The 20-year dispute between neighbors and the Ritz-Carlton, now the Taj Boston Hotel, over the loading area under Carlton House next to Public Alley 437, is about to get a hearing that may lay the groundwork for a resolution.

The hearing will take place before the Board of Appeal on November 13 at 9:30 a.m. In August, Margot Botsford, who was a Superior Court judge at the time, ordered that, due to the lengthy time period in which this has been festering, all previous orders should be withdrawn and both parties should present new testimony and evidence to that body.

Tim Mitchell, the Commonwealth Avenue resident whose home backs up to the alley and who has spearheaded the effort to bring back a loading dock, said he and his team have prepared a complete documentation of the problem and of its previous attempts at a resolution, which he will present at the hearing.

He will make the point that the Ritz-Carlton eliminated an off-street loading dock without permission or permits from the City of Boston, and that the lack of a loading dock has caused a 20-year problem, impairing safety, rendering the alley unusable by neighbors and backing up traffic on Arlington Street.

He said the Taj staff has made some effort to address the problem, which he appreciates, but the steps they have taken have not solved it.

The Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay hopes to make progress toward a solution prior to the hearing. The Taj is slated to appear before NABB’s Licensing and Building Use Committee on November 5. “When the Taj took over, they made a commitment that they would address this problem, and they have,” said Tom High, the committee chair. “But the problem is still there, and no matter how hard the hotel tries, without a loading dock it is very difficult.”

Taj officials were in meetings the day the Sun contacted them and were not able to comment.

Judge Botsford ordered that the court retain jurisdiction over the case to ensure that it would be resolved. Almost four years ago the Board of Appeal ordered the city’s Inspectional Services Department to enforce a zoning code that would have required the Ritz to re-install the loading dock, but it did not happen.

CAPTION: Seven of the nine candidates for the at-large seats on the Boston City Council expressed their views to an audience of more than 70 voters. The event was hosted by nine downtown neighborhood associations including the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay and the Beacon Hill Civic Association.





More than 70 voters from the Back Bay, Beacon Hill, Bay Village, the Fenway, the South End and the Audubon Circle area turned out last Tuesday night to listen to the nine men who are running for the four at-large seats on the Boston City Council.

Steve Murphy treated listeners to his nuts and bolts philosophy of city government. Michael Flaherty and John Connolly outlined specific visions for Boston. Sam Yoon and Felix Arroyo visions came across as more abstract, except when Arroyo attacked the Boston Redevelopment Authority for not making way for a “real” planning department.

Martin Hogan, running as an outsider, touted his pure motives, while the only announced Republican and “pro-lifer,” David James Wyatt, got a laugh for saying he was the “elephant in the room.”

Matthew Geary and William Estrada didn’t show up.

The benefit of seeing all the candidates together was that subtle differences among them emerged that may have changed some voters’ minds.

“I was impressed by some people I didn’t know,” said Mary Ann Hardenbergh of Commonwealth Avenue. She said she voted only for Arroyo and Yoon in the last election, but this time she would also vote for Connolly, who ran unsuccessfully two years ago. “He was so broad-based and hit the issues right on,” she said. “I was more impressed with him this time.”

Jack Creighton of Audubon Circle might have a harder time making a decision because he was impressed with all of the candidates. “This was an honest and frank exchange of people who have a strong desire to serve the citizens of Boston,” he said. “It was most heartening.”

Arroyo and Yoon came out as the most idealistic of the candidates. Yoon said he wanted to bring government closer to the people and make it more transparent. Arroyo wants to address the inequities.

Stephen Murphy listed the initiatives he has taken to achieve both Arroyo’s and Yoon’s goals, although he characterized his efforts toward solving groundwater problems, installing countdown pedestrian lights and licensing bicycle messengers as practical, rather than ideological.

Arroyo made one of the more interesting points of the evening when he observed that in the at-large race the candidates have to realize they are not only competitors, but, if they win, they will become colleagues, and that changes the dynamics of the race.

No one reconciled the contradiction between neighborhoods’ opposition to student dorms, which brings a mass of students to one location, and the fact that housing students in such dorms rather than in apartments should improve housing affordability for everyone else, since a large part of the demand for housing is removed.

