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Restaurants
Update: Legal in the Seaport District
Posted by Devra First September 29, 2010 03:50 PM
Globe Staff Photo/David L. Ryan
A three-floor Legal Sea Foods will be part of the new Liberty Wharf complex.
This morning, Legal Sea Foods honcho Roger Berkowitz filled me in on what's happening with the flagship restaurant, slated to open in the Liberty Wharf complex at the old Jimmy's Harborside location.
The restaurant is about 65 percent ready, he says. It currently looks as though it will open in March. Even with further delays, this means we're likely to have another waterfront spot to enjoy next summer.
Berkowitz says this Legal will be "radically different" than others. There will still be plenty of seafood, of course, but "in terms of presentation, it will be unlike anything we are currently doing," he says. There will be three floors. The first one will be more of a marketplace, featuring a fresh fish counter, prepared foods, takeout, and an oyster bar. The setting will be casual and the offerings affordable, Berkowitz says. "It's a throwback or a nod to our roots in Inman Square, without the sawdust."
The second floor will be more upscale, "a hair more formal than a traditional Legal," Berkowitz says. There will be a bit more meat than on Legal's current menus, and unusual seafood not typically seen on Boston menus. "The second floor is our way of showcasing what we do as a seafood company, pulling out some of the stops in terms of the uniqueness of some of the products offered." It will be slightly more expensive than the usual Legals. And, Berkowitz adds tantalizingly, "the wine list is going to be unique. I can't tell you about it, but it will be unlike anything offered in the country."
The third floor will be a rooftop deck. Like a beer garden with fish? No, says Berkowitz, laughing. "I won't go beer garden. Hopefully it has a different feel."
It will be very interesting to see the end results, because they will say a lot about what Legal Sea Foods currently is and wants to be. "We want this in some ways to define what we do," Berkowitz says.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Stoddard's review
Boston Herald
At Stoddard’s, you’ll eat, drink and be merry
By Mat Schaffer | Friday, September 24, 2010 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Dining Reviews
STODDARD’S FINE FOOD & ALE: B
Stoddard’s Fine Food & Ale, the Ladder District gastro pub that opened this spring after umpteen delays, was worth the wait.
With its historic craft cocktails, lengthy beer selection and surprisingly sophisticated food, Stoddard’s has become a deservedly popular haunt with the Government Center workers, shoppers, theatergoers and tourists who frequent this neighborhood. Be prepared to wait for a table.
Kudos to chef Mark Cina (Central Kitchen, Rendezvous, Craigie Street) for his ambitious menu that mixes reinvented saloon classics with gourmet dining eats. Aged gouda and cask ale fondue. Lobster scallion hush puppies. Ballotine of Vermont rabbit. A giant burger.
With one exception (a market-priced Meyer Ranch ribeye), nothing costs more than $25.
The terrific fondue ($10) doesn’t skimp on either cheese or alcohol. It comes with assorted crudites and homemade pretzels for dipping and is large enough to share. Hush puppies ($11) boast plenty of lobster and are delish dunked into spicy guacamole.
A half-dozen clams casino ($9) are topped with buttery cracker crumbs, house pancetta and a superfluous drop of sugary, lemon curd-y coulis. Don’t miss the house charcuterie plate ($15) of home-cured sausages, rustic pate, smoked duck breast and tiny BLT and pastrami sandwiches. It’s a winner.
Regrettably, beef tartare ($10) is so heavily infused with pureed roasted tomatoes that you can scarcely taste the snipped steak. It comes with a swatch of sauce gribiche - a chopped egg and tarragon speckled emulsion the consistency of egg salad.
Thumbs up for a pot of crunchy bread and butter pickles ($4). Thumbs down for the deviled eggs ($4) with their whipped, oddly tangy filling.
Cina hits one out of the park with his ballotine of rabbit ($24) - lovely rounds of basil-scented rabbit mousse wrapped in rabbit and pancetta, accompanied by chunks of tender salsify (reminiscent of artichoke hearts) and vinegary stewed prunes.
Slices of chamomile-glazed duck breast ($24) on a bed of creamed spinach are unhappily undercooked in the centers. You’ll love the accompanying corn griddlecake garnished with honeyed roasted shallots.
Undercooking is a problem here. A thick, crispy skinned fillet of pan-seared Atlantic halibut ($24) over roasted cauliflower and pine nuts in tart-sweet sherry raisin sauce is sushi-raw in the middle.
And although we requested Stoddard’s burger ($14) - a monster-sized patty on a brioche bun layered with melted cheddar, slivered lettuce and savory homemade ketchup - medium rare, it arrived blood red. Beer battered onion rings are tempura-light.
How good is a side of velvety pomme puree mashed potatoes? So good, we did not dispute the $6.75 charge on our bill - the spuds are only $6 on the menu.
Stoddard’s has a fascinating cocktail program covering 150-plus years of libations ($9). Try a Brandy Crusta, purportedly invented in 1852 and a precursor to the margarita and cosmopolitan. Or a Moscow Mule, a 1917-era blend of vodka, lime and ginger beer poured over ice into a copper mug.
There’s a small but serviceable wine selection. And a giant assortment of bottled, draft and cask-conditioned beers that cost between $4 and $10. Why are prices absent from the suds list?
Desserts ($7) include treacly, chilled lemon souffle, the texture of lemon pudding cake, and a dense - if not especially memorable - chocolate terrine.
The amiable wait staff is still tentative about the specifics of the cuisine.
Located in a building constructed in 1868, Stoddard’s decor (brick walls, tin ceiling, cast-iron railings, mahogany bar and display of antique corsets) is explained in depth on the back of the menu.
Warning: The deafeningly loud, vintage rock music in the background may drive you crazy. It did me.
48 Temple St. (Ladder District)
617-426-0048
stoddardsfoodandale.com
Price: $20-$40
Hours: Tue.-Sat., 5 p.m.-2 a.m.; Sun., 11 a.m.-2 a.m.
Bar: Full
Credit: All
Recession Specials: No
Accessibility: Accessible
Parking: Validated parking at Lafayette Garage
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/entertainment/food_dining/reviews/view.bg?articleid=1283759
At Stoddard’s, you’ll eat, drink and be merry
By Mat Schaffer | Friday, September 24, 2010 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Dining Reviews
STODDARD’S FINE FOOD & ALE: B
Stoddard’s Fine Food & Ale, the Ladder District gastro pub that opened this spring after umpteen delays, was worth the wait.
With its historic craft cocktails, lengthy beer selection and surprisingly sophisticated food, Stoddard’s has become a deservedly popular haunt with the Government Center workers, shoppers, theatergoers and tourists who frequent this neighborhood. Be prepared to wait for a table.
Kudos to chef Mark Cina (Central Kitchen, Rendezvous, Craigie Street) for his ambitious menu that mixes reinvented saloon classics with gourmet dining eats. Aged gouda and cask ale fondue. Lobster scallion hush puppies. Ballotine of Vermont rabbit. A giant burger.
With one exception (a market-priced Meyer Ranch ribeye), nothing costs more than $25.
The terrific fondue ($10) doesn’t skimp on either cheese or alcohol. It comes with assorted crudites and homemade pretzels for dipping and is large enough to share. Hush puppies ($11) boast plenty of lobster and are delish dunked into spicy guacamole.
A half-dozen clams casino ($9) are topped with buttery cracker crumbs, house pancetta and a superfluous drop of sugary, lemon curd-y coulis. Don’t miss the house charcuterie plate ($15) of home-cured sausages, rustic pate, smoked duck breast and tiny BLT and pastrami sandwiches. It’s a winner.
Regrettably, beef tartare ($10) is so heavily infused with pureed roasted tomatoes that you can scarcely taste the snipped steak. It comes with a swatch of sauce gribiche - a chopped egg and tarragon speckled emulsion the consistency of egg salad.
Thumbs up for a pot of crunchy bread and butter pickles ($4). Thumbs down for the deviled eggs ($4) with their whipped, oddly tangy filling.
Cina hits one out of the park with his ballotine of rabbit ($24) - lovely rounds of basil-scented rabbit mousse wrapped in rabbit and pancetta, accompanied by chunks of tender salsify (reminiscent of artichoke hearts) and vinegary stewed prunes.
Slices of chamomile-glazed duck breast ($24) on a bed of creamed spinach are unhappily undercooked in the centers. You’ll love the accompanying corn griddlecake garnished with honeyed roasted shallots.
Undercooking is a problem here. A thick, crispy skinned fillet of pan-seared Atlantic halibut ($24) over roasted cauliflower and pine nuts in tart-sweet sherry raisin sauce is sushi-raw in the middle.
And although we requested Stoddard’s burger ($14) - a monster-sized patty on a brioche bun layered with melted cheddar, slivered lettuce and savory homemade ketchup - medium rare, it arrived blood red. Beer battered onion rings are tempura-light.
How good is a side of velvety pomme puree mashed potatoes? So good, we did not dispute the $6.75 charge on our bill - the spuds are only $6 on the menu.
Stoddard’s has a fascinating cocktail program covering 150-plus years of libations ($9). Try a Brandy Crusta, purportedly invented in 1852 and a precursor to the margarita and cosmopolitan. Or a Moscow Mule, a 1917-era blend of vodka, lime and ginger beer poured over ice into a copper mug.
There’s a small but serviceable wine selection. And a giant assortment of bottled, draft and cask-conditioned beers that cost between $4 and $10. Why are prices absent from the suds list?
Desserts ($7) include treacly, chilled lemon souffle, the texture of lemon pudding cake, and a dense - if not especially memorable - chocolate terrine.
The amiable wait staff is still tentative about the specifics of the cuisine.
Located in a building constructed in 1868, Stoddard’s decor (brick walls, tin ceiling, cast-iron railings, mahogany bar and display of antique corsets) is explained in depth on the back of the menu.
Warning: The deafeningly loud, vintage rock music in the background may drive you crazy. It did me.
48 Temple St. (Ladder District)
617-426-0048
stoddardsfoodandale.com
Price: $20-$40
Hours: Tue.-Sat., 5 p.m.-2 a.m.; Sun., 11 a.m.-2 a.m.
Bar: Full
Credit: All
Recession Specials: No
Accessibility: Accessible
Parking: Validated parking at Lafayette Garage
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/entertainment/food_dining/reviews/view.bg?articleid=1283759
Amtrak unveils vision for high speed rail from Boston to D.C.
The Boston Globe
Amtrak seeks high-speed rail down the line
By Patrick Walters, Associated Press | September 29, 2010
PHILADELPHIA — Amtrak unveiled yesterday a $117 billion, 30-year vision for a high-speed rail line on the East Coast that would drastically reduce travel times along the congested corridor using trains traveling up to 220 miles per hour.
The proposal, which would require building a new set of tracks from Boston to Washington, D.C., is at the concept stage and there is no funding plan in place, Joseph Boardman, Amtrak president, said at a news conference at Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station.
The project would probably use some combination of public and private investment and may be phased in starting in 2015, he said.
The Next-Gen High Speed Rail line would have hubs in Baltimore, New York City, Philadelphia, and Washington and could cut travel times in half or better. It would reduce the travel time between Washington and New York from 162 minutes to 96 minutes, according to Amtrak. The travel time between New York and Boston would go from 215 minutes to 84 minutes.
About 12 million riders a year use Amtrak along the Northeast corridor.
Under the high-speed system envisioned, the trains would be able to accommodate about 33.7 million passengers by 2040. Amtrak officials estimated the high-speed system would generate $900 million more per year with the added ridership.
High-speed rail would not only help reduce congestion on the rails, but also in the skies, since it would be more enticing to passengers making shorter trips, according to Amtrak officials and others.
