much it costs to live here.”

For a small business, $10,000 in clean-up costs would represent a sizeable chunk of its profits as well, and Alexander pointed out that some buildings cannot be properly repaired because of their historical significance.

“Repeated power washings of some of the stone or brick buildings in the Back Bay degrades the surface of those buildings, many of which can’t be replaced,” she said. “It really pains me to see historic buildings, like churches, continuously hit by graffiti.

Alexander and Kelly both recommend that residents and businesses victimized by graffiti crime file police reports of the incidents, take photos of the graffiti and promptly remove the tags once those reports are filed.

For help in removing large tags, both residents and businesses can contact the Mayor’s Graffiti Buster’s office at 617-635-3492 and ask to speak to Mike Bartosiak.

credit: Penny Cherubino
caption #1: A mixture of salt and sand was mistakenly deposited on the Commonwealth Avenue Mall last week.
caption #2: Booties, like these modeled by Maggie Mae, help dogs deal with the perils of salt on their paws.




After years of the parks department perfectly grooming the center path of the Commonwealth Avenue Mall with sand, a plow driver mistakenly applied a mixture of salt and sand to the park on Sunday. A supervisor’s vacation and some misinterpreted instructions led to the mix-up according to Assistant Commissioner of Parks, Bernie Lynch.

Parks staff planned a quick correction for the mishap. “We have retrieved the sweeper we have for downtown from its winter storage location and will be sweeping the affected areas of the mall,” said Lynch. He stressed that, as in winters past, sand not salt is the choice for the mall and the Public Garden.

The Boston Common is treated with a salt and sand mixture, as are the heavily-traveled brick sidewalks along the streets that cross the mall. “In a few locations, on the stairways and the bridge in the Public Garden, we use the environmentally-friendly calcium chloride pellets,” said Lynch.

Decisions on how to deal with icy surfaces are important to the health of plantings. “Salt applied on any pavement washes onto the grass and trees and is damaging to both. The very wise policy of the parks department to suspend use of a salt mix on the central walkway has greatly helped the vigor of the trees and turf,” says Margaret Pokorny from the Commonwealth Avenue Mall Committee.

Salt on Back Bay roads and sidewalks is also bad news for neighborhood dogs. “The salt can cause ulcerations and lesions that can become very irritating for the dogs and cause them to lick at their feet and lead to infection. The licking can result in GI irritation because they are ingesting the salt. It can result in vomiting or diarrhea,” says Pamela Bendock, VMD, owner of the Back Bay Veterinary Clinic on Newbury Street.

She has suggestions to protect your dog’s paws from salt damage. “There are some dogs whose feet are more sensitive than others. They can wear a protective boot." When you return from a salty walk you should “…rinse the dog’s feet off with warm water and dry them very carefully to make sure the feet don’t stay moist.”

And there are times when she thinks you should check in with your vet. This would be if a paw is bleeding, cracked or ulcerated and in the case of vomiting or diarrhea since these symptoms may not be related to the salt.

Salt is also one of the culprits in the stray electrical current that has killed at least four Boston dogs in recent winters. Electrical problems can occur when salt applied to roads and sidewalks corrodes electrical equipment. Salty water can serve as a conductor causing stray current to spread to metal grates, utility covers, and even to paving material and bare ground.

For those concerned with the problems caused by salt, there are alternatives. Pokorny suggests using calcium magnesium acetate or mixtures with sand, sawdust and kitty litter. There are downsides with each of these in terms of expense or the mess they may track into your home, but these options are less damaging to plants, pets, and structural elements.

credit: D. Harney


The Charles River froze during the recent cold snap.

Michael Ross

We’re sorry about Michael Ross, our city councilor. Earlier this week he was fined by the state Ethics Commission for getting 35 parking tickets dismissed. The commission determined that those tickets were issued while Ross was on personal business, not city business, for which he would have been entitled to dismissal under a city council program.

Ross did not have a Beacon Hill resident sticker on his car even though he was a resident and, he said, his car was registered at his Beacon Hill address. We’re sorry he was careless and didn’t investigate how the residential parking program applied to him. He should know the rules since, except for the West End, his district has residential parking on almost every street. If he had paid attention to those rules and secured a residential sticker for the period of time he lived on Beacon Hill, he would have had fewer tickets.

He also had tickets for overtime parking at meters. Anyone in downtown Boston can understand that problem. You drive around fruitlessly for 45 minutes late at night trying to find a space on the residential streets. Having given up, you park at a meter along one of the commercial streets. You have to make sure you get up early enough to move your car before the meters are in effect. That takes discipline and maturity.

Ross is 35 years old, but in his carelessness he behaved like the cliché of the 20-something male who skirts neighborhood rules because of immaturity. As a kid like that grows older, gets married and has children, everyone has confidence he will eventually become a responsible member of the community.

We’re also sorry because in this matter Ross, who works hard, attends or has his staff attend every community meeting and is extremely responsible about his constituents, looks as if he is just another corrupt politician, fixing a ticket because he can.

Other councilors, and most Bostonians, will not be sympathetic to Ross. After all, they, unlike him at the time, have their own driveways and won’t understand the problem.

State Representative Marty Walz, whose district boundaries are similar to Ross’s, will not sympathize. Like half the people in Ross’s district, she doesn’t even have a car, and she is certainly not pleased with a story about a politician behaving as people expect politicians to behave.

Is this matter fatal for Ross’s political career? Probably not. It will be harder for a few months, at least, for him to credibly urge the city to collect fines for trash or news box scofflaws, since he tried to get his own fines dismissed. That’s too bad for him and for us.

Is this city council program that dismisses tickets a good one? If city councilors decide they should be exempt from certain parking restrictions, then they should do so with a program that doesn’t require “fixing” a ticket, which smacks of 1920s politics.

Ross has declared he will not take advantage of the city council’s sanctioned ticket-fix at all from now on. He paid the fines and a penalty. He apologized. Moreover, several months ago he moved to Mission Hill, where he has a parking space under his house, so many of his parking problems will be over.

In all the time this newspaper has known Ross and consistently endorsed him, we’ve never known him to be a skimmer or a cheater in any way. So he could learn from this. He could be more careful. He could park his car at City Hall and walk or take taxis to many meetings in his nearby district.

He could still get in trouble, however. He is a guy who seems to have it all — looks, intelligence, enviable experience and training, and power. He is a target for all those out there who are envious of what he has achieved, and some of them have power of their own.

Perhaps there is an easy fix for this. Maybe he should get married. This will make him seem more mature and make him less vulnerable to criticism. Furthermore, he’ll have a partner who can help him manage details like parking tickets and remind him to get up and move the car, like many spouses do. He’s got a job, a house and will soon have a law degree. It’s time for the rest of his life to begin.