Summertime is the perfect time for afternoon tea. As temperatures rise, people slow down. And, as family and friends visit Boston, tea can be a great setting for conversation.
When this neighborhood was built, afternoon tea was an important part of the social fabric. “It was common for the family to come together at three or four in the afternoon and have tea and some refreshment,” said Barbara Thibault, executive director of the Gibson House Museum on Beacon Street.
The museum’s history includes the story of Charles Gibson, Jr., who began thinking of his home as a museum even as he lived there. He roped off the furniture and made his guests sit on the stairs while sipping their tea. “He generally had them start with tea and end up with martinis,” laughed Thibault.
Today, you can choose to have tea at home — perhaps in one of the lovely hidden gardens that add a gracious note of green to the neighborhood — or you can indulge in high tea at a restaurant.
L’Espalier holds a “Fantasy Tea Party” on Saturdays. Menu options range from “Red Riding Hood’s Basket,” with tea sandwiches and pastries, to more exotic fare. “The Golden Goose” is a champagne and caviar treat, and “Three Blind Mice” is a cheese tasting.
Tea service in this lovely Back Bay townhouse feels like stepping back in time. The servers move silently around the room delivering food and refilling cups, while guests indulge in quiet conversation, relaxed smiles and soft laughter. “Tea is so much fun. It is always such a multi-generational day. It’s wonderful to see the little girls in their pretty dresses coming in,” said Louis Risoli, maitre'd.
The Taj Hotel on Arlington Street has continued the Ritz-Carlton’s long tradition of afternoon tea accompanied by a harpist. You can have scones and pastry or a tempting high tea that includes a lobster profiterole and Serrano ham on toasted brioche.
Other hotels serving tea include the Four Seasons and the Boston Park Plaza, where you can choose a guided tasting led by its tea sommelier.
On Beacon Hill, the Boston Athenaeum is famous for its afternoon teas. They began as a daily tradition where members would enjoy a simple cracker with their beverage. In 1984 the practice was revived, and today members enjoy a tea buffet on selected Wednesdays.
A lesser-known library tea is offered at Novel Restaurant in the Boston Public Library at Copley Square. In addition to full tea at Novel, the library’s Map Café and serene courtyard provide a perfect choice for a less formal “cuppa” with a friend.
In the past few years, tea has begun to rival coffee for attention, with tea cafes and specialty shops opening along Newbury Street. The first of those, Tealuxe, is currently closed for renovations. However, tea lovers can pick up supplies for a home tea party at Timeless Teas or the recently-opened Whittard of Chelsea tea shop.
Tea at home can run from the simple brewing of a pot to share with family or friends to an elaborate catered affair with guests dressed in wide hats, bow ties and summer finery. Tea has become a popular theme for showers, fund raisers, and birthday parties.
Whether you are planning a celebration, a break from shopping, or an opportunity to sit and chat, consider an afternoon of tea to add a touch of history, elegance and relaxation to your summer.
Library pushes for T stop name change by Suzanne Besser
State Representative Angelo Scaccia makes no bones about it. He acknowledges that Fenway Park attracts more than 2.9 million visitors annually — more than the Boston Public Library. And the T stop there is, according to him, rightly named Fenway Park/Red Sox.
But it makes absolutely no sense to him that the MBTA has repeatedly turned down requests to add the name of the Boston Public Library, which attracts 1,527,350 visitors annually, to the station now named Copley Square. “It’s stupid,” he said. “It’s the most well-known building in Massachusetts”
Frustrated with the T’s past responses, Scaccia, who is vice chairman of the BPL board of trustees, and President Bernard Margolis were up at the state house Thursday pursuing another course of action. They testified before the Joint Committee on Transportation in support of a bill filed in January by state Representative Marty Walz that would change the name of the station to Copley/Boston Public Library or Copley/BPL.
Walz filed the bill, she said in a letter to the committee’s co-chairs, because it would provide appropriate recognition for the institution, one of the nation’s oldest and most important libraries. It would also, she said, simplify life for tourists and visiting scholars looking for the library.
Margolis testified that changing the name of the station would be a long overdue recognition of the library as a destination on the T. “It wasn’t recognized in 1914 [when the station was built],” he said. “We want the recognition now.”
It is clear that the T has recognized the importance of naming stations after institutions that attract visitors. Besides Fenway, other T stations with institutional names include the Aquarium, Hynes, MFA, New England Medical Center, Science Park, MGH and Symphony Station, according to statistics gathered by Margolis from a variety of sources in the library’s reference department.
