Changing of the guard; Women’s Lunch Place gets new director by Joseph Domelowicz, Jr.
Clare Reilly, who has led the Back Bay-based non-profit organization the Women’s Lunch Place since 2003, departs this week to spend more time with her children, knowing that she has had a positive impact on the daytime refuge for poor and homeless women in Boston.
“Clare leaves very big shoes to fill,” said Pat Latimore, president of the board of directors for the Women’s Lunch Place. “The Women’s Lunch Place has a strong foundation. Clare expanded the services that we offer and built a tremendous staff to help us to continue to serve women who are poor or homeless. Clare will truly be missed.”
Taking Clare’s place as executive director will be Sharon Reilly (no relation), who comes to the job from the non-profit The Food Project, where she was director of Community Relations.
“The opportunity to lead the Women's Lunch Place in partnership with a committed staff and board of directors is a continuation of my personal commitment to make the good better,” said Sharon Reilly. “I believe every challenge I have faced in life, every opportunity I have taken to serve others, every joy and sorrow that has come my way continues to prepare me to further my life's commitment to social justice.”
According to Latimore, “Sharon brings a deep understanding of the struggles that poor and homeless women face daily in our society. Her abilities to build collaborative partnerships will make her a strong advocate for the women we serve in Boston and beyond. Sharon’s passion and commitment will allow the Women’s Lunch Place to stay true to its 25-year mission of providing a safe, comfortable daytime shelter to women who are homeless or poor, where they will be treated with dignity and respect. We are a community committed to meeting each woman’s need.”
“I grew up in the Deep South on a farm in the 1950s,” said Sharon, who lives in Boston with her husband Hugh. “As I picked cotton and peas, I often wrestled with the questions: Why am I here and what am I supposed to do? The answer for both questions is the same and it has not changed: Do good.
I have been fortunate because I have had many opportunities to do good,” added Sharon Reilly. “And the rewards are many. Serving the Women's Lunch Place is a reward and one that I accept fully, knowing that a little love for what you do goes a long way and a lot of love for what you do lasts forever.”
Two solutions proposed to Charlesgate problems by Karen Cord Taylor
A sunny park? A café and grocery store covered by roadways? Two visions of how to improve the banks of the Muddy River emerged this week when City Councilor Mike Ross got city and state officials together with Back Bay residents and business owners. Their task: Figure out something to do with the spit of land between Charlesgates East and West.
This spit — originally part of Frederick Law Olmsted’s Emerald Necklace — is more like a raceway than a park at this point. East-west roadways such as the Mass Pike and Storrow Drive flank each end of the area, and Beacon Street and Commonwealth Avenue cross it.
But that’s only part of the complications. In the north-south direction, the Bowker overpass and ramps connect all of the roadways. The result of these overhead, buried and surface roads is that most of the area is either inaccessible or shaded. It also acts as a barrier between the Back Bay and Kenmore Square.
There is particular interest right now in doing something about this area because the Bowker overpass and the ramps need serious repair. Moreover, the Army Corps of Engineers is in the midst of a project to reduce flood damage and restore habitat. While the project isn’t finished, the work that has been completed of dredging the Muddy River, which runs through the area, and removing the phragmites, the reed-like plants that prevented people from getting to the banks of the river, has let passersby see that the area has promise.
But how to best realize the promise is the task at hand. Burying the roadways and restoring the area to parkland is one direction to take. “Nothing is ever going to live under there,” observed Pam Beale about the cleaned-up terrain that now stretches under the bridge. Beale, who owns Cornwall’s in Kenmore Square and lives on Beacon Street a couple of blocks from Charlesgate, believes that this would restore the area to Olmsted’s vision, as well as taking care of some of the problems such as the number of homeless people who gather under the bridges, creating a forbidding atmosphere for pedestrians wishing to cross between the Back Bay and the Kenmore Square area.
Panos Demeter, owner of Demeter Development, suggested another solution: Repair the bridges and build shops and restaurants in buildings under and alongside the bridges.
He said he would not be against burying the roads, but if that can’t or won’t be done, his solution would at least attract people and provide that critical connection between the two neighborhoods.
Demeter, whose company rebuilt the old D4 police station in the South End into residences with a green roof, said if he were developing such a cluster of buildings, he would reflect Olmsted’s intention with green roofs on the buildings. “The Emerald Necklace is already destroyed [in that location] with roads,” he said.
Demeter said he has seen such a development tucked under bridges in Argentina. He wanted to test his proposal with neighbors before he proceeded with a formal plan. Demeter is moving in August into one of the buildings his company owns on Commonwealth Avenue between Kenmore Square and the Bowker overpass. “If I have to live with [the overpass], my vision could make something awful look like a nice destination,” he said.
Ross’s office intends to schedule another meeting and to follow the progress made by the Department of Conservation and Recreation, which owns the land and the roadways. DCR does not have plans yet for the Bowker overpass. “We’ll do main ramp work by the end of the year,” said spokesperson Wendy Fox. “Otherwise we’re there to listen.”
SIDEBAR
By fall, the Army Corps of Engineers expects to have a design that includes installing bigger culverts in some places to handle more flow and to “daylight” the river, or bring it out of other culverts to run on top of the ground. This action will increase the flow of the river near the Landmark Center retail building at the corner of Brookline Avenue and the Fenway.
The President’s FY08 budget includes $10 million, a portion of which will fund the results of the design
The cost of the entire project is estimated at $67 million. The Army Corps of Engineers will fund 65 percent of the project, with the commonwealth of massachusetts, the city of Boston and the town of Brookline sharing the rest of the cost.
Again we publish this hymn in honor of Independence Day. The words are moving. They don’t boast. They don’t futilely wave a flag. They don’t pontificate or insist that one must believe this way or that to be patriotic.
Instead the hymn asks for God’s blessing. This humility seems appropriate in an era in which we are wreaking havoc on the world.
This hymn celebrates the nation’s natural beauty. Will we have that beauty in 20 years, with global warming not addressed? It celebrates self-control and sternness, two qualities our leaders have not asked of us, even though thousands of our young people are at war.
It equates liberty with law. Those who supervise Guantanamo Bay and spy on American citizens might be surprised to learn that the two are connected.
It hopes for nobility, not lies and deception. The song honors the America with the values we want in our country, not the ones we have recently seen practiced. Perhaps its ideal is unattainable. But on July 4, 1776, the founders of our republic must have felt their goals were just as unreachable.
America, the Beautiful
by Katharine Lee Bates
O beautiful for spacious skies
For amber waves of grain
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain.
America! America! God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea.
O beautiful for pilgrim feet,
Whose stern impassion'd stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness.
America! America! God mend thine ev'ry flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self control,
Thy liberty in law.
O beautiful for heroes prov'd
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved,
And mercy more than life.
America! America! May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness
And ev'ry gain divine.
O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years.
Thine alabaster cities gleam,
Undimmed by human tears.
America! America! God shed his grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood,
From sea to shining sea.
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