The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 266

THE BOSTON SUNDAY GLOBE OCTOBER 27, 1996 12 City Updates on stories still out there Keeping their wits about them HJOHNSWOOD of a neighborhood group a half-doz-wi Road women relv on trict City Councilor Maura Henni-gan, says the plan includes new benches, banners, trash receptacles, signage and groves of trees as well as four pedestrian "oases" to be created where Centre Street intersects with Corey Street, La-Grange Street, Mount Vernon Street and Belgrade Avenue. "Now, the intersections are very busy and dangerous for pedestrians," Mulvey Jacobson says. "We've come up with an idea to make them safer and add beauty. We're proposing a gradual grade increase up to each intersection, so the road is even with the sidwalk -nothing like a speed bump, but so different to drive over that it will cause drivers to slow down. "We hope to do them in interlocking concrete pavers, which is like a jigsaw puzzle.

We're also asking that the traffic lights be synchronized, so when you press a button, all the traffic stops so that it's safe to cross in any direction." Some planners also sit on Mayor Menino's pedestrian safety task WEST ROXBURY For years, boosters of this tree-lined neighborhood have experienced the up side and down side of its peculiar geography. Most Boston neighborhoods are bounded either by other city neighborhoods or by older suburban districts, such as Revere or North Brookline. But West Roxbury juts out into Dedham and South Brookline, which are as bucolic as suburbs get in urban America. As a result, West Roxbury residents can boast on one hand, of their neighborhood's suburban-like and worry, on the other hand, about the magnet of even leafier streets and shopping malls sucking residents and shoppers from their midst. To counter this, the West Roxbury Business and Professional Association has been struggling toward consensus over the future of the main artery in the district Centre Street.

Compared with many neighbor- to help cope with a modern mixture of stresses. With a directness that Harriet Nelson might not have condoned, they call it the Desperate Mothers Club. Formed more than a year ago and still adding members, the club convenes when young children, part-time jobs and housework all get to be too much for one member. In this loosely organized group, any member can call a meeting, on an emergency basis if needed. If a respite from family responsi-bilites beckons, the children of Desperate Mothers Club members are turned over to their fathers when they return home from work, and the group takes off.

Their usual tination is Doyle's Pub in ing Jamaica Plain, where none of the club members is known as Mommy. I "It's time to forget you wipe noses and speak in five-word sentences," said Dawn Saunders, 29, one of many mothers on the street whose days are usually dictated by the needs of young children. "It's a great group and we all click. We have really intelligent things to say we forgot we were capable of." Other than Saunders, a nursing and biology student at Simmons College, most of the current members work part-time in various professions. Typical is Boston lawyer Lisa Martinez, mother of a 22-month-old daughter, who has lived on Johns-wood for two years.

"All of us mothers were in the same boat," Martinez said. "We hadn't been out for months without the kids." Although the club convenes only once every other month or so, it took some getting-used-to on the part of certain nonmembers. "The first time the DMC thing was sprung on us, we were stunned," said Byran Glascock, Martinez' husband. "But now we're used to it. It's kind of funny to see the line of mini-vans going down the street" The rather unorthodox group grew from the efforts of Mary Ann McGannon, 34, who originally belonged to a more conventional mothers' rrnnn that mpt.

in annthpr rit.v "VJ jtu ONGOING Continued from Page 1 on time and within cost, though both standards vary, depending on those giving the estimate. Members of the North End-Waterfront Central Artery Committee say they also have an agenda: to get a good night's sleep, to carry on normal conversations, to avoid going crazy. To attain its goals, Big Dig officials have proposed two work shifts, 10 hours each, from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. and from 7 p.m.

to 5 a.m. "So, we have two hours off in the afternoon and two hours off early in the morning," said Dan Wilson, a leader of the North End committee. "We asked them to look at two 8-hour shifts consecutively from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. and from then to 11 p.m.

and to work Sunday. We want to eliminate work between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. There is no way we can live with 24-hour construction year after year for five years." Another committee suggestion is that the 10-hour shifts be used from mid-October to May 1 and the eight-hour shifts be used during the spring, summer and early fall. "We said we'd look at that and give them our findings," said Peter Zuk, project director of the Big Dig.