“No one should take a plane for a trip shorter than 500 miles,’’ said Governor Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania, noting that the system would be comparable to service linking European countries.
The new system would support about 44,000 construction jobs annually over the anticipated 25-year process, as well as about 120,000 permanent jobs, Amtrak said.
But it would be expensive — averaging about $4 billion a year over three decades.
In 2009, Amtrak had a total budget of about $3.5 billion, with about $1.49 billion coming from the federal government. It spent $655 million of that federal funding on capital projects.
Nevertheless, Rendell said, political leaders must generate the will to get the project done before the current system is overwhelmed.
“It isn’t a dream, it isn’t a fantasy, it isn’t an illusion,’’ the Democratic governor said. “Can we afford it? . . . We can’t afford not to do it.’’
© Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company
Amtrak seeks high-speed rail down the line
By Patrick Walters, Associated Press | September 29, 2010
PHILADELPHIA — Amtrak unveiled yesterday a $117 billion, 30-year vision for a high-speed rail line on the East Coast that would drastically reduce travel times along the congested corridor using trains traveling up to 220 miles per hour.
The proposal, which would require building a new set of tracks from Boston to Washington, D.C., is at the concept stage and there is no funding plan in place, Joseph Boardman, Amtrak president, said at a news conference at Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station.
The project would probably use some combination of public and private investment and may be phased in starting in 2015, he said.
The Next-Gen High Speed Rail line would have hubs in Baltimore, New York City, Philadelphia, and Washington and could cut travel times in half or better. It would reduce the travel time between Washington and New York from 162 minutes to 96 minutes, according to Amtrak. The travel time between New York and Boston would go from 215 minutes to 84 minutes.
About 12 million riders a year use Amtrak along the Northeast corridor.
Under the high-speed system envisioned, the trains would be able to accommodate about 33.7 million passengers by 2040. Amtrak officials estimated the high-speed system would generate $900 million more per year with the added ridership.
High-speed rail would not only help reduce congestion on the rails, but also in the skies, since it would be more enticing to passengers making shorter trips, according to Amtrak officials and others.
“No one should take a plane for a trip shorter than 500 miles,’’ said Governor Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania, noting that the system would be comparable to service linking European countries.
The new system would support about 44,000 construction jobs annually over the anticipated 25-year process, as well as about 120,000 permanent jobs, Amtrak said.
But it would be expensive — averaging about $4 billion a year over three decades.
In 2009, Amtrak had a total budget of about $3.5 billion, with about $1.49 billion coming from the federal government. It spent $655 million of that federal funding on capital projects.
Nevertheless, Rendell said, political leaders must generate the will to get the project done before the current system is overwhelmed.
“It isn’t a dream, it isn’t a fantasy, it isn’t an illusion,’’ the Democratic governor said. “Can we afford it? . . . We can’t afford not to do it.’’
© Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company
Jack Kerourac heritage boosts Lowell tourism
The Boston Globe
Discovering Kerouac
Lowell finds tributes to a native son are generating economic activity
By James Sullivan, Globe Correspondent | September 29, 2010
LOWELL — In 1979, 10 years after the death of the writer Jack Kerouac, the city of Lowell held its first public event recognizing its native son. Until then, Kerouac’s hometown had done little to honor a man many remembered more as a wayward boozer than a literary figure of historical significance.
The event’s success surprised even its most optimistic supporters.
“So many people showed up, the Fire Department had to seal the doors,’’ recalled Paul Marion, an organizer. “It was an early indication of the potential of Kerouac as a cultural asset.’’
At the time, Lowell was beginning to clear the rubble from the decades-long decline of its once-mighty textile industry. In more recent years, the downtown area has become a model of urban revitalization. Some say it has plenty to do with the legacy of the local boy who once cut classes to design his own course of study at the public library.
Lowell really began to explore its relationship with Kerouac in the late 1980s, when Marion and others spearheaded a drive to establish the Kerouac Commemorative, a contemplative sculpture park featuring the Beat writer’s words etched into stone. The year of the park’s dedication also featured the first Lowell Celebrates Kerouac festival, arranged by a group of fans and civic boosters who first convened in 1985. The committee will mark its 25th anniversary tomorrow through Sunday with a series of events under the umbrella of the Jack Kerouac Literary Festival.
The city’s infatuation with its most famous resident (sorry, Bette Davis and Ed McMahon fans) escalated dramatically in 2007 with an exhibit of Kerouac’s “scroll,’’ the paper roll on which he typed the manuscript for the backpackers’ bible “On the Road.’’ Twenty-five thousand visitors came to view the scroll that summer.
“That sent a clear message that there was a huge audience ready to soak this stuff up,’’ said Jim Cook, executive director of Lowell Plan Inc., a nonprofit community development organization. “Why not take advantage of that?’’
In addition to promoting the renamed Kerouac festival, the city is also exploring ways to attract and identify more daily visitors year-round.
“There are people every day in Lowell on the Kerouac trail, but we have a hard time tracking them,’’ said Marion. “It’s very much a self-discovery experience.’’
To that end, Marion and a teaching colleague from the University of Massachusetts Lowell, Michael Millner, have secured a $35,000 creative economy grant from the university to build a definitive Kerouac website and a stand-alone exhibit for the Lowell National Historical Park’s visitor center. Additionally, long-term plans are being laid for a Kerouac Center for Creativity.
The center would be “less a massive Kerouac museum than a multiuse venue that would capture his creative spirit,’’ providing studio and performance space for filmmakers, musicians, writers, dancers, and others, Marion said.
The editor of a collection of Kerouac’s early writing, Marion is also a Beatles fan who has twice been to the band’s hometown, Liverpool, England. That city’s efforts to promote commerce based on John, Paul, George, and Ringo provide a model for Lowell, he said.
The childhood homes of Paul McCartney and John Lennon are owned and operated by the National Trust. Liverpool hosts a “Magical Mystery Tour’’ by bus and an attraction called the Beatles Experience. And the city has developed tributes to its industrial and maritime history.
“They have parlayed the Beatles’ cultural power into redefining Liverpool as a major cultural center,’’ said Marion. The new creative economy has so transformed the place that two years ago Liverpool was named the European Union’s City of Culture.
Cook likes the Liverpool analogy, too. “It took them a long time to step up and acknowledge this could be a cultural mecca for them,’’ he said. “We’re probably at the crossroads of doing the same thing here.’’
Steve Edington, president of Lowell Celebrates Kerouac, said the city is not close to maximizing the potential for Kerouac’s drawing power. Just as the literary festival is expanding its focus beyond Beat writing (this year’s guests include novelists Tom Perrotta, Russell Banks, and Alan Lightman), the city is learning to use Kerouac’s name to attract a wider range of visitors.
Edington, a Unitarian Universalist minister in Nashua, said he went through his Kerouac phase while still in theological school in the early 1970s. He now teaches a course in the literature of the Beat movement at UMass Lowell. Edington said his interest in the writer was rekindled when he moved to the area.
“We’ve kept the Kerouac flame alive and well here in Lowell,’’ he said.
That’s partly because of people like veteran restaurateur John Capriole. About a year ago, he opened Dharma Buns Sandwich Co., a sandwich shop and late-night gathering place on Market Street, naming it after Kerouac’s novel “The Dharma Bums.’’
Capriole has welcomed scores of visitors looking for Kerouac’s homes and historical sites. They come from all over — places such as California, France, and Argentina. Devotees often come in at night, he said, when “we’re one of the few places open.’’
“We definitely have a lot of people come in who know a lot more than I do about Kerouac,’’ said Capriole, who grew up in nearby Methuen and Lawrence. “I learn from them.’’
The walls of Dharma Buns feature portraits of Beat figures and related writers painted by the owner’s wife, Mary. In one corner they sell an array of Beat merchandise — T-shirts, posters, books by local authors. Fittingly, the restaurant will host some festival events this weekend.
On Monday, the day after the festival ends, the Caprioles will begin a vacation. Like the characters in Kerouac’s “On the Road,’’ they are driving to San Francisco.
James Sullivan can be reached at sullivanjames@verizon.net. For more information about the Jack Kerouac Literary Festival, go to www.lowellcelebrateskerouac.org.
© Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company
Discovering Kerouac
Lowell finds tributes to a native son are generating economic activity
By James Sullivan, Globe Correspondent | September 29, 2010
LOWELL — In 1979, 10 years after the death of the writer Jack Kerouac, the city of Lowell held its first public event recognizing its native son. Until then, Kerouac’s hometown had done little to honor a man many remembered more as a wayward boozer than a literary figure of historical significance.
The event’s success surprised even its most optimistic supporters.
“So many people showed up, the Fire Department had to seal the doors,’’ recalled Paul Marion, an organizer. “It was an early indication of the potential of Kerouac as a cultural asset.’’
At the time, Lowell was beginning to clear the rubble from the decades-long decline of its once-mighty textile industry. In more recent years, the downtown area has become a model of urban revitalization. Some say it has plenty to do with the legacy of the local boy who once cut classes to design his own course of study at the public library.
Lowell really began to explore its relationship with Kerouac in the late 1980s, when Marion and others spearheaded a drive to establish the Kerouac Commemorative, a contemplative sculpture park featuring the Beat writer’s words etched into stone. The year of the park’s dedication also featured the first Lowell Celebrates Kerouac festival, arranged by a group of fans and civic boosters who first convened in 1985. The committee will mark its 25th anniversary tomorrow through Sunday with a series of events under the umbrella of the Jack Kerouac Literary Festival.
The city’s infatuation with its most famous resident (sorry, Bette Davis and Ed McMahon fans) escalated dramatically in 2007 with an exhibit of Kerouac’s “scroll,’’ the paper roll on which he typed the manuscript for the backpackers’ bible “On the Road.’’ Twenty-five thousand visitors came to view the scroll that summer.
“That sent a clear message that there was a huge audience ready to soak this stuff up,’’ said Jim Cook, executive director of Lowell Plan Inc., a nonprofit community development organization. “Why not take advantage of that?’’
In addition to promoting the renamed Kerouac festival, the city is also exploring ways to attract and identify more daily visitors year-round.
“There are people every day in Lowell on the Kerouac trail, but we have a hard time tracking them,’’ said Marion. “It’s very much a self-discovery experience.’’
To that end, Marion and a teaching colleague from the University of Massachusetts Lowell, Michael Millner, have secured a $35,000 creative economy grant from the university to build a definitive Kerouac website and a stand-alone exhibit for the Lowell National Historical Park’s visitor center. Additionally, long-term plans are being laid for a Kerouac Center for Creativity.
The center would be “less a massive Kerouac museum than a multiuse venue that would capture his creative spirit,’’ providing studio and performance space for filmmakers, musicians, writers, dancers, and others, Marion said.
The editor of a collection of Kerouac’s early writing, Marion is also a Beatles fan who has twice been to the band’s hometown, Liverpool, England. That city’s efforts to promote commerce based on John, Paul, George, and Ringo provide a model for Lowell, he said.
The childhood homes of Paul McCartney and John Lennon are owned and operated by the National Trust. Liverpool hosts a “Magical Mystery Tour’’ by bus and an attraction called the Beatles Experience. And the city has developed tributes to its industrial and maritime history.
“They have parlayed the Beatles’ cultural power into redefining Liverpool as a major cultural center,’’ said Marion. The new creative economy has so transformed the place that two years ago Liverpool was named the European Union’s City of Culture.
Cook likes the Liverpool analogy, too. “It took them a long time to step up and acknowledge this could be a cultural mecca for them,’’ he said. “We’re probably at the crossroads of doing the same thing here.’’
