The inception of Tall Boy dates back to January of 2005 when Ryan Merry, one of the founders of the fledgling events-production company, began working at Sólás Irish Pub at the Lenox Hotel.
At the bar, Merry rekindled an old friendship with future Tall Boy business partner Peter Boyd, a former classmate from Salem State College who was then working for Jim Beam in marketing and events. Around the same time, Merry also met the company's third founder, Ricardo Monzon, a Sólás patron who would later serve as a manager of the popular Copley Square establishment.
By December of 2007, Monzon was working at Sólás and producing a live jazz night at Azure, its now-defunct sister restaurant at the Lenox. He handled every aspect of staging the weekly event, from auditioning and booking acts to marketing and promotions.
After the father of close friend and Sólás employee Matt Griffin died of a heart attack in late 2008, Boyd decided to throw a party to celebrate the life of the elder Griffin and enlisted the help of Monzon in planning the event.
The occasion quickly gained momentum and became Arts for Hearts, a silent art fundraiser for the American Heart Association that featured 15 Boston-area artists working in a variety of different mediums, including jewelry-making, painting, photography and sculpture.
Merry, a participating artist who contributed a metal sculpture to the auction, also joined Boyd and Monzon in organizing the event, lending his expertise in nonprofit work. For more than 10 years, the 30-year-old Wakefield native has served as a board member of the Jen Direeno Foundation, a 501(c)(3) corporation established in honor of a high school friend who succumbed to melanoma.
Arts for Hearts, which took place at Ned Devine’s at Faneuil Hall on Aug. 27, featured live music and a deejay and well exceeded expectations, attracting more than 300 guests and raising $6,600 for the American Heart Association.
“It got people together for a really good cause, and it was a learning experience for all of us,” said Boyd, a 31-year-old Lynn native who now works as a bar manager at the Reagle Beagle in Brookline's Coolidge Corner.
Building on the success of Arts for Hearts, Tall Boy is now looking forward to its next event, The Rockin’ Shop Party, which takes place at Ned Devine’s on Sunday, Dec. 6, from noon to 8 p.m. The event will feature one-stop holiday shopping with items for sale from 30 independent local artists, as well as performances from six Boston-area musicians and deejays. A portion of proceeds from the event will benefit Project Bread, the state’s leading anti-hunger organization.
“We’re on the pulse of the city already, which is something we hope people realize they can depend on,” said Monzon, a 30-year-old Revere native who currently works at The Palm restaurant at The Westin Copley Place.
Other future endeavors for Tall Boy include a hip-hop showcase at Church in the Fenway on Dec. 14, featuring Moe Pope, Young Riot and comedian Lamont Price, who will serve as the master of ceremonies for the event. The company is also producing a music video for Pope, a Roxbury-bred MC who has gained national acclaim in the hip-hop world.
“We’re just a grassroots production company in the Back Bay, and we’re excited to see where it goes from here,” Merry said.
For more information on The Rockin’ Shop Party, visit www.therockinshop.com. To learn more about Tall Boy, call Peter Boyd at 617-777-8210.

The Boston Landmarks Commission (BLC) voted last week to approve the demolition of the St. Cecilia parish center on Belvedere Street, setting the stage for a major rehabilitation of the adjoining church building.
The project entails razing the parish center, building a glass entryway in its place that would serve as the main entryway to the church and be handicap accessible. The main church building - a brick structure that dates back to 1888 – will undergo renovations, including the addition of new educational and office space and a major rehabilitation of its lower levels. A tower located on the side of the church next to the parish center site would also be outfitted with an elevator, accessible from the new entrance.
Elements of the razed parish center will be salvaged and reused in the new construction.
The cost of the project is estimated at $12 million, largely funded by proceeds from the sale of an 11,000 square-foot parcel of land adjacent to the church last year.
Brett Donham, a principal of the Boston firm Donham & Sweeney Architects, said the primary objectives of the project are to accommodate the growing congregation, to renovate the upper church and to restore the exterior envelope of the building.
The demolition of the parish center would also allow sunlight to enter three long-obscured stained-glass windows and three additional lower-level windows, as well as the nave of the church, Donham said.
While both the church and parish center were recommended for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places per a survey conducted by the BLC in 1984, Donham argued that the parish center was one of many buildings in the English revival style commonly found in the Back Bay. “My take is that [the parish center] is not a significant building,” he said.
Donham further stated adaptive reuse of the parish center was impractical because it couldn’t be easily configured to house the new entrance to the church, and converting the building into office space would prove to be cost prohibitive.
Meanwhile, the BLC approved the demolition on the condition that work wouldn’t commence until all necessary permits were in place. Jeffrey Pond of the BLC also requested that the Landmark Commission and the Boston Preservation Alliance, which voiced its support for the demolition at the Nov. 24 hearing, be included in the ongoing project review.