Now, the whole name issue has become time-sensitive. “This is the ideal time to modify the name of the station,” wrote Walz. “The station is currently being remodeled, and new signage will need to be purchased and installed whether or not the name is changed. This bill will not result in the MBTA spending funds for new signs that it would not otherwise be spending.”
Margolis and Scaccia made the same point at the hearing and were assured by the committee chair, Senator Steven Baddour, that the committee would move this bill quickly. Better yet, he suggested they meet immediately with MBTA personnel who were present at the hearing.
They did, and were flatly told the matter would be taken back to higher-ups at the T for consideration. Scaccia was displeased with the reaction. “Let us know in two weeks or we’ll jam the bill through,” he responded. “You won’t find many people on the MBTA’s side.”
Imagine that you’re walking down Boylston Street when you witness a mugging taking place across the street. You are too far away to help the victim and too far away to get a clear look at the perpetrator.
With the victim’s purse in hand, the mugger turns and runs up the street away from you and seemingly eludes capture.
But not too far away, the security camera of a local retail shop has caught the entire incident. As the mugger makes his escape, a network of security cameras tracks his move up the street, giving police not just a description of the suspect, but also information about where he went after he committed his crime.
Sound a little far fetched? It is now, but it may not be in the very near future; not if Alan Snow and the Back Bay Security Network (BBSN) have anything to say about it.
Snow is the director of safety and security for Boston Properties and the Prudential Building and he also chairs the Back Bay Association’s Back Bay Security Network. The initiative to identify private surveillance cameras that pick up public portions of the street has been named SCIP, by the BBSN.
“SCIP stands for Security Camera Information Program,” said Snow. “It’s an initiative we’d been talking about for some time, but it really came to a head after the television news show did its story on the Philadelphia murder case that was solved with the use of these cameras.” In that case, Philadelphia police were able to track the movement of a murder suspect through a busy neighborhood until one the cameras was able to get a clear shot of the suspect’s face.
“The private sector has been deploying surveillance cameras for years, some of which are turned out toward the entrance of their businesses,” explained Snow. “These cameras provide incidental adjacent coverage of public streets and sidewalks that could be helpful to police in solving crimes.”
With that in mind, Snow and the BSN are engaged in an information-gathering program to identify which of these cameras in the Back Bay are able to provide at least some coverage of streets, sidewalks and other public places. If the BBSN is able to identify enough such cameras, they will be able to give the police a database of cameras that could be used, in much the same way Philadelphia police used the cameras to catch a murderer.
“We’ve had discussions about this project with Commissioner Davis and other top level officials in the Boston police department and they are very excited about the possibilities,” said Snow. “We see this as a positive step that could help deter crime in our neighborhood and make the community safer.”
Snow said that currently 20 percent of the Back Bay has been mapped, with a goal of identifying camera coverage for 80 percent of the neighborhood.
“Anyone who has a camera that picks up a portion of a public way, who wants to be included in the program should contact the Back Bay Association and someone from the Back Bay Security Network will get back to them,” said Snow.
The Back Bay Association can be reached at 617-266-1991.
Where can we park? Back Bay commission struggles with the car by Karen Cord Taylor
Accommodating the automobile caused most of the problems at Wednesday’s hearing at the Back Bay Architectural Commission. Three applicants presented plans for garages or parking spaces and were told to modify them or return with more information before commissioners would consider them.
A renovation at 304 Commonwealth Avenue will convert apartments into three handsome condominium units. Commissioners and neighbors were enthusiastic about most of the proposed work. But the commissioners told the dejected applicant that two indoor garage spaces and two outdoors are enough. He won’t get the third outdoor space he was hoping for. The sea of cars that washes up in the alleys has to have limits.
Another automobile sticking point was at 18 Exeter, an apartment building fashioned like an Italian palazzo that new owners propose to return to single-family use. The rooftop plans for a penthouse and deck and window changes were welcome to the commissioners, but a dispute has arisen over whether zoning relief is needed to build a garage in a narrow lane behind the house. The architect, Patrick Ahearn, maintains that a garage is allowable under zoning, while Vic Castellani, writing on behalf of the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay, maintains it is not. Commissioners denied the application without prejudice, meaning that applicants can resubmit it when the legal issues have been resolved.
The last auto argument involved a development of 10 apartments into five condominium units at 185 Marlborough, where the applicant proposes to cut through the back wall of the lowest floor to install a garage. This reduces the living space within the house to below a floor-area ratio of 3, which is the upper limit imposed by Back Bay zoning. (The floor-area ratio or FAR is the total square footage of livable space in a building divided by the square footage of the site. An FAR of 3 means that a building of three floors can cover the entire plot of land it stands on. Or it could have 6 floors covering half the plot of land. Any similar ratio would be allowed as long as the building didn’t exceed Back Bay’s height restriction of 65 feet.)