Steve Edington, president of Lowell Celebrates Kerouac, said the city is not close to maximizing the potential for Kerouac’s drawing power. Just as the literary festival is expanding its focus beyond Beat writing (this year’s guests include novelists Tom Perrotta, Russell Banks, and Alan Lightman), the city is learning to use Kerouac’s name to attract a wider range of visitors.
Edington, a Unitarian Universalist minister in Nashua, said he went through his Kerouac phase while still in theological school in the early 1970s. He now teaches a course in the literature of the Beat movement at UMass Lowell. Edington said his interest in the writer was rekindled when he moved to the area.
“We’ve kept the Kerouac flame alive and well here in Lowell,’’ he said.
That’s partly because of people like veteran restaurateur John Capriole. About a year ago, he opened Dharma Buns Sandwich Co., a sandwich shop and late-night gathering place on Market Street, naming it after Kerouac’s novel “The Dharma Bums.’’
Capriole has welcomed scores of visitors looking for Kerouac’s homes and historical sites. They come from all over — places such as California, France, and Argentina. Devotees often come in at night, he said, when “we’re one of the few places open.’’
“We definitely have a lot of people come in who know a lot more than I do about Kerouac,’’ said Capriole, who grew up in nearby Methuen and Lawrence. “I learn from them.’’
The walls of Dharma Buns feature portraits of Beat figures and related writers painted by the owner’s wife, Mary. In one corner they sell an array of Beat merchandise — T-shirts, posters, books by local authors. Fittingly, the restaurant will host some festival events this weekend.
On Monday, the day after the festival ends, the Caprioles will begin a vacation. Like the characters in Kerouac’s “On the Road,’’ they are driving to San Francisco.
James Sullivan can be reached at sullivanjames@verizon.net. For more information about the Jack Kerouac Literary Festival, go to www.lowellcelebrateskerouac.org.
© Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company
Fenway businesses feeel affect of Sox on the field woes
The Boston Globe
Near Fenway, no magic numbers
Businesses share pain of Sox’ losses
By Megan Woolhouse, Globe Staff | September 28, 2010
Long before the Red Sox reached the brink of elimination from postseason play, there was a sign the end was near: A parking spot in lots near Fenway Park was only $20, discounted from the usual $35 or more.
“I’ve never, ever, seen that before,’’ said season ticket holder Warren Downie before a recent game.
As the prospects of even a wild-card berth in the playoffs slipped away in the last month, revenue for restaurants, shops, and vendors around Fenway also slumped. For each postseason game not played, businesses collectively lose an estimated $2.5 million, according to the Greater Boston Convention & Visitors Bureau. For World Series games, it’s double that.
This would be only the second year since 2003 that businesses surrounding the ballpark have no vested interest in the playoffs. The Red Sox regular season will end at home Sunday against the playoff-bound New York Yankees in what the schedule-makers surely had hoped would be a super-charged finale.
The team’s slide into oblivion has been a slow one, however, allowing time for both fans and businesses to gradually come to terms with the disappointment.
“There’s a feeling of going through the motions on game days,’’ said Garrett Harker, owner of the Eastern Standard restaurant on Commonwealth Avenue. Lately, burgers and beers have ruled, Harker said, with fewer patrons opting for ribeye steaks and fine wine.
“We’re seeing a crowd that’s more casual, more happy to have a night out,’’ he said. “What you lose is maybe that corporate white-collar crowd; they fade away a little bit.’’
Steve DiFillippo, owner of Davio’s at Arlington Street in Park Square, called this year’s truncated season “a bummer.’’ His restaurant has been a popular haunt for opposing teams. Former Yankees manager Joe Torre was a regular, and Derek Jeter has been known to stop in for pregame chicken parmigiana.
At Copperfield’s Bar on Brookline Avenue, the tourist crowd has dwindled as the team’s prospects have dimmed. General manager Bill Crowley said that compounds the misery of staffers, many of whom not only are fans, but rely on tips.
“For us, it’s a real double-whammy,’’ Crowley said.
Others with a vested interest in the ripple effects of the Red Sox economy are coping by turning their attention to a team in a three-way tie for first place: the New England Patriots. Pat Moscaritolo, chief executive of the convention and visitors bureau, said the lackluster baseball season has made his home life more harmonious.
“My wife is first and foremost a Patriots fan,’’ Moscaritolo said. “So at least we don’t fight over the remote.’’
Although the postseason money has been a welcome boost for the city, its absence certainly won’t drive the local economy into another recession, according to economist Nick Perna, an adviser to Webster Bank in Connecticut. Given the modest numbers, he said, postseason play might be more of a psychological balm than economic stimulus.
Perna recalled the punch line of an old joke about the difference between a hot dog sold outside Yankee Stadium and one sold outside Fenway: You can still get one in New York come October.
“At least this season gives life to old jokes,’’ he said.
Red Sox officials did not respond to requests for information about how the team’s revenues might be affected by a lack of playoff games. In the past, the team has said postseason play is not a windfall because of the expenses of ballpark operations, hotel rooms, and other factors. (The Globe’s parent corporation, The New York Times Co., owns about 17 percent of the Sox.)
Despite the threat of an untimely ending to the season, business outside the park has not dropped off altogether.
On a recent weekday, a group of tourists from Spain flooded the Souvenir Store on Yawkey Way. They happily discovered a rack stocked with dozens of jerseys bearing pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka’s name. Alvaro Nunez, 17, said he was not familiar with Matsuzaka but bought a shirt because it was half-price.
Marcus Ortiz, visiting from Arizona, bought a David Ortiz shirt for his daughter because she shares the same last name with the designated hitter.
A Dustin Pedroia jersey is one of the top sellers, said Brian Maurer, general manager of the shop, which is operated by Twins Enterprises Inc.
Maurer said Pedroia’s popularity seems to sum up the season. “He is the face of the franchise,’’ Maurer said, “and he’s injured.’’
Megan Woolhouse can be reached at mwoolhouse@globe.com.
© Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company
Near Fenway, no magic numbers
Businesses share pain of Sox’ losses
By Megan Woolhouse, Globe Staff | September 28, 2010
Long before the Red Sox reached the brink of elimination from postseason play, there was a sign the end was near: A parking spot in lots near Fenway Park was only $20, discounted from the usual $35 or more.
“I’ve never, ever, seen that before,’’ said season ticket holder Warren Downie before a recent game.
As the prospects of even a wild-card berth in the playoffs slipped away in the last month, revenue for restaurants, shops, and vendors around Fenway also slumped. For each postseason game not played, businesses collectively lose an estimated $2.5 million, according to the Greater Boston Convention & Visitors Bureau. For World Series games, it’s double that.
This would be only the second year since 2003 that businesses surrounding the ballpark have no vested interest in the playoffs. The Red Sox regular season will end at home Sunday against the playoff-bound New York Yankees in what the schedule-makers surely had hoped would be a super-charged finale.
The team’s slide into oblivion has been a slow one, however, allowing time for both fans and businesses to gradually come to terms with the disappointment.
“There’s a feeling of going through the motions on game days,’’ said Garrett Harker, owner of the Eastern Standard restaurant on Commonwealth Avenue. Lately, burgers and beers have ruled, Harker said, with fewer patrons opting for ribeye steaks and fine wine.
“We’re seeing a crowd that’s more casual, more happy to have a night out,’’ he said. “What you lose is maybe that corporate white-collar crowd; they fade away a little bit.’’
Steve DiFillippo, owner of Davio’s at Arlington Street in Park Square, called this year’s truncated season “a bummer.’’ His restaurant has been a popular haunt for opposing teams. Former Yankees manager Joe Torre was a regular, and Derek Jeter has been known to stop in for pregame chicken parmigiana.
At Copperfield’s Bar on Brookline Avenue, the tourist crowd has dwindled as the team’s prospects have dimmed. General manager Bill Crowley said that compounds the misery of staffers, many of whom not only are fans, but rely on tips.
“For us, it’s a real double-whammy,’’ Crowley said.
Others with a vested interest in the ripple effects of the Red Sox economy are coping by turning their attention to a team in a three-way tie for first place: the New England Patriots. Pat Moscaritolo, chief executive of the convention and visitors bureau, said the lackluster baseball season has made his home life more harmonious.
“My wife is first and foremost a Patriots fan,’’ Moscaritolo said. “So at least we don’t fight over the remote.’’
Although the postseason money has been a welcome boost for the city, its absence certainly won’t drive the local economy into another recession, according to economist Nick Perna, an adviser to Webster Bank in Connecticut. Given the modest numbers, he said, postseason play might be more of a psychological balm than economic stimulus.
Perna recalled the punch line of an old joke about the difference between a hot dog sold outside Yankee Stadium and one sold outside Fenway: You can still get one in New York come October.
“At least this season gives life to old jokes,’’ he said.
Red Sox officials did not respond to requests for information about how the team’s revenues might be affected by a lack of playoff games. In the past, the team has said postseason play is not a windfall because of the expenses of ballpark operations, hotel rooms, and other factors. (The Globe’s parent corporation, The New York Times Co., owns about 17 percent of the Sox.)
Despite the threat of an untimely ending to the season, business outside the park has not dropped off altogether.
On a recent weekday, a group of tourists from Spain flooded the Souvenir Store on Yawkey Way. They happily discovered a rack stocked with dozens of jerseys bearing pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka’s name. Alvaro Nunez, 17, said he was not familiar with Matsuzaka but bought a shirt because it was half-price.
Marcus Ortiz, visiting from Arizona, bought a David Ortiz shirt for his daughter because she shares the same last name with the designated hitter.
A Dustin Pedroia jersey is one of the top sellers, said Brian Maurer, general manager of the shop, which is operated by Twins Enterprises Inc.
Maurer said Pedroia’s popularity seems to sum up the season. “He is the face of the franchise,’’ Maurer said, “and he’s injured.’’
Megan Woolhouse can be reached at mwoolhouse@globe.com.
© Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company
Aquarium sharks moved as tank treated for parasites
Aquarium’s sharks take up temporary quarters in Quincy
By Beth Daley, Globe Staff | September 28, 2010
The star attractions of the New England Aquarium’s giant ocean tank — sharks and rays — have been temporarily moved while the 200,000 gallon tank is treated for a parasite.
Three sand tiger sharks, one nurse shark, and several rays were moved last week to the aquarium’s new Animal Care Center in Quincy, not because the parasite will harm them but because the treatment can.
Called cryptocaryon irritans, the parasite affects bony fish but not sharks and rays. But the most effective treatment, copper sulfate, can harm them. So fish and other marine species will remain in the tank during the roughly monthlong treatment. but the sharks and rays cannot.
The parasite can be present in wild fish collected by the aquarium. While the fish are quarantined and treated, the tiny parasite can still gain a toehold in tanks, said Billy Spitzer, vice president of planning, programs and exhibits. The aquarium has had the problem in the past, including in the giant tank, but has gone several years without an outbreak, he said.
During past outbreaks, the animals had to be moved to Connecticut, but the new Quincy facility allows them to stay closer to home.
© Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company
By Beth Daley, Globe Staff | September 28, 2010
The star attractions of the New England Aquarium’s giant ocean tank — sharks and rays — have been temporarily moved while the 200,000 gallon tank is treated for a parasite.
Three sand tiger sharks, one nurse shark, and several rays were moved last week to the aquarium’s new Animal Care Center in Quincy, not because the parasite will harm them but because the treatment can.
Called cryptocaryon irritans, the parasite affects bony fish but not sharks and rays. But the most effective treatment, copper sulfate, can harm them. So fish and other marine species will remain in the tank during the roughly monthlong treatment. but the sharks and rays cannot.