"The contract is still open to community input, and we're prepared to make changes." Work would begin perhaps in March and continue for more than four years. Both Wilson and Nancy Caruso, another founder of the North End committee, credit the Big Dig for proposing $3 million in noise mitigation procedures, including a sound barrier that will rise from the street to the existing Central Artery. Wilson also praises both the state and city for proposing that two "rovers" patrol the construction site all night to stop any violations of noise ordinances. The alternative, he says, referring to Caruso, "is doing what Nancy does, getting in your bathrobe and wandering around trying to find the source of noise." Wilson warns that if Big Dig officials can't or won't eliminate the proposed 10-hour shifts, "We'd have to stop them. There are city ordinances and commitments in environmental documents to which we'd have to force compliance.

We can't not sleep for five years. But nobody wants to get to that point" Zuk says he doesn't either. "My view," he says, "is that we're part of the community, and we have an interest in seeing that this work is done in a way to protect the community." corner of the old West End, an ethnically diverse neighborhood razed in 1960 and replaced with Charles River Park's luxury apartments in what became a textbook example of how not to do urban renewal. Former West Enders contend they deserve all or most of the 58 low-income apartments, but the other players, including city and federal officials, the Archdiocese of Boston and the private developers, say they must heed both federal regulations and a consent decreee mandating affirmative action marketing to minorities. When negotiations failed, the West Enders enlisted the support of the City Council and retained as their lead attorney Chester Darling.

Darling gained fame when he successfully represented before the US Supreme Court the South Boston Allied War Veterans Council in its exclusion of a gay and lesbian group in the annual St. Patrick's Day Parade. As the council and Mayor Thomas Menino have battled over whether the council had the right to spend its money hiring a lawyer to sue the city, Darling and another attorney, Donald P. Zerendow, have pressed ahead with the West Enders' suit They have sued Mayor Menino and the city, the Boston Redevelopment Authority, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Boston Fair Housing Commission, the Boston Housing Authority, Keen Development the Archdiocese's Planning Office for Urban Affairs, Lowell Square Associates Joint Venture, Lowell Square Cooperative Limited Partnership, Maloney Proper-, ties Inc. and the principals of those agencies and corporations.

They charge that the defendants have "purposely deprived" former West Enders from the residential preference due them by statute, have changed the rules in mid-game without necessary city and state approval and are discriminating aginst the plaintiffs on the basis of racial classifications. The lawyers even accuse the BRA of not protecting the property rights of the former West Enders and of taking money from Charles River Park as part of a deal enabling that corporation to convert apartments to condos. Joining in the plea for an injunction was Paul L. Barrett former BRA director under both Mayor Flynn and Mayor Menino. In an affidavit, Barrett often rumored as a challenger to Menino in next year's election, contends that 70 percent of the Lowell Square units were supposed to go to former West Enders.

it GLOBE STAFF FILE PHOTO Big Dig: North Enders, anticipating chaos, are negotiating noise control with contractors. Above, digging in Charlestown, 1990. support residents offer one another. In addition to informal daily gestures, they also band together in more formal ways. Each year, for example, Pat and Joan Byrnes and their five children open their home for a Christmas party, followed by caroling.

Hope Podell, a 10-year resident of Johns-wood, organizes an annual neighborhood sidewalk sale. In late August, the neighborhood holds a block party with Rem McGannon supervising games for the four dozen children, most of whom are under 12, who live on the street "Oh my god, the children," said Desperate Mother Linda Ziemba. "There are just masses of children that live up here." Ziemba, museum exhibit designer and mother of a 10-month-old, has lived in numerous Boston neighborhoods and in Cambridge. She considers Johnswood Road the best of all: "People know each other so well." Formerly a predominantly Irish and Italian neighborhood anchored by the Sacred Heart Church, it has slowly become more diverse. Primarily white and straight, the street nonetheless is also home to blacks and lesbians, as well as Hispanics, Asians and residents originally from the Philippines and Egypt.

