Thanks to the work of the Friends of the Public Garden, the statue of Domingo F. Sarmiento on the Commonwealth Avenue Mall has regained its long-lost luster.
According to Sarah Hutt, a consultant for the Friend group, the nonprofit secured an approximately $20,000 grant from the city’s Edward Ingersoll Browne Fund, which supports open-space improvements, to clean the 15-foot-high bronze statue, located between Gloucester and Hereford streets.
Sarmiento (1811-1888) established the first public school system in Argentina, was elected the country’s president in 1868 and studied with the Horace Mann, the Massachusetts native who is often referred to as “the father of the American public school system.” Sarmiento reportedly modeled the Argentinean schools after the education system that Mann devised in his home state in the 1830s.
The statue was first offered as a gift from the Argentine government in 1911, but didn’t arrive in Boston until more than 60 years later. In 1973, Mayor Kevin White dedicated the statue during a ceremony on the Commonwealth Avenue Mall.
As for the restoration, Rika Smith McNally, principal of the Framingham-based sculpture-conservation firm Rika Smith McNally & Associates, oversaw the project over the course of four days in late September.
“The surface was dirty and deteriorated and damaged from acid rain,” McNally said of the statue. “It was just filthy.”
To remedy the situation, McNally stripped the statue of its weathered lacquer and reapplied the protective coating, which caused the color of the sculpture to change from black back to its original dark-brown shade. “In the sunlight, it looks quite brown,” McNally said.
During the restoration, McNally uncovered the signature of the artist who cast the statue, Argentine art student Yvette Compagnio, as well as the mark of the foundry that cast it, Fundicion R. Buchhass of Buenos Aires, Argentina. She tracked down the bronze-casting foundry online and traded e-mails with its founder Rodolfo Buchhass, who remembered working on the sculpture and provided McNally with previously unknown information regarding its original patina color.
The project also caught the attention of several native Argentineans now living in Boston, who informed McNally that a now-defunct Argentine consulate used to hold events there.
“They stopped by and thanked us and said how much the statue means to them,” McNally said. “This project had a lot of support from people on the street.”
The restoration of the Sarmiento statue brings the Friends group one step closer to completing its “legacy” project of cleaning all the statues in the Commonwealth Avenue Mall, the Public Garden and the Boston Common. Since 2003, the group has partnered with the city to clean approximately 35 of the 42 statues in the three parks, Hutt said.

At the Wednesday meeting of the Boston City Council, Council President Mike Ross proposed legislation that would allow emergency rooms to refer the city’s homeless to permanent housing programs - a unique approach to help break the cycle of homelessness while saving Massachusetts taxpayers millions of dollars.
“I think we can do this through a joint effort between city and state agencies,” Ross said. “It’s not just the right thing to do from a humane perspective, but it would also save significant sums of money.”
In recommending the hearing order, Ross outlined the positive impact that permanent housing strategies like Housing First can have for the chronically homeless while significantly reducing Medicaid costs and uncompensated care costs for the insured. A Housing First approach to homelessness provides the chronically homeless with independent apartments or shared housing and access to services to prevent them from returning to the streets.
The Massachusetts Housing and Shelter Alliance (MHSA) reports that the average annual Medicaid costs for homeless individuals in the Home & Healthy for Good Housing First program is $26,124 before housing, as compared to $8,500 in annual Medicaid costs for those who are taken off the street and provided housing. The annual overall savings per Home & Healthy for Good participant is $8,900 per person.
Research also shows that while the chronically homeless make up just 10 percent of the overall homeless population, they account for approximately 50 percent of the costs of homeless services.
“Giving emergency rooms the ability to refer the chronically homeless to Housing First programs is responsible public policy,” Ross said. “ERs frequently treat the chronically homeless repeatedly, passing on those bills to MassHealth, and are denied the ability to refer these men and women to programs, which provide long-term help.”
Meanwhile, MHSA President and Executive Director Joe Finn applauded Ross’ initiative.
“We at the Massachusetts Housing and Shelter Alliance are very excited by the leadership that Councilor Ross has provided in recognizing the benefits of housing instead of keeping people on the streets,” Finn said. “Providing permanent housing with supportive services—rather than just emergency shelter—to homeless individuals is humane, efficient and cost-effective. Ross is continuing the tradition of innovation in ending homelessness in Boston.”
The proposal was refereed to the city council’s Housing Committee, which is expected to schedule a meeting to discuss the matter.

The numbers do count

Mayor Thomas Menino has every right to ask that the U.S. Census Bureau get the population of the City of Boston correct.
This is the fourth year that the Bureau has not got it right.
The fact that their count is 97% accurate may be acceptable to the Census Bureau, but is not acceptable to us.
At stake is almost $26M in potential grants that the City of Boston would not receive if the lower population number is used.
Not only could we be out of this potential money, but that understating of the population could cost us at least one member, if not more, of the Boston delegation in the State House.
If one considers that the revenues of the state are still in a free fall and Boston is the largest receiver of state aid then we need as many advocates under the Golden Dome as possible.
All the Census Bureau is being asked to do is get the number right.
That seems reasonable.

Boston homes among top 10 most expensive in the nation

Believe it or not, when you average out the prices for homes in Boston that have at least four bedrooms and 2200 square feet or more, Boston ranks just under San Francisco as one of the ten most expensive cities to buy a home in the United States.
This, according to Coldwell Banker’s 2009 Home Price Comparison Index.
The index tells us that the average home price in Boston for larger and more expensive homes is $1.3 million.
The most expensive using the Coldwell Banker yardstick is La Jolla, California where an average home is priced at $2.1 million.
As average prices go for any item that is for sale, these kind of take the cake.
But that’s the modern world for you – where $1.3 million spent on a home in Boston buys you only an average home.