The parasite can be present in wild fish collected by the aquarium. While the fish are quarantined and treated, the tiny parasite can still gain a toehold in tanks, said Billy Spitzer, vice president of planning, programs and exhibits. The aquarium has had the problem in the past, including in the giant tank, but has gone several years without an outbreak, he said.
During past outbreaks, the animals had to be moved to Connecticut, but the new Quincy facility allows them to stay closer to home.
© Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company
Helmand owner under NSA surveillance
Wicked Local Cambridge via Universal Hub
Cantabrigia
Everything you ever wanted to know about Cambridge, Mass. in a blog
Report: U.S. wiretapping owner of Cambridge’s Helmand restaurant
2010 September 28
by David Harris
The National Security Agency has been wiretapping the brother of Afghan president Hamid Karzai, Mahmoud Karzai, the owner of Cambridge’s Helmand restaurant — which is so very delicious, but whose owner is part of a major corruption investigation, the New York Times reports. Apparently Mahmoud is the most well-connected businessman in Kabul and the U.S. wants to know what’s up.
The National Security Agency’s wiretapping of Mahmoud Karzai, an older brother of President Karzai, appears to be part of a larger criminal investigation now under way by federal prosecutors in New York, according to the officials, who declined to be identified by name discussing a criminal inquiry.
Cantabrigia
Everything you ever wanted to know about Cambridge, Mass. in a blog
Report: U.S. wiretapping owner of Cambridge’s Helmand restaurant
2010 September 28
by David Harris
The National Security Agency has been wiretapping the brother of Afghan president Hamid Karzai, Mahmoud Karzai, the owner of Cambridge’s Helmand restaurant — which is so very delicious, but whose owner is part of a major corruption investigation, the New York Times reports. Apparently Mahmoud is the most well-connected businessman in Kabul and the U.S. wants to know what’s up.
The National Security Agency’s wiretapping of Mahmoud Karzai, an older brother of President Karzai, appears to be part of a larger criminal investigation now under way by federal prosecutors in New York, according to the officials, who declined to be identified by name discussing a criminal inquiry.
Monday, September 27, 2010
A review of Boston from the west coast
Thank you to Universal Hub for finding this article!
San Francisco Chronicle
Chic shift in Boston neighborhoods
John King, Chronicle Urban Design Writer
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Boston's Harborwalk stretches for miles through the city'... Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art, above, designed b... Worcester Square, left, shows the historical richness of ... Visit Boston's many landmarks, such as the Haymarket, abo... More...
If you're one of those people who assumes Boston hasn't changed since Fenway Park opened and Faneuil Hall was freshened up, here's a suggestion for the next time you hit town: Check out Louis' new digs.
The ultra-luxe clothing shop spent its first 85 years in the stately Back Bay neighborhood, the last 20 in a classical mansion built for the New England Museum of Natural History. But in April, it moved into a sleek box of corrugated steel and stained wood on the emerging South Boston waterfront, due north of the Institute of Contemporary Art designed by the avant-garde New York architectural firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro.
These cultural and architectural shifts are telling in a city whose image remains defined by a palpable sense of the past, soothing and staid. Yet central Boston is more expansive and intriguing than ever, especially when you travel on foot.
Don't get me wrong: The cobbled alleys of Beacon Hill are as alluring as ever. The Public Garden remains the nation's most sublime urban park. Would-be James Taylors still busk in Harvard Square.
But a waterfront long marked by barren stretches now has a long and lively promenade that puts San Francisco's Embarcadero to shame, scenery aside. Downtown, the notorious $15 billion Big Dig is finished, leaving us with an underground artery buried beneath a milelong string of plantings and plazas dubbed the Rose Kennedy Greenway.
The greenway isn't a destination, at least not yet, unless you crave a scenic eerie calm. Better to make time for once-struggling districts such as the South End and Fort Point Channel that offer fresh terrain for the quintessential Boston joy: byways to meander and explore.
That ambling sense of discovery is part of the appeal of the Freedom Trail, the 2.5-mile path that links 16 historic sites by way of a red line embedded in the sidewalk - the obligatory starting point for first-time visitors, unless you're taking a cab straight from the airport to Fenway Park.
Yes, it's fun to start at Boston Common and then proceed to such genuine landmarks as the Old South Meeting House from 1729, where Samuel Adams and John Hancock declaimed against British control of the Colonies.
But I'd guess that first-time visitors are equally enthralled by what they see along the way, such as the impossibly narrow alleys of the 17th century Blackstone Block alongside the food stalls of the Haymarket, where vendors hawk produce and meat with the zeal of burlesque barkers.
What smart travelers will sense is that, Revolutionary landmarks aside, the Freedom Trail is just one route among many. The tight fist of Boston's 17th and 18th century street layout reveals itself on foot to be a sieve of curved blocks and alleyways, architectural delights and weird juxtapositions of scale.
For instance? Old South Meeting House marks the beginning of Milk Street. Across the way is the Boston Post building, built of cast iron after the ruinous 1873 fire and adorned with a bust of Benjamin Franklin, who was born on the site.
The next block reveals the International Trust Co. building at 45 Milk St. from 1893 with its allegorical carved figures representing Commerce, Industry, Security and Fidelity.
Soon you're at Post Office Square, where a parking garage in the early 1990s made way for immaculately maintained trees and shrubs and seasonal color around a central lawn.
Fair trade coffee
If the scene is too idyllic - or you have no need for the free Wi-Fi - continue three short blocks to the corner of Broad and Milk streets, where a five-story former warehouse from 1863 manages to cap rough granite walls with a stylish mansard roof.
Inside is the local and low-key Flat Back Coffee which, Bay Area visitors will be relieved to know, specializes in "organically grown, fair trade and shade-grown coffees."
You can double back from here to the Freedom Trail in five minutes - or walk one block north to Water Street and take a left for an equally atmospheric show with a different architectural cast.
This cityscape is exotic by American standards, and it's why travelers to Boston for decades have been charmed by such neighborhoods as the Back Bay, Beacon Hill or the North End.
The difference today is what lies beyond, yet close at hand.
The South End neighborhood, for instance, is now an instinctively accessible part of the walking city, a meandering loop you can enter by heading down Columbus Avenue from the Public Garden.
The neighborhood had a burst of growth and glory after the Civil War and then sat moribund for more than a century - eclipsed as a residential address by the Back Bay, sliced by an elevated rail line suspended above the historic main drag of Washington Street (which, historic note, began life in the 1600s as the only route on the thin neck of land connecting the settlement of Boston to the mainland).
While pockets were restored and gentrified as far back as the 1970s, it's only since the removal of the elevated rail in the 1990s that the neighborhood has become a place where outsiders can wander without wondering if they've turned the wrong corner.
The orderly procession of diagonal boulevards, red-brick townhouses and thick-shaded squares bears little resemblance to the cluttered gray delights of the Freedom Trail, but your modus operandi should be the same: Follow whims. If a forested crescent like Worcester Square beckons, amble in. Leave the wide arterials for narrower ones, such as Shawmut Avenue and its stoop-lined sidewalks. If a bistro catches your eye on Tremont Street, settle in.
It's still a neighborhood with a mix of incomes and ethnicities: The Cathedral housing project stands across Harrison Avenue from a newish condominium complex where a two-bedroom condo on my visit was offered at $569,000. A former school on the same block is a community arts center.
At least for now, there's a sense of the overlapped city rather than a hermetically sealed enclave.
Another new/old frontier lies south of the Financial District, in the warehouses that once stored wool along Fort Point Channel. The best way to enter is on foot, across the wide dark waterway via the Summer Street Bridge. Once you cross, plunge down quiet Melcher Street. It's a deep chasm of steep masonry: loading blocks and red brick on your left, generous windows and yellow brick on your right.
Another sort of view is available nearby on Farnsworth Street from the spacious concrete porch of Flour Bakery and Cafe. Across the way is Hacin + Associates' FP3 - five stories of dark new brick topped by three stories of copper-clad penthouses, angled and attractively stark.
Best of new Boston
This is the best of the new Boston: informed by history but adding to it with intelligent restraint.
At the end of the block the road gives out - more of that incidental footpath charm - and so you pick your way through a clearing to the waterfront through what feels less like a neighborhood than a collection of buildings amid a plateau of parking lots that signal more buildings to come.
Why bother? Because of the payoff: the sumptuous Harborwalk. In areas such as the North End waterfront it is hemmed in by buildings, but from Fort Point Channel south it is inviting and broad. Handsomely paved in cobblestone, some stretches offer formal gardens while others are accented by enjoyably informative plaques that fill in details about the waterfront's ecology and history.
Like the Greenway, it's a work in progress. But the Harborwalk is a lot more fun, especially here. At LouisBoston there's a lawn, an odd beguiling touch. At the Institute of Contemporary Art, the building facade turns into a stepped wooden amphitheater that doubles as the most inviting place to sit along the harbor.
Gone are the days when Boston seemed frozen in time. What hasn't changed is the tactile sense of place - more and more, one that includes an element of surprise.
If You Go
GETTING THERE
From Logan Airport, the best way to get downtown - and get in the mood for your visit - is by taking a water taxi. Three services are available, with a one-way fare of $10, and you'll likely have the boat to yourself. For more information go to bit.ly/aaHdty. There's also service on the MBTA Blue Line subway.
WHERE TO STAY
Lenox Hotel, 61 Exeter St., (617) 536-5300. www.lenoxhotel.com. Boston has no shortage of classic hotels and inns, but this one manages to feel stylish and timeless at once.
Club Quarters Boston, 161 Devonshire St., (617) 357-6400. www.clubquarters.com. Nothing fancy but the prices are relatively good and the location can't be beat: around the corner from Post Office Square.
WHAT TO DO
Boston National Historic Park, 15 State St., (617) 242-5642. www.nps.gov/bost/. The Freedom Trail starts on Boston Common at Park and Tremont streets; this visitor center has information on all the historic attractions nearby, as well as genuinely helpful rangers.
Institute of Contemporary Art, 100 Northern Ave., (617) 478-3100. www.icaboston.org. The exhibitions can be hit or miss but are worth a visit if only for the design by Diller Scofidio + Renfro - the acclaimed New York firm now at work on the Berkeley Art Museum.
Brattle Book Shop, 9 West St., (617) 542-0210. www.brattlebookshop.com. If you love used books, don't miss this shop. With two floors of treasures (history and politics are especially strong) and a lineage dating back to 1825, it's an only-in-Boston gem.
Made in Fort Point, 12 Farnsworth St., (617) 423-1100. bit.ly/7RxjdP A great shop of arts and crafts by neighborhood artists, the folks who carved out loft space before the condo developers arrived.
WHERE TO EAT
Clink, 215 Charles St., (617) 224-4000. www.libertyhotel.com. Strange but true: The stone-walled Suffolk County Jail from 1851 is now a boutique hotel. It's worth a visit for the surrealistic transformation, and this bar with food is especially entertaining - you enter through openings that once led into prison cells.
Flour Bakery + Cafe, 1595 Washington St. and 12 Farnsworth St., (617) 267-4300 and (617) 338-4333. www.flourbakery.com. Berkeley-caliber pastries and good portable sandwiches with locations in both the South End and Fort Point.
Legal Seafoods, various locations, www.legalseafoods.com. There are now six in Boston, but the familiarity hasn't yet bred contempt: The fish is fresh and the wine list is the best around.
E-mail comments to travel@sfchronicle.com.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/09/26/TRD51EHF68.DTL
This article appeared on page K - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
© 2010 Hearst Communications Inc.