The Boston Parks and Recreation Department has announced that it has issued a Request for Expressions of Interest (RFEI) from parties with interesting and competitive ideas for the reuse of the former Agassiz Road Shelter in the Back Bay Fens.
Also known as the Duck House, this unusual building is an historic structure that once housed restrooms and was closed after a fire in 1986. The Boston Parks Department, under the guidance of Mayor Thomas M. Menino and the Fenway community, is interested in developing a reuse plan for this empty building. The purpose of the RFEI is to determine the type of information and materials to be incorporated into a Request for Proposals (RFP), gauge the interest in the building, and identify the market for a potential RFP.
The Agassiz Road Duck House was constructed in 1897 adjacent to the Agassiz Road Bridge along the Muddy River in the Boston’s Back Bay Fens. Historically, the building was used as a “shelter station,” or public restroom. The structure is sited within the Back Bay Fens, one of nine linked parks encircling Boston known as the Emerald Necklace. The Frederick Law Olmsted designed park system was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1971 and the Back Bay Fens was designated a Boston Landmark District in 1983. The Duck House’s rustic style and relationship to the park makes it an important contributing feature to the Back Bay Fens.
The Parks Department is seeking expressions of interest that provide for a public benefit and complement park management and programming. If a compatible use can be identified, the Department could grant a lease to a tenant who would restore the building for this use, provide public benefit, and enhance the Back Bay Fens. The Department would consider a long lease term; however, if the term is longer than three years, legislation will be required to enact such an agreement.
Because the Back Bay Fens is a National and local Landmark protected by law and Parks Department rules, there are both great opportunities and challenges in a reuse plan. The park is centrally located in a neighborhood of Boston with a diversity and density of residents, businesses, attractions and institutions unmatched elsewhere in the city.
With its mix of uses, the park draws daily commuters as well as tourists, and the Duck House is located to capture both of these user groups. Challenges to redevelopment of the Duck House include seasonality, limited space, no immediately adjacent parking, and garbage/recycling management. Because of limited space in the building, the Parks Department anticipates that an off-site commissary and storage space will be required for most vending operations.
The Parks Department encourages the submission of any reuse idea, provided that the new use is compatible with the historic character of the park and building. Any redevelopment of the building should include publicly accessible restroom facilities as this was the original purpose of the building and is an ongoing need for visitors to the park system.
The deadline for all RFEI submissions is Jan. 19, 2010. The Request for Expressions of Interest is available for pickup (no mailings will be sent) from the Boston Parks and Recreation Department, 1010 Massachusetts Ave., third floor, Boston, MA 02118. It is also available for download from the City of Boston Web site at www.cityofboston.gov/parks/design_con/bidsandproposals3.asp

On Wednesday, Rep. Marty Walz (D-Boston) announced the House of Representatives and the Senate approved legislation that would prevent a tax increase for unincorporated condominium associations.
An unintended consequence of last year’s corporate tax reform law, the Act Relative to Tax Fairness and Business Competiveness, is that unincorporated condominium associations are now taxed as corporations rather than as individuals. This requires condominium associations to pay the minimum corporate tax, file more complex tax forms and pay taxes on operating and reserve accounts. To correct this, the legislature included provisions in H. 4359, An Act Establishing Fiscal Stability Measures for Fiscal Year 2010, that return condominium association taxes to what they were previously. The bill makes this change effective for the 2009 tax year, ensuring that condominium associations are not affected even for one year.
“I am pleased that the House of Representatives and Senate acted quickly to prevent a tax increase for many of my constituents,” Walz said. “The 2008 law was intended to close various loopholes and inadvertently increased taxes on condo associations.”
Gov. Deval Patrick approved these provisions on Nov. 24. He proposed the same change to the law earlier this year.