"I'm a firm believer in urban life," said Kirsten Twohy, mother of a 20-month-old daughter. "I like the diverse community which we have here. It's important for kids to see other people besides those that look like people in their family." The children also seem to like it Not long ago, three boys were playing playing "suicide," a game involving a tennis ball, a cement wall and quick reflexes. Daniel Whall, 13, a life-long resident of the road, and Jeremy Ford, 15, who was visiting his cousins, agreed with Tommy Byrne, 12, when asked what they thought of the street "We get to play in the street all the time because there's no cars," he said. Usually, it's stickball, though they were waiting on this particular day for enough children to show up to make a team.

"We know all the adults in the neigborhood and they're all nice to us." Megan Whall, 10 and Daniel's sister, counted five girlfriends who live on the street. When asked about his friends, James McLean, 7V, first reeled off a list of names then opened his arms and said, "all the kids on the block." Residents find the hilltop road, whose loop defines the neighborhood, so appealing that one family recently rejected a chance to move to a larger apartment in Brookline for the same rent. When Sgt. Roy Chambers, the community services police officer for Area which includes Roslindale, was asked about Johnswood Road, he drew a blank. "The name doesn't ring a bell," he said.

"Usually that indicates it's not a trouble street" Within walking distance of Roslindale Square, Johnswood Road is a short street with 40 houses. A quarter of them are two-family, the rest are single-family, currently selling for around $130,000. One eyesore, a house abandoned for 15 years, stands out on the street. Some parents have an even more long-term concern: They worry about the quality of education in the Boston public schools. Most of the older children attend private schools.

Because of the school situation, McGannon predicts that the new friends may not all grow old together, like the majority of the men and women who owned houses there before them. "The big question mark in everyone's mind is, 'When are we going to she said. "If we could feel secure about the schools, I think we'd all stay here." For now, however, Glascock is sold. "This is Utopia," he said. hood shopping centers, Centre Street is seen as being in pretty good shape, but critics say its layout prompts too much speeding and weaving in and out by impatient motorists.

And, they add, those motorists do not. take the time to savor what the shopping district offers. As reported last May, the business association got $15,000 from the Edward Ingersoll Browne Fund to hire two architectural firms, CityDesign and Lane Frenchman, to create a new vision for a 21fe-mile stretch of Centre Street, from the Holy Name Rotary to St Theresa's Church. That plan is scheduled to be presented at a community meeting on Wednesday at 7 p.m. in the Robert Gould Shaw Middle School, 20 Mt Vernon Street.

Mary Mulvey Jacobson, association president and an aide to Dis- force, which has asked the city to do a traffic study on Centre Street and to recommend parking improvements. Already, Mulvey Jacobson says, police have begun to enforce the existing two-hour parking limit on Centre Street The business association estimates the renewal will cost $1.5 million, of which it hopes to get $150,000 from the Browne Fund and the rest from various city departments, the city's capital budget and federal sources. WEST END -Attorneys for former West End residents who say they are being shut out of a new housing development in their old neighborhood asked a US District Court judge last week for an injunction to stop the tenant-selection process. At issue is West End Place in Lowell Square, 183 units of mixed-market housing being built on a neighborhood. McGannon is an art therapist who commutes to her ioh in Nor- Getting to downtown: slow and costly wood.

She remembers with a shud- der the response from her Johns-i wood Road neighbors three years ago, when her first child was born. Leaving for the hospital in the 1 middle of the night, she and her hus- band, Rem, left their dog outside, i McGannon had complications, and remained in the hospital longer than i expected. When she returned home, the messages on her answering ma- chine were increasingly irate calls i from one neighbor about the barking 1 dog. Rather than give up on the hope i of friendly relations, McGannon be-; gan reaching out. Her efforts paid i off.

This year, during her second pregnancy, she had an emergency appendectomy during the night. "The woman who hated me three years ago came right over," said McGannon, to take care of the 1 McGannons' 3-year-old son. According to several residents on i this one-way street, that type of gen-; erosity is typical of the neighbor-, hood. Carolyn Fahy, a mother of i three who has run a family day-care operation from her home for 10 years and serves as a mentor to the Desperate Mothers Club, recounted a recent example of the neighbor-1 hood spirit Fahy's brother was visit- ing and the transmission on Fahy's i car broke. A neighbor immediately I loaned her his car.