San Francisco Chronicle
Chic shift in Boston neighborhoods
John King, Chronicle Urban Design Writer
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Boston's Harborwalk stretches for miles through the city'... Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art, above, designed b... Worcester Square, left, shows the historical richness of ... Visit Boston's many landmarks, such as the Haymarket, abo... More...
If you're one of those people who assumes Boston hasn't changed since Fenway Park opened and Faneuil Hall was freshened up, here's a suggestion for the next time you hit town: Check out Louis' new digs.
The ultra-luxe clothing shop spent its first 85 years in the stately Back Bay neighborhood, the last 20 in a classical mansion built for the New England Museum of Natural History. But in April, it moved into a sleek box of corrugated steel and stained wood on the emerging South Boston waterfront, due north of the Institute of Contemporary Art designed by the avant-garde New York architectural firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro.
These cultural and architectural shifts are telling in a city whose image remains defined by a palpable sense of the past, soothing and staid. Yet central Boston is more expansive and intriguing than ever, especially when you travel on foot.
Don't get me wrong: The cobbled alleys of Beacon Hill are as alluring as ever. The Public Garden remains the nation's most sublime urban park. Would-be James Taylors still busk in Harvard Square.
But a waterfront long marked by barren stretches now has a long and lively promenade that puts San Francisco's Embarcadero to shame, scenery aside. Downtown, the notorious $15 billion Big Dig is finished, leaving us with an underground artery buried beneath a milelong string of plantings and plazas dubbed the Rose Kennedy Greenway.
The greenway isn't a destination, at least not yet, unless you crave a scenic eerie calm. Better to make time for once-struggling districts such as the South End and Fort Point Channel that offer fresh terrain for the quintessential Boston joy: byways to meander and explore.
That ambling sense of discovery is part of the appeal of the Freedom Trail, the 2.5-mile path that links 16 historic sites by way of a red line embedded in the sidewalk - the obligatory starting point for first-time visitors, unless you're taking a cab straight from the airport to Fenway Park.
Yes, it's fun to start at Boston Common and then proceed to such genuine landmarks as the Old South Meeting House from 1729, where Samuel Adams and John Hancock declaimed against British control of the Colonies.
But I'd guess that first-time visitors are equally enthralled by what they see along the way, such as the impossibly narrow alleys of the 17th century Blackstone Block alongside the food stalls of the Haymarket, where vendors hawk produce and meat with the zeal of burlesque barkers.
What smart travelers will sense is that, Revolutionary landmarks aside, the Freedom Trail is just one route among many. The tight fist of Boston's 17th and 18th century street layout reveals itself on foot to be a sieve of curved blocks and alleyways, architectural delights and weird juxtapositions of scale.
For instance? Old South Meeting House marks the beginning of Milk Street. Across the way is the Boston Post building, built of cast iron after the ruinous 1873 fire and adorned with a bust of Benjamin Franklin, who was born on the site.
The next block reveals the International Trust Co. building at 45 Milk St. from 1893 with its allegorical carved figures representing Commerce, Industry, Security and Fidelity.
Soon you're at Post Office Square, where a parking garage in the early 1990s made way for immaculately maintained trees and shrubs and seasonal color around a central lawn.
Fair trade coffee
If the scene is too idyllic - or you have no need for the free Wi-Fi - continue three short blocks to the corner of Broad and Milk streets, where a five-story former warehouse from 1863 manages to cap rough granite walls with a stylish mansard roof.
Inside is the local and low-key Flat Back Coffee which, Bay Area visitors will be relieved to know, specializes in "organically grown, fair trade and shade-grown coffees."
You can double back from here to the Freedom Trail in five minutes - or walk one block north to Water Street and take a left for an equally atmospheric show with a different architectural cast.
This cityscape is exotic by American standards, and it's why travelers to Boston for decades have been charmed by such neighborhoods as the Back Bay, Beacon Hill or the North End.
The difference today is what lies beyond, yet close at hand.
The South End neighborhood, for instance, is now an instinctively accessible part of the walking city, a meandering loop you can enter by heading down Columbus Avenue from the Public Garden.
The neighborhood had a burst of growth and glory after the Civil War and then sat moribund for more than a century - eclipsed as a residential address by the Back Bay, sliced by an elevated rail line suspended above the historic main drag of Washington Street (which, historic note, began life in the 1600s as the only route on the thin neck of land connecting the settlement of Boston to the mainland).
While pockets were restored and gentrified as far back as the 1970s, it's only since the removal of the elevated rail in the 1990s that the neighborhood has become a place where outsiders can wander without wondering if they've turned the wrong corner.
The orderly procession of diagonal boulevards, red-brick townhouses and thick-shaded squares bears little resemblance to the cluttered gray delights of the Freedom Trail, but your modus operandi should be the same: Follow whims. If a forested crescent like Worcester Square beckons, amble in. Leave the wide arterials for narrower ones, such as Shawmut Avenue and its stoop-lined sidewalks. If a bistro catches your eye on Tremont Street, settle in.
It's still a neighborhood with a mix of incomes and ethnicities: The Cathedral housing project stands across Harrison Avenue from a newish condominium complex where a two-bedroom condo on my visit was offered at $569,000. A former school on the same block is a community arts center.
At least for now, there's a sense of the overlapped city rather than a hermetically sealed enclave.
Another new/old frontier lies south of the Financial District, in the warehouses that once stored wool along Fort Point Channel. The best way to enter is on foot, across the wide dark waterway via the Summer Street Bridge. Once you cross, plunge down quiet Melcher Street. It's a deep chasm of steep masonry: loading blocks and red brick on your left, generous windows and yellow brick on your right.
Another sort of view is available nearby on Farnsworth Street from the spacious concrete porch of Flour Bakery and Cafe. Across the way is Hacin + Associates' FP3 - five stories of dark new brick topped by three stories of copper-clad penthouses, angled and attractively stark.
Best of new Boston
This is the best of the new Boston: informed by history but adding to it with intelligent restraint.
At the end of the block the road gives out - more of that incidental footpath charm - and so you pick your way through a clearing to the waterfront through what feels less like a neighborhood than a collection of buildings amid a plateau of parking lots that signal more buildings to come.
Why bother? Because of the payoff: the sumptuous Harborwalk. In areas such as the North End waterfront it is hemmed in by buildings, but from Fort Point Channel south it is inviting and broad. Handsomely paved in cobblestone, some stretches offer formal gardens while others are accented by enjoyably informative plaques that fill in details about the waterfront's ecology and history.
Like the Greenway, it's a work in progress. But the Harborwalk is a lot more fun, especially here. At LouisBoston there's a lawn, an odd beguiling touch. At the Institute of Contemporary Art, the building facade turns into a stepped wooden amphitheater that doubles as the most inviting place to sit along the harbor.
Gone are the days when Boston seemed frozen in time. What hasn't changed is the tactile sense of place - more and more, one that includes an element of surprise.
If You Go
GETTING THERE
From Logan Airport, the best way to get downtown - and get in the mood for your visit - is by taking a water taxi. Three services are available, with a one-way fare of $10, and you'll likely have the boat to yourself. For more information go to bit.ly/aaHdty. There's also service on the MBTA Blue Line subway.
WHERE TO STAY
Lenox Hotel, 61 Exeter St., (617) 536-5300. www.lenoxhotel.com. Boston has no shortage of classic hotels and inns, but this one manages to feel stylish and timeless at once.
Club Quarters Boston, 161 Devonshire St., (617) 357-6400. www.clubquarters.com. Nothing fancy but the prices are relatively good and the location can't be beat: around the corner from Post Office Square.
WHAT TO DO
Boston National Historic Park, 15 State St., (617) 242-5642. www.nps.gov/bost/. The Freedom Trail starts on Boston Common at Park and Tremont streets; this visitor center has information on all the historic attractions nearby, as well as genuinely helpful rangers.
Institute of Contemporary Art, 100 Northern Ave., (617) 478-3100. www.icaboston.org. The exhibitions can be hit or miss but are worth a visit if only for the design by Diller Scofidio + Renfro - the acclaimed New York firm now at work on the Berkeley Art Museum.
Brattle Book Shop, 9 West St., (617) 542-0210. www.brattlebookshop.com. If you love used books, don't miss this shop. With two floors of treasures (history and politics are especially strong) and a lineage dating back to 1825, it's an only-in-Boston gem.
Made in Fort Point, 12 Farnsworth St., (617) 423-1100. bit.ly/7RxjdP A great shop of arts and crafts by neighborhood artists, the folks who carved out loft space before the condo developers arrived.
WHERE TO EAT
Clink, 215 Charles St., (617) 224-4000. www.libertyhotel.com. Strange but true: The stone-walled Suffolk County Jail from 1851 is now a boutique hotel. It's worth a visit for the surrealistic transformation, and this bar with food is especially entertaining - you enter through openings that once led into prison cells.
Flour Bakery + Cafe, 1595 Washington St. and 12 Farnsworth St., (617) 267-4300 and (617) 338-4333. www.flourbakery.com. Berkeley-caliber pastries and good portable sandwiches with locations in both the South End and Fort Point.
Legal Seafoods, various locations, www.legalseafoods.com. There are now six in Boston, but the familiarity hasn't yet bred contempt: The fish is fresh and the wine list is the best around.
E-mail comments to travel@sfchronicle.com.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/09/26/TRD51EHF68.DTL
This article appeared on page K - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
© 2010 Hearst Communications Inc.
Southwest to buy Airtran
Southwest Airlines to buy AirTran for $1.4B
By Samantha Bomkamp, AP Airlines Writer | September 27, 2010
NEW YORK --Southwest Airlines said Monday it will buy AirTran for about $1.42 billion. The move will put Southwest in head-to-head competition with Delta Air Lines in Delta's home base of Atlanta.
The buyout, funded mostly with debt, will also give Southwest a bigger slice of the market in cities like Boston and New York, where it has been expanding.
Southwest, based in Dallas, carries more passengers than any other airline in the U.S. Besides its base in Atlanta, AirTran has hubs in Milwaukee and Orlando.
The announcement continues the airline industry's move to consolidate. Continental Airlines and United Airlines parent UAL Corp. will formally combine at the end of this week and become the world's largest, toppling Delta. Delta claimed that spot when it acquired Northwest Airlines two years ago.
Southwest tried unsuccessfully last year to buy Frontier Airlines out of bankruptcy. Republic Airways Holdings won the auction for Frontier last August, buying the Denver-based carrier for almost $108.8 million.
Southwest's acquisition of AirTran is expected to close in the first half of next year. It requires both regulatory and shareholder approval. The airlines expect to fully blend their operations in 2012.
Based on Southwest Airlines' closing share price on Friday, the deal is worth $7.69 per AirTran share. That's a 69 percent premium over its closing price of $4.55. In premarket trading, AirTran shares jumped 61 percent to $7.31, while Southwest shares rose 12 cents to $12.40.
Southwest will pay about $670 million with available cash. Southwest will assume $2 billion in AirTran debt.
Southwest and AirTran said the new airline will operate from more than 100 different airports and serve more than 100 million customers.
In April, AirTran Holdings Inc. CEO Robert Fornaro signaled his interest in making a deal, saying the airline would consider a combination with another carrier if approached and if such a deal made sense for the company and shareholders.
But when asked by The Associated Press who might be a potential suitor for AirTran, Fornaro said, "I'm not sure that we're necessarily a natural fit to be gobbled up by somebody else."
----------
AP Business Writer Michelle Chapman in New York contributed to this report.
(This version corrects name of AirTran CEO to Robert. Updates stock price.This story is part of AP's general news and financial services.)
© Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company
By Samantha Bomkamp, AP Airlines Writer | September 27, 2010
NEW YORK --Southwest Airlines said Monday it will buy AirTran for about $1.42 billion. The move will put Southwest in head-to-head competition with Delta Air Lines in Delta's home base of Atlanta.
The buyout, funded mostly with debt, will also give Southwest a bigger slice of the market in cities like Boston and New York, where it has been expanding.
Southwest, based in Dallas, carries more passengers than any other airline in the U.S. Besides its base in Atlanta, AirTran has hubs in Milwaukee and Orlando.
The announcement continues the airline industry's move to consolidate. Continental Airlines and United Airlines parent UAL Corp. will formally combine at the end of this week and become the world's largest, toppling Delta. Delta claimed that spot when it acquired Northwest Airlines two years ago.
Southwest tried unsuccessfully last year to buy Frontier Airlines out of bankruptcy. Republic Airways Holdings won the auction for Frontier last August, buying the Denver-based carrier for almost $108.8 million.
Southwest's acquisition of AirTran is expected to close in the first half of next year. It requires both regulatory and shareholder approval. The airlines expect to fully blend their operations in 2012.
Based on Southwest Airlines' closing share price on Friday, the deal is worth $7.69 per AirTran share. That's a 69 percent premium over its closing price of $4.55. In premarket trading, AirTran shares jumped 61 percent to $7.31, while Southwest shares rose 12 cents to $12.40.
Southwest will pay about $670 million with available cash. Southwest will assume $2 billion in AirTran debt.
Southwest and AirTran said the new airline will operate from more than 100 different airports and serve more than 100 million customers.
In April, AirTran Holdings Inc. CEO Robert Fornaro signaled his interest in making a deal, saying the airline would consider a combination with another carrier if approached and if such a deal made sense for the company and shareholders.
But when asked by The Associated Press who might be a potential suitor for AirTran, Fornaro said, "I'm not sure that we're necessarily a natural fit to be gobbled up by somebody else."
----------
AP Business Writer Michelle Chapman in New York contributed to this report.
(This version corrects name of AirTran CEO to Robert. Updates stock price.This story is part of AP's general news and financial services.)
© Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company
Toby Keith's "I Love This Bar & Grill" to open at Patriot Place in October
Correction: Toby Keith’s new Foxboro restaurant
The Herald (namely a certain Herald food writer) reported yesterday in our feature about Oklahoma football fans here in Boston that Sooner State native Toby Keith would open his new restaurant in Foxboro this week.
That report was incorrect. Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar & Grill will not open until October. The date is not firm yet, said Keith’s spokesman Paul Sewell, who’s traveling with the country star on his nationwide tour, which arrives at the Comcast Center Saturday.
There will be a “soft” opening next month, before the doors officially open some time before Halloween, said Sewell.
This entry was posted on Thursday, September 23rd, 2010 at 10:57 am.
Holiday party business is on the increase for restaurants and hotels
2 years after crash, consumers open wallets
Toasting holiday cheer
By Donna Goodison | Monday, September 27, 2010 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Business & Markets
It’s party time, again.
After two years in which the Great Recession reined in holiday parties, companies are more spirited about their celebrations for the coming season.
Early bookings are on the rebound and, while companies remain cautious, they’ve loosened the purse strings and are less price-sensitive than in 2008 and 2009.
“This year it’s much more relaxed,” said Ron Leduc, chief operating officer of DePasquale Ventures, which hosts employee holiday parties at its Umbria Prime restaurant for financial companies, including Liberty Mutual, and law firms such as Ropes & Gray. “The economy is coming around a little bit, and we’re finding out that people are getting back into the way it was a couple of years ago.”
The financial collapse of Wall Street proved to be a party pooper for holiday celebrations in 2008. Companies scaled back their events - and in some cases even canceled them to show fiscal restraint and avoid appearances of extravagance.
Companies were in a better mood to celebrate last year, when holiday bookings picked up, even while a more economical and last-minute approach to parties prevailed.
Last year, Umbria managers had to come up with creative menus to accommodate shrinking budgets for customers that still wanted to host holiday gatherings, but didn’t have a ton of money to foot the bills. They cut back on courses, served hors d’oeuvres instead of meals and eliminated open bars. Holiday parties became more like holiday socials.
“They did want to do something, but they didn’t want to spend $55 to $85 per person for a four-course, sit-down meal,” Leduc said. “Last year, it was more, ‘Hey, appreciate that we’re having the party, and if you want to drink, it’s all on you.’ This year we’re not seeing that.”
And this year, companies are planning parties that celebrate their employees rather than their revenue, according to Catherine Chaulet, senior vice president of Best of Boston, an event planning firm.
“It’s not lavish, it’s conservative, but it’s definitely focused on employee recognition,” Chaulet said. “There’s a lot of effort to thank employees.”
Many venues, meanwhile, are saying thank-yous to companies, offering incentives if they reserve space for holiday parties early or just to entice business.
The Lyons Group-run Towne Stove and Spirits, Scampo and Sonsie are offering 10 percent off room rentals and 10 percent rebates in the form of gift cards for contracts signed before Oct. 8. And all Summer Shack locations are cutting $100 from final food and beverage bills for every $1,000 spent for parties in December and January.
“This year we’re seeing people book with a little more confidence,” said Adam Sperling, general manager of Hotel Commonwealth in Kenmore Square. “I’ve had bookings in September, which is great for us. It’s still on sort of a downscaled mode, but not quite as cautious as it was in 2008.”
Bakers’ Best catering in Newton last year got late bookings and saw clients forgoing extravagant parties in hotels in favor of office parties with hors d’oeuvres. The catering company also did a lot of food drop-offs for companies who passed on hiring chefs and servers.
This year, though, Bakers’ Best is getting earlier bookings and already has closed out some days.
“We’ve seen a couple of recessions, and this one has lasted a little bit longer, but things seem to be on the uptick,” owner Michael Baker said. “It definitely seems like things are loosening up in the corporate world a bit. People are paying attention to what they’re ordering, but they’re a little freer about ordering higher-end food compared to last year.”
Rocca expects to have its best holiday season in three years. The South End restaurant, which requires a minimum of $25,000 to book the entire place for the night, already has two holiday buy-outs on its books.
“In the last two years, people were hesitant about minimums, but not this year,” co-owner Gary Sullivan said. “They are spending more than last year, but they are also looking for more bang for their buck.”
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/business/general/view.bg?articleid=1284498
Developer of Filene's site doubts project will be sold
Developer doubts that Filene’s project will be sold
Filene’s de-basement
By Thomas Grillo | Saturday, September 25, 2010 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Real Estate
The developer of the stalled former Filene’s site in Downtown Crossing said he doubts the controversial project, which has been put up for sale, can fetch a high enough price to make a deal worthwhile.
“There’s some interest out there, but I honestly don’t think a real buyer exists,” said John Hynes, chief executive and managing partner of Boston Global Investors. “I suspect we’ll get offers from $30 (million) to $50 million, but those numbers don’t work.”
The move comes as the city vows to review the project’s permits, possibly revoking them and making it harder for the current developers to proceed.
Hynes, the local spokesman for the project, said majority owners Vornado Realty Trust and J.P Morgan have hired a commercial real estate brokerage firm to sell all or part of the controversial development on Washington Street.
“We prefer to finish the project ourselves,” Hynes said yesterday. “But in an effort to accelerate construction, starting today we are also going to make it available to someone who thinks they can do it faster than we can.”
Vornado and J.P Morgan paid $100 million for the Filene’s site in 2007. Vornado also paid $16.8 million to terminate the Downtown Crossing lease with Filene’s Basement and about $50 million more on demolition.
The proposed $700 million project, known as One Franklin, was supposed to include a 39-story tower with 300,000 square feet of retail shops, a new Filene’s Basement store, a 280-room hotel, 475,000 square feet of office space and 166 condominiums. But construction was halted when the credit markets made financing impossible, according to the developers.
Hynes and Vornado have been under pressure for more than a year from Mayor Thomas M. Menino to fill the gaping hole left at the site in the heart of Downtown Crossing. But despite talk among lenders that money is available, large projects have gone begging, the developers say. Hynes said he doubts any other development team can get it done faster.
Two sources told the Herald yesterday that Boston Residential Group, which won praise for a pair of luxury residential projects on Newbury Street and Columbus Avenue, is interested in buying the Filene’s site. Curtis Kemeny, the firm’s chief executive and president, did not return calls seeking comment.
John Miller, senior vice president at Lincoln Property Co., said there will be interest in the Filene’s site, but it will sell for a lot less than the development team has invested.
“In 2007, we were in the midst of a frothy office market and every segment of the market - hotel, residential, office and retail was better,” he said. “Today, you can’t justify building an office building. There’s no condo market and hotels are hard to finance.”
It’s possible that Vornado and J.P. Morgan just want out of a project that has been steeped in bad publicity, Miller said. “They don’t have much else invested in the city and if they can get out on par or something close to it in a sale, then maybe it’s time,” he said.
Lisa Campoli, a managing partner at Colliers Meredith & Grew, said if a new owner can buy the site for far less than the original investment, they could get important support from the city to jumpstart construction. “If they could make the numbers work, one of the pluses would be enormous political support to make something happen,” she said.
In a draft letter dated Sept. 27 that the city plans to send to Hynes and Vornado chairman Steven Roth, BRA director John Palmieri told the development team that city “has been extremely frustrated that work on the project has ceased” and they will review the development to decide whether the team has to commence the city’s approval process again.
Jessica Shumaker, a BRA spokeswoman, said when considering the project over the next few weeks, the city will not take into account that the site is up for sale.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/business/real_estate/view.bg?articleid=1284071
Sunday, September 26, 2010
ArtsEmerson to bring much new theatre to Boston
The Boston Globe
Recipe for adventure
Theatrical residencies are key to creativity at ArtsEmerson
By Laura Collins-Hughes, Globe Staff | September 26, 2010
Robert Orchard is luring them to Boston from New York and Montreal, from Ireland and England and Austin, Texas: theater artists whose work has been seen here rarely or never.
There are globe-trotting celebrities like British director Peter Brook, whose last area production was nearly 40 years ago, and Canadian director Robert Lepage, whose “Ring’’ cycle opens this week at the Metropolitan Opera House but who has worked here only twice in the past 25 years. There are big-name companies like Dublin’s Abbey Theatre and experimental ensembles like Elevator Repair Service, which spent three weeks here over the summer readying its latest piece for its Edinburgh premiere before it returns to Boston in March. Another adventurous company, the Tectonic Theater Project, on Friday night kicked off the national tour of “The Laramie Project’’ and its new epilogue, “The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later,’’ at ArtsEmerson.
Orchard, Emerson College’s executive director of the arts, is part theatrical presenter now, booking shows into the three venues at the new Paramount Center on Washington Street as well as at the Cutler Majestic Theatre, all under the umbrella of ArtsEmerson. But after decades at the American Repertory Theater, most recently as executive director, producing is in Orchard’s DNA. Probably — he admitted this somewhat reluctantly, with a laugh — he would be bored if all he got to do was present. What he really wants is to be of some assistance in the creation of art. So he is bringing these companies here not merely to perform but to develop their work, too, in residencies that are a key element of ArtsEmerson, and part of its raison d’être.
“I’m not an artist myself, so I can’t be there in the studio, creating, but I can build the studio and open the door for them, and create a comfort zone for them,’’ Orchard, 63, said recently in his 11th-floor office on campus. When he began there last Oct. 1, ArtsEmerson didn’t even have a name, let alone a logo, a ticketing system, or a staff. “It was a brand-new office of one: me,’’ he said. But what the program would become was up to him to create, which is the challenge that had drawn him to Emerson in the first place.