In this case, the owner proposed to trade the FAR lost by building a garage for a new penthouse full of living space.
But this frustrated the commissioners. If they haven’t approved the garage, then the applicant can’t apply for a penthouse, and the commission rarely approves new openings in a historic building. Between legal and design issues, the commission felt that this application has a ways to go before it can be considered. They determined that the application was ineligible for review.
SIDEBAR:
Fitting a 1930s building into a 19th-century block
The applicant for changes to the 1937 building at 113 Commonwealth Avenue had to return for a second time to the commission because the applicant’s architect and commission members are struggling with how to make a design no one particularly likes or deems appropriate fit in with the Victorian buildings that surround it.
“It’s a question of what to do with a Boston spinster of the period trying to adjust herself to the culture of Miami,” said William Young, the commission’s senior preservation planner.
The building is not exactly Art Deco, even though it is of that period. It has a horizontal window treatment, making it out of sync with the verticality of its neighbors’ windows. Its main entrance is recessed, and the garden is in need of rejuvenation.
The architect’s intention has been to bring the recessed entrance to the building out from the façade to make it relate more to the building next door. Although commission members previously asked the architect to simplify his design and reduce the proposed lighting, which was deemed to be too commercial, the entrance design is still not right.
Commissioners were also concerned about the use of bamboo in the front garden. They were afraid it would grow too tall and spread, making too much of a barrier along the parade of gardens in that block. The landscape architect promised to plant a variety of bamboo that could be held in check.
Ultimately, commissioners decided to approve the design with the proviso that the architect work with the commission’s staff members to tweak the plans.
That Boston boy, John Hynes III, has floated what to some is an outlandishly elitist proposal: he wants to build a private school as part of his development in the Seaport district. He has also proposed building a performance arts center, which appears not to have fostered the same kind of controversy. Otherwise, the development that Hynes’s firm, Gale International, proposes is the typical mix — housing, offices, hotels, retail and open space.
We urge Hynes to plow ahead with his private school proposal. We also urge him to keep an open mind if school officials decide that they might want him to build a public school instead.
We applaud his acknowledgement that families, not just empty nesters and working singles and couples, want to live in Boston. It’s about time that developers realize that families exist.
For its lifetime, this column has been agitating for more accommodation for downtown families. The benefits of keeping families in the city are overwhelming — environmentally, socially and economically. It is schools, more than any other facility, that make city living possible for children.
In the Back Bay and on Beacon Hill we know what it is like to live without a walk-to school, and it is not a pretty sight. It provokes some families into deserting Boston for the more family-friendly suburbs. It means that all parents who decide on a public school have to put their children on a bus. It means that the neighborhoods become more and more segregated by income since it is mostly only families with extraordinary financial means who can afford both the high cost of housing and private education.
The mayor has so far complained that Hynes must believe that the Boston Public Schools are not good enough for the relatively wealthy families who can afford his housing prices.
But maybe, being a Boston boy, Hynes understands a more basic premise on which the Boston Public Schools has operated. It has demonstrated that it doesn’t want to provide schools for the city’s relatively wealthy families.
The experience of two downtown neighborhoods is a good example.
The Back Bay and Beacon Hill have had no walk-to schools since the Prince School on Newbury Street and the Peter Faneuil School on Joy Street closed in the 1980s. In 2002, when Emerson College put its Brimmer Street building on the market, Back Bay and Beacon Hill neighborhood leaders put together a financial plan to buy it and assist the Boston Public Schools in establishing a school that kids in both neighborhoods could walk to.
But in January, 2003, school officials nixed that idea. They said they didn’t have the money. Neighborhood officials said they were told privately that school officials didn’t believe Back Bay and Beacon Hill families would take advantage of a public school. The building was ultimately bought by Park Street School, which is now full of Beacon Hill and Back Bay kids.
School officials maintained there weren’t enough children in the area to warrant a school. The 2010 census will let us know what the actual numbers are, but you have only to look at the overwhelming numbers of applications to the neighborhoods’ private schools and the overflowing playgrounds to know that more and more families want to stay in the city.
John Hynes’s project is all about hope — hope that if you build it they will come. That’s as true of kids as it is with the empty nesters and young singles or couples that most developers try to attract. City officials need to cultivate the same hope and confidence that Hynes has.
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