John Connolly said educational institutions should be called on to perform a higher obligation to strengthen neighborhoods, but wasn’t specific about how that could be achieved. Murphy pointed out that Suffolk University was at least honest with Beacon Hill neighbors about its unpopular intentions to build a dorm at 20 Somerset, while Harvard University secretly acquired land for years in Allston through straw buyers without telling neighbors about its expansion plans.

Flaherty and Connelly were the candidates who expressed the most interest in keeping families of all income levels in the city. Flaherty proposed increasing the linkage payments developers make to the city for affordable housing — a formula that hasn’t been reworked since 1983. Murphy pointed out that Boston has built more affordable housing in the past five years than the rest of Massachusetts combined. Interestingly, there was no mention of rent control as a technique for creating affordable housing from any of the candidates.

All the candidates are expected to sign the petition to landmark the Esplanade, and Murphy called the scheme to build a temporary road through the park while the Storrow Drive tunnel is reconstructed a “harebrained” idea. But no candidate seemed well informed about the project beyond its most obvious points.

Flaherty cited his move to close a gun law loophole, which is now before the legislature, as his proudest achievement. He said that while carrying an illegal firearm on the street will get a perpetrator hauled into prison, having an illegal firearm in a home has no repercussion. “Many homes in Boston are safe havens for weapons,” he said. His bill would change that.

Connolly wants to address youth violence by making after school programs universal throughout the city.

Arroyo most wants to establish a planning department separate from the BRA, but he did not explain how that goal fits into his over-riding goal of addressing inequality in Boston. He also said that should he not be elected, he is still committed to Boston. “I’m not going away,” he warned the audience.

This dignified forum was one more indication of the improved tone of the recent city council and the extent to which Boston has changed from a parochial, divided city into a more sophisticated, outward-looking place. No more stridency. No more buffoons. No more tribe-entrenched rhetoric that excludes citizens in other neighborhoods. These candidates are a serious, well-educated, sophisticated group of men, all of whom seem to have the best interests of the city at heart.

The scariest thing so far this Halloween season may be the lines snaking around the block at Dorothy’s Costumes, a Boston tradition on Massachusetts Avenue since 1947. Manager Jon Diamond said costumes have been flying off the shelves for weeks, and since midweek there has been a constant flow of customers waiting to get in the doors.

“It’s been out of control,” Diamond said. “It’s shaping up to be our best Halloween ever. We’ve been super busy.” With Halloween on a Wednesday this year, there are two potential weekends of costume parties and dressing up.

The early shoppers — no surprise — have been mostly women. Diamond said he expects there to be a rush of procrastinating men coming in last-minute to do their shopping. For the ladies, the big sellers this year have been sailors, pirates, gangsters and cops. Female Harry Potter costumes also have been popular, as have perennial favorites such as flappers, Playboy bunnies and fairy-tale characters like Little Miss Muffet.

“This year, it’s not really the scary, gory costumes that are selling,” Diamond said. “That’s not the vibe.”

For the guys, he expects warrior costumes inspired by the movie “The 300” to be big sellers, as well as pirates. Goofy, funny costumes are always a hit.

The target audience for Dorothy’s is the college student, Diamond said. Every year, for example, a bunch of guys from Northeastern seem to come in at the last minute and clean out the store. The student crowd also appreciates slightly scandalous theme costumes like “Captain Mile High Club” and “The Home Wrecker.”

“Our market is always going to be young college kids,” Diamond said. “We’re not afraid to say that. They tend to party more.”

But Diamond stresses that there are costumes for everyone.

“It’s really across the board,” Diamond said. “We have so many creative, cute costumes to choose from. It’s hard to pick the right one.”

Which may explain why, even with eight or nine staffers on hand to help customers out, it takes a long time for many to pick that perfect costume.

“The hardest thing is making up their minds,” Diamond said. “People walk around for an hour or more.”

And even after they do make up their minds, there are the choices about accessories — picking out the right jewelry, the right purse, or finding that sword that coordinates perfectly with your tunic.