Orchard’s vision, now beginning to take shape, is of multiyear relationships between ArtsEmerson and artists who will return repeatedly to develop new projects, using Emerson’s stages, rehearsal spaces, and other facilities. Ensconced in apartments overlooking Boston Common, working on campus, they will invite students and faculty into the process if and as they see fit, and cross paths with members of the local community, who in turn will get to watch the evolution of the work up close. And as that work goes out into the world, ArtsEmerson’s name will go with it, in programs and elsewhere, and become known as a place where theater is made.
Developing new work is “important to my sense of helping the art form, in a school that’s dedicated to the arts,’’ Orchard said. “That’s what we should be doing. The universities should be the Medicis of the age. Nobody else is gonna be it.’’
It was a residency that brought Tectonic Theater Project artistic director Moisés Kaufman to the Cutler Majestic last week. The company was preparing to premiere “The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later,’’ the follow-up to its most famous play, about the Wyoming town where Matthew Shepard, a gay college student, was beaten and left to die in 1998. The new piece, like the original, was constructed by company members from interviews they conducted with the people of Laramie — including, this time, Shepard’s two killers.
“This production has never been done anywhere,’’ Kaufman said. “That’s a very, very exciting thing. And I think when you’re at this stage you feel incredibly vulnerable because you’re out of town and you’re trying new things. So it needs a space like Rob’s.’’
Each company’s residency is tailored to meet its needs and desires. Tectonic — which before “Laramie’’ was best known for Kaufman’s “Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde,’’ and which since then has done his “33 Variations’’ on Broadway — wanted not only the space and stage time to “dream our production here,’’ as Kaufman phrased it, but the opportunity to discuss homophobia and gay rights. In addition to various panels and public events, the company will be visiting Emerson classes, talking about “The Laramie Project,’’ and teaching its methods to theater students, said Leigh Fondakowski, who is directing the tour with Kaufman.
When the company revisited Laramie to see what it was like a decade after the murder, it found that students at the university Shepard attended had either never heard of him or had only a badly distorted sense of his story. To work in a college milieu matters to Tectonic for that reason. It matters to Kaufman for a somewhat different reason as well.
“You know, many, many times I’ve thought that I should give up directing theater and only direct children’s theater,’’ he said. He exhaled a weary half-laugh, half-sigh. “Because sometimes I feel very cynical about whether you can really effect change in adults, and I wonder if doing theater for children allows you to effect change at an age where it would matter.’’
In fact, Kaufman is dipping into children’s theater with a production Orchard is eyeing for ArtsEmerson: “El Gato con Botas’’ (“Puss in Boots’’), opening this week in New York. But Kaufman sees young adults as a sort of bridge between the two audiences. “I think that college students manage to still have the hope and the idealism that over the course of the next three decades of their lives will be hammered out of them,’’ he said, rather bleakly.
Most of the students were gone this summer when Elevator Repair Service, another nomadic New York company, took up residence at the Paramount Theatre, rehearsing its new Ernest Hemingway adaptation, “The Select: The Sun Also Rises,’’ before whisking it off to the Edinburgh International Festival last month. It was a return to the area for the company, which had performed “Gatz,’’ an acclaimed stage version of “The Great Gatsby,’’ in Cambridge with American Repertory Theater last season.
The company worked on the Paramount stage, not in a rehearsal room as it would have in New York, and on that stage was a set that ArtsEmerson had built for the company at cost: a grimy, sprawling Spanish cafe. A second set, also built by ArtsEmerson in its scene shop, had been shipped ahead to Edinburgh. Elevator Repair Service had hung the lights before it began rehearsing, and its lighting designer was in residence the entire time — a nearly unheard-of luxury. The sound design, crucial to any Elevator Repair Service production, was refined using the Paramount’s full sound system, allowing the designers “much more subtle variations in where they put the sound and the quality of it,’’ John Collins, the company’s artistic director, said last month.
Constructing one set, let alone two, was an idea that Collins said came from Orchard and Jonathan Miller, ArtsEmerson’s administrative/production director and former ART general manager. So was the notion that ArtsEmerson should be one of the commissioners on the project, an idea that arose, Collins said, when Elevator Repair Service wanted to take advantage of Orchard’s residency offer.
“As we were talking with Rob and Jonathan about what we would need as we worked our way up to the Edinburgh premiere, they just kept coming back and offering us solutions to every question we had, every little problem that came up,’’ said Collins, who had worked with them at the ART on “Gatz.’’ “It’s the mark of a really skilled, experienced producer that they find a way to make things happen without saying no to you all the time. They have actually encouraged us to do more than we would have done.’’
Before Elevator Repair Service left for Scotland, ArtsEmerson subscribers got a look at “The Select’’ in an invited dress rehearsal of the first act. For Orchard, who is building a subscriber pool from scratch, such glimpses of the creative process are an important perk to offer, and a way to let his audience follow an artist’s development even more closely.
“People are curious about how artists work,’’ Orchard said, “and it’s a real privilege to be brought into their process and to be able to participate in some way — sometimes more actively, sometimes rather more passively. And an artist who is open to that can use those moments constructively in the development of their work.’’
Elevator Repair Service will return to perform “The Select,’’ part of an Emerson season that will also bring The Civilians, the Montreal circus-arts troupe PSY, and Austin’s Rude Mechanicals.
ArtsEmerson’s partnerships with the various companies are not meant to last forever, Orchard said. Companies will cycle in and cycle out. But he does want them to be collaborations that do not falter in the wake of a failure. “That’s to me the definition of a true partnership: that you go from your successes to your not-so-much-successes and beyond to a sincere partnership where you’re actually engaged in a process that will accept levels of success and levels of failure. Because that’s how growth happens.’’
And when growth stops, he believes, so should the partnerships.
“They’ll last for as long as they are mutually productive,’’ Orchard said. “That’s really all I’m asking for: that we benefit, sincerely benefit — and that, from my point of view, I feel as if we’re helping. I’m a producer. I want to help. It’s natural instinct, you know?’’
Laura Collins-Hughes can be reached at lcollins-hughes@globe.com.
© Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company
Recipe for adventure
Theatrical residencies are key to creativity at ArtsEmerson
By Laura Collins-Hughes, Globe Staff | September 26, 2010
Robert Orchard is luring them to Boston from New York and Montreal, from Ireland and England and Austin, Texas: theater artists whose work has been seen here rarely or never.
There are globe-trotting celebrities like British director Peter Brook, whose last area production was nearly 40 years ago, and Canadian director Robert Lepage, whose “Ring’’ cycle opens this week at the Metropolitan Opera House but who has worked here only twice in the past 25 years. There are big-name companies like Dublin’s Abbey Theatre and experimental ensembles like Elevator Repair Service, which spent three weeks here over the summer readying its latest piece for its Edinburgh premiere before it returns to Boston in March. Another adventurous company, the Tectonic Theater Project, on Friday night kicked off the national tour of “The Laramie Project’’ and its new epilogue, “The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later,’’ at ArtsEmerson.
Orchard, Emerson College’s executive director of the arts, is part theatrical presenter now, booking shows into the three venues at the new Paramount Center on Washington Street as well as at the Cutler Majestic Theatre, all under the umbrella of ArtsEmerson. But after decades at the American Repertory Theater, most recently as executive director, producing is in Orchard’s DNA. Probably — he admitted this somewhat reluctantly, with a laugh — he would be bored if all he got to do was present. What he really wants is to be of some assistance in the creation of art. So he is bringing these companies here not merely to perform but to develop their work, too, in residencies that are a key element of ArtsEmerson, and part of its raison d’être.
“I’m not an artist myself, so I can’t be there in the studio, creating, but I can build the studio and open the door for them, and create a comfort zone for them,’’ Orchard, 63, said recently in his 11th-floor office on campus. When he began there last Oct. 1, ArtsEmerson didn’t even have a name, let alone a logo, a ticketing system, or a staff. “It was a brand-new office of one: me,’’ he said. But what the program would become was up to him to create, which is the challenge that had drawn him to Emerson in the first place.
Orchard’s vision, now beginning to take shape, is of multiyear relationships between ArtsEmerson and artists who will return repeatedly to develop new projects, using Emerson’s stages, rehearsal spaces, and other facilities. Ensconced in apartments overlooking Boston Common, working on campus, they will invite students and faculty into the process if and as they see fit, and cross paths with members of the local community, who in turn will get to watch the evolution of the work up close. And as that work goes out into the world, ArtsEmerson’s name will go with it, in programs and elsewhere, and become known as a place where theater is made.
Developing new work is “important to my sense of helping the art form, in a school that’s dedicated to the arts,’’ Orchard said. “That’s what we should be doing. The universities should be the Medicis of the age. Nobody else is gonna be it.’’
It was a residency that brought Tectonic Theater Project artistic director Moisés Kaufman to the Cutler Majestic last week. The company was preparing to premiere “The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later,’’ the follow-up to its most famous play, about the Wyoming town where Matthew Shepard, a gay college student, was beaten and left to die in 1998. The new piece, like the original, was constructed by company members from interviews they conducted with the people of Laramie — including, this time, Shepard’s two killers.
“This production has never been done anywhere,’’ Kaufman said. “That’s a very, very exciting thing. And I think when you’re at this stage you feel incredibly vulnerable because you’re out of town and you’re trying new things. So it needs a space like Rob’s.’’
Each company’s residency is tailored to meet its needs and desires. Tectonic — which before “Laramie’’ was best known for Kaufman’s “Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde,’’ and which since then has done his “33 Variations’’ on Broadway — wanted not only the space and stage time to “dream our production here,’’ as Kaufman phrased it, but the opportunity to discuss homophobia and gay rights. In addition to various panels and public events, the company will be visiting Emerson classes, talking about “The Laramie Project,’’ and teaching its methods to theater students, said Leigh Fondakowski, who is directing the tour with Kaufman.
When the company revisited Laramie to see what it was like a decade after the murder, it found that students at the university Shepard attended had either never heard of him or had only a badly distorted sense of his story. To work in a college milieu matters to Tectonic for that reason. It matters to Kaufman for a somewhat different reason as well.
“You know, many, many times I’ve thought that I should give up directing theater and only direct children’s theater,’’ he said. He exhaled a weary half-laugh, half-sigh. “Because sometimes I feel very cynical about whether you can really effect change in adults, and I wonder if doing theater for children allows you to effect change at an age where it would matter.’’
In fact, Kaufman is dipping into children’s theater with a production Orchard is eyeing for ArtsEmerson: “El Gato con Botas’’ (“Puss in Boots’’), opening this week in New York. But Kaufman sees young adults as a sort of bridge between the two audiences. “I think that college students manage to still have the hope and the idealism that over the course of the next three decades of their lives will be hammered out of them,’’ he said, rather bleakly.
Most of the students were gone this summer when Elevator Repair Service, another nomadic New York company, took up residence at the Paramount Theatre, rehearsing its new Ernest Hemingway adaptation, “The Select: The Sun Also Rises,’’ before whisking it off to the Edinburgh International Festival last month. It was a return to the area for the company, which had performed “Gatz,’’ an acclaimed stage version of “The Great Gatsby,’’ in Cambridge with American Repertory Theater last season.