"Since I borrowed his car," Fahy recalled, "three other neighbors heard about my predicament and of-. fered me their cars to use." Many of the residents' extended famines live far away. Their absence is mitigated somewhat by the mutual symbolic one, since he estimates that 90 percent of the riders don't want to go any farther than Downtown Crossing. "But symbolic issues are important, too," he said. There are some indications that the city's strategy is working.

Proponents of light rail such as Rushing, Wilkerson and others indicate they could be satisfied with the electric bus if it connects downtown. The connection doesn't necessarily have to occur through an expensive underground tunnel: Some type of outdoor sheltered walkway that easily led to trains might be enough. The Ts Slater, for his part, says such a shelter wouldn't be difficult to build, as long as the city out including any inner-city stops. Such resentment makes it difficult for residents to believe the MBTA would follow through on promises to build the electric bus service now and connect it to the rest of the system later. "My message to them is, 'Guess what? People don't trust Wilkerson said.

"'And why should they trust you? You haven't done a single thing that you said you're going to do. Ever I can't tell them anything that will make them trust you because I don't trust you, The has earmarked $40 million for the electric bus project, and has started spending it on designs. In the meantime, city officials, particularly Vineet Gupta and Tom Tinlin of the transporta- The idea that we want service that's connected to the rest of the system doesn't sound outlandish to me. It just doesn't. People want to get on and off a bus without getting rained on.

I don't think that's too much to DIANNE WILKERSON State senator TRANSIT Continued from Page 1 Washington Street the target of a mayoral task force, to start enjoying the economic benefits they hope new transit and the corresponding reconstructed sidewalks, landscaping and roadway -will bring. The rail vs. electric bus debate has been raging even longer than Washington Street has been without good transit service. One of the MBTA's first studies of the options was released in 1983, and it favored rail. Subsequent studies have said the electric bus is less intrusive and a better deal for the money.

Opponents have attacked those studies as flawed, and the debate has continued, with no decision from the until earlier this year. "I think people have to be willing to compromise, and when people aren't willing to compromise, things just don't happen," said Geoff Slater, MBTA director of planning. "There are also very different interests here. There are people from Roxbury who have a legitimate need to get through the South End to downtown, and there are people from the South End who have a legitimate need and desire to see their neighborhood developed into a peaceful place that's not a speedway." Democratic State Rep. Byron Rushing of the South End puts blame for the inaction squarely on the shoulders of the T.

In a recent letter to Gov. William F. Weld, transportation secretary James Kerasiotes and the MBTA board, Rushing called the decade-long delay "one of the most egregious unkept promises to the South End and Roxbury" and pressed the case for the light rail. Backing him are members of the Washington Street Corridor Coalition, a network of almost 30 groups who want rail service on the once-grand boulevard and continue to be upset that the MBTA is proceeding with the electric bus system. Just under the surface is lingering resentment against the transit authority, not only for more than a decade of inaction on the Washington Street service but forither perceived slights to Boston's minority community.

They cite the decision to build the Old Colony commuter rail with Other weight loss programs promise success. tion department, are trying to broker an agreement between the state and residents. One strategy, Gupta said, is to persuade the MBTA to provide an analysis of different options for connecting the service with the rest of the system, and the relative price tags, and to make some other investments in the community, such as building a parking garage at Dudley. He said the authority has already agreed to free transfers and a minority outreach program. MBTA officials also have agreed to make the electric bus system a fifth color: the Silver Line.

It would have nd route maps, but would have the status of rapid transit. To Gupta, the idea of connection is mainly a and Downtown Crossing Association agreed. "But remember," Slater said. "We've got a connection here at North Station on the Green Line where you're in the system, but you're still outside. You can get rained on." Whatever agreements are made, Gupta seems confident the electric bus system can satisfy many of the concerns of those who have a vested interest in the replacement service.

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