It’s enough to exhaust anyone — especially those working at Dorothy’s. Diamond hopes it will all be worth it, though, and he’s looking forward to the madness ending.

“For my costume, I’m hoping to be Mr. Moneybags,” Diamond said. “I usually go home a very tired man and eat my kids’ candy.”

Distinguished members of the local medical community presented a $45,000 check for the ongoing restoration of the Ether statue in the Public Garden Thursday, October 25.

Antonia Pollak, Boston parks commissioner, and Henry Lee of Friends of the Public Garden accepted the check from Dr. Donald Ganim, president of the Massachusetts Society of Anesthesiologists, and Dr. Jonathan Griswold, an anesthesiologist at Tufts New England Medical Center.

The statue, which is the oldest one in the Public Garden, stands 40 feet tall in commemoration of the first public demonstration of inhalation anesthesia. Dr. Thomas M. Morton first administered ether to a patient 161 years ago at Massachusetts General Hospital.

In addition to restoration, the Friends of the Public Garden, the Solomon Fund, the Massachusetts Society of Anesthesiologists and Anesthesia Associates of Massachusetts are working together to raise an endowment for the continuing maintenance of the monument.

Bad ideas

Music on the T

We like the buskers. We like our iPods. We don’t want the T choosing our music — or interrupting our daydreams by playing music we don’t like.

The MBTA has actual problems to solve — maintaining trains, building new stations, extending rail lines, coming up with a better idea for a Silver Line than a bus that shares lanes with cars.

It should not be dilly-dallying with a service riders do not want.

Dogs on the Common

The Boston Common looks terrible. The Parade Ground is fenced off from the public while the turf rejuvenates because it has been wrecked by heavy use – not all from dogs, but dogs running around, digging, peeing, and playing off leash were a big reason for the $600,000 rehab the Parks Department was forced to undertake.

Now dogs have destroyed a trapezoidal shaped area next to the Tadpole playground.

The solution is not, as we have found, to install a dog park at the end of the Commonwealth Avenue Mall (too ugly), or the Phillips Street Park (too smelly).

But we have to find a solution to the problem of dogs destroying our best parks, because people love their dogs. They offer protection, companionship and entertainment.

It isn’t clear what the answer is. The South End has addressed the problem with the Joe Wex Dog Recreation Space in Peters Park, for which dog owners themselves raised $360,000 to create and, even more important, maintain. It will open November 4. Direct abutters might not be too happy with the park if the barking is too loud or the clean-up doesn’t actually happen as frequently as it needs to.

The Hudson River Park Trust addressed the problem by fencing in an ample space along Lower Manhattan’s West Side. The Boston park most comparable to the Hudson River Park is the Esplanade, but only because it lies between a river and a busy highway, as does the Hudson River Park. But the Hudson River Park is full of active uses, not passive green space, as is the Esplanade. Although dogs haven’t been discussed for awhile among Esplanade park advocates, since they’ve had their hands full with other matters, fencing in an area for dogs along the river has never been popular with Esplanade advocates.

There isn’t a lot of empty space in downtown Boston. But there must be some solution that spares the parks we need to keep in good shape so all of us can enjoy them, not just the dogs.

We urge dog owners themselves to help solve the problem, as South End dog owners did and as Beacon Hill and Back Bay dog owners tried to do a few years ago when they worked out using the Parade Ground for dogs, especially in the morning. Now, however, there has to be a better way.

The Intercontinental on the harbor

Have you been down on the Greenway lately? The Intercontinental Hotel has finally opened and the way it intrudes onto the sidewalk, which WalkBoston fought mostly unsuccessfully, is not the worst of its faults. It is simply ugly.
It sits like a heavy, reflective blob along the harbor, with none of the features that its neighbor, Rowe’s Wharf, has to delight the eye. The dark blue glass is wavy, making it look as if it is about to wiggle and fall out. It is hard to find any part of the building that relates to the water or gives pleasure to a boater or a pedestrian along HarborWalk.

What was a sophisticated hotel chain thinking when it built this? What were BRA planners thinking when they allowed it?

Unfortunately, it looks as if the glass won’t fall out and the building will be there for a long time.

BRA, you’ve got to do better next time in protecting us from such blights as these.