The company worked on the Paramount stage, not in a rehearsal room as it would have in New York, and on that stage was a set that ArtsEmerson had built for the company at cost: a grimy, sprawling Spanish cafe. A second set, also built by ArtsEmerson in its scene shop, had been shipped ahead to Edinburgh. Elevator Repair Service had hung the lights before it began rehearsing, and its lighting designer was in residence the entire time — a nearly unheard-of luxury. The sound design, crucial to any Elevator Repair Service production, was refined using the Paramount’s full sound system, allowing the designers “much more subtle variations in where they put the sound and the quality of it,’’ John Collins, the company’s artistic director, said last month.
Constructing one set, let alone two, was an idea that Collins said came from Orchard and Jonathan Miller, ArtsEmerson’s administrative/production director and former ART general manager. So was the notion that ArtsEmerson should be one of the commissioners on the project, an idea that arose, Collins said, when Elevator Repair Service wanted to take advantage of Orchard’s residency offer.
“As we were talking with Rob and Jonathan about what we would need as we worked our way up to the Edinburgh premiere, they just kept coming back and offering us solutions to every question we had, every little problem that came up,’’ said Collins, who had worked with them at the ART on “Gatz.’’ “It’s the mark of a really skilled, experienced producer that they find a way to make things happen without saying no to you all the time. They have actually encouraged us to do more than we would have done.’’
Before Elevator Repair Service left for Scotland, ArtsEmerson subscribers got a look at “The Select’’ in an invited dress rehearsal of the first act. For Orchard, who is building a subscriber pool from scratch, such glimpses of the creative process are an important perk to offer, and a way to let his audience follow an artist’s development even more closely.
“People are curious about how artists work,’’ Orchard said, “and it’s a real privilege to be brought into their process and to be able to participate in some way — sometimes more actively, sometimes rather more passively. And an artist who is open to that can use those moments constructively in the development of their work.’’
Elevator Repair Service will return to perform “The Select,’’ part of an Emerson season that will also bring The Civilians, the Montreal circus-arts troupe PSY, and Austin’s Rude Mechanicals.
ArtsEmerson’s partnerships with the various companies are not meant to last forever, Orchard said. Companies will cycle in and cycle out. But he does want them to be collaborations that do not falter in the wake of a failure. “That’s to me the definition of a true partnership: that you go from your successes to your not-so-much-successes and beyond to a sincere partnership where you’re actually engaged in a process that will accept levels of success and levels of failure. Because that’s how growth happens.’’
And when growth stops, he believes, so should the partnerships.
“They’ll last for as long as they are mutually productive,’’ Orchard said. “That’s really all I’m asking for: that we benefit, sincerely benefit — and that, from my point of view, I feel as if we’re helping. I’m a producer. I want to help. It’s natural instinct, you know?’’
Laura Collins-Hughes can be reached at lcollins-hughes@globe.com.
© Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company
Fenway residents wondering when restaurants will return
The Boston Globe
Fenway wonders what’s cooking on Restaurant Row
Owner says he expects to begin rebuilding fire-damaged block by end of the year
By Meghan E. Irons, Globe Staff | September 26, 2010
Fenway residents had hoped for a quick restoration of their treasured block of restaurants that was destroyed in a fast-moving fire early last year.
But 19 months later, Restaurant Row sits empty.
After months of silence on the issue, the property’s owner, Monty Gold, now says he expects construction to begin by the end of the year.
“I can tell you that something is going to happen soon,’’ Gold said. “The building is going to be put back together the way it was.’’
But Gold has not filed formal papers with the city to get the project moving, and across the neighborhood, frustration is mounting over previous promises to quickly rebuild that have not come to pass.
“I think the community has been patient, the city has been patient, and I don’t think there is a lot of patience left,’’ said City Councilor Michael Ross, who has been prodding Gold on the matter.
Neighbors who have watched as new restaurants sprout up on nearby Boylston Street are feeling a sense of hopelessness about Restaurant Row, an intimate nook set amid the brick apartment buildings there.
A fire early the morning of Jan. 6, 2009 destroyed that haven, ripping through Thornton’s Fenway Grille and spreading across five other restaurants and a dry cleaner. The fire caused $5 million in damage, displaced the business owners who leased space there, and left residents mourning the loss of some of their favorite places to dine.
“When you lose an essential fabric in the heart of the neighborhood, it takes away from the life that you once knew,’’ said Lori Frankian, a longtime resident. “It’s depressing to wake up and see this every day.’’
City officials pledged to work with the businesses to restore jobs and get the merchants to reopen. But today, the charred remains of Restaurant Row sit idle behind a wire fence. Murals, painted by schoolchildren last fall, cover its facade.
“Everyone expected it would happen faster,’’ said David Brennan, a 62-year-old book editor who lives near there. “To me this feels like a loss of the neighborhood.’’
Ross said Gold promised to quickly rebuild. Last year, the councilor thought things were moving along when he helped to end a disagreement between Gold and his partners over what to do with the property. Gold was putting plans together, but he let months go by before contacting the city. In the end, Ross said, neither he nor the city can force Gold, a private property owner, to move any faster.
“The only delay is coming from Monty Gold,’’ Ross said. “The city is ready, willing, and able to get this developed.’’
Gold, who has owned the property for 25 years, concedes that he has been slow to get going and cites personal reasons for the delays, which he declined to specify.
He said he had spent a considerable amount of time researching ideas for a hotel atop retail space at the site, as well as an apartment building. But he said he scrapped both plans.
“I certainly understand the frustration’’ in the community, Gold said. “I’m moving the best that I’m capable of.’’
Gold said things are finally moving. Plans have been drawn up, he said, and contractors have been contacted. He has received two bids for the work, he said, and is expecting two more before making his selection and notifying the city.
Gold also said he is willing to meet with residents, but only wants to do so when he has “something concrete’’ to report.
So, residents wait. And so do the displaced restaurateurs.
“That is where we started,’’ said Jim Hoben, who runs El Pelón Taqueria and who opened a new restaurant near Boston College in March. “We had been there for 10 years. We have a strong connection in the community. People still invite us to events down there.’’
After the fire, Martin Thornton also opened a new spot in a building he owns in Providence. He, too, would like to return to Fenway sooner, but he said he understands that these things take time.
“I’m sure he’s not dragging his feet,’’ Thornton said of Gold. “I’m sure he wants to get back into the business like everyone else.’’
Meghan Irons can be reached at mirons@globe.com.
© Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company
Fenway wonders what’s cooking on Restaurant Row
Owner says he expects to begin rebuilding fire-damaged block by end of the year
By Meghan E. Irons, Globe Staff | September 26, 2010
Fenway residents had hoped for a quick restoration of their treasured block of restaurants that was destroyed in a fast-moving fire early last year.
But 19 months later, Restaurant Row sits empty.
After months of silence on the issue, the property’s owner, Monty Gold, now says he expects construction to begin by the end of the year.
“I can tell you that something is going to happen soon,’’ Gold said. “The building is going to be put back together the way it was.’’
But Gold has not filed formal papers with the city to get the project moving, and across the neighborhood, frustration is mounting over previous promises to quickly rebuild that have not come to pass.
“I think the community has been patient, the city has been patient, and I don’t think there is a lot of patience left,’’ said City Councilor Michael Ross, who has been prodding Gold on the matter.
Neighbors who have watched as new restaurants sprout up on nearby Boylston Street are feeling a sense of hopelessness about Restaurant Row, an intimate nook set amid the brick apartment buildings there.
A fire early the morning of Jan. 6, 2009 destroyed that haven, ripping through Thornton’s Fenway Grille and spreading across five other restaurants and a dry cleaner. The fire caused $5 million in damage, displaced the business owners who leased space there, and left residents mourning the loss of some of their favorite places to dine.
“When you lose an essential fabric in the heart of the neighborhood, it takes away from the life that you once knew,’’ said Lori Frankian, a longtime resident. “It’s depressing to wake up and see this every day.’’
City officials pledged to work with the businesses to restore jobs and get the merchants to reopen. But today, the charred remains of Restaurant Row sit idle behind a wire fence. Murals, painted by schoolchildren last fall, cover its facade.
“Everyone expected it would happen faster,’’ said David Brennan, a 62-year-old book editor who lives near there. “To me this feels like a loss of the neighborhood.’’
Ross said Gold promised to quickly rebuild. Last year, the councilor thought things were moving along when he helped to end a disagreement between Gold and his partners over what to do with the property. Gold was putting plans together, but he let months go by before contacting the city. In the end, Ross said, neither he nor the city can force Gold, a private property owner, to move any faster.
“The only delay is coming from Monty Gold,’’ Ross said. “The city is ready, willing, and able to get this developed.’’
Gold, who has owned the property for 25 years, concedes that he has been slow to get going and cites personal reasons for the delays, which he declined to specify.
He said he had spent a considerable amount of time researching ideas for a hotel atop retail space at the site, as well as an apartment building. But he said he scrapped both plans.
“I certainly understand the frustration’’ in the community, Gold said. “I’m moving the best that I’m capable of.’’
Gold said things are finally moving. Plans have been drawn up, he said, and contractors have been contacted. He has received two bids for the work, he said, and is expecting two more before making his selection and notifying the city.
Gold also said he is willing to meet with residents, but only wants to do so when he has “something concrete’’ to report.
So, residents wait. And so do the displaced restaurateurs.
“That is where we started,’’ said Jim Hoben, who runs El Pelón Taqueria and who opened a new restaurant near Boston College in March. “We had been there for 10 years. We have a strong connection in the community. People still invite us to events down there.’’
After the fire, Martin Thornton also opened a new spot in a building he owns in Providence. He, too, would like to return to Fenway sooner, but he said he understands that these things take time.
“I’m sure he’s not dragging his feet,’’ Thornton said of Gold. “I’m sure he wants to get back into the business like everyone else.’’
Meghan Irons can be reached at mirons@globe.com.
© Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company
Felt gets two day license supsension for incidents
Boston.com
Felt nightclub receives two-day suspensions over alleged assaults
Posted September 24, 2010 06:39 PM
By Matt Rocheleau, Town Correspondent
A popular downtown nightclub has received two separate, two-day suspensions from
the city’s licensing board for failing to notify police or medical personnel about two
alleged assaults in the past three months.
Felt Boston, in the Theater District, can appeal each suspension. The club's general manager declined to comment on the suspensions yesterday.
Police said that on Aug. 15, after the Washington Street club had closed, a female bartender began arguing over a cell-phone charger with a man she had been dating. The man allegedly slammed the bartender’s head on a table, giving her a concussion and causing her head to bleed.
A manager at the bar gave the woman two shots of alcohol and a wet towel before taking her to a nearby hospital, the police report said. The manager told the bartender to explain her injuries had occurred because “she had fallen down and hit her head'' behind the bar, it said.
On June 12, a female patron was walking down a flight of stairs at the club with her friends. After exchanging brief words with three women walking behind her, the patron was jumped by the three women who punched her in the face, knocked her to the ground, stole her purse and cell phone, and tried to take her shoes, according to a police
report.
The victim told police that when she reported the incident to the club’s bouncers they simply told her to go home. When she reported the incident to police, the woman had a “severely swollen left cheek,” a small scratch on her face, swollen left hand, and bruised left arm, according to the police report.
The club was cited and consequently given a suspension for failing to notify police or emergency medical personnel of a patron-on-patron assault and battery on the premises.
The licensing board also cited the club for serving alcohol after the 2 a.m. closing hour.
E-mail Matt Rocheleau at mjrochele@gmail.com.
Felt nightclub receives two-day suspensions over alleged assaults
Posted September 24, 2010 06:39 PM
By Matt Rocheleau, Town Correspondent
A popular downtown nightclub has received two separate, two-day suspensions from
the city’s licensing board for failing to notify police or medical personnel about two
alleged assaults in the past three months.
Felt Boston, in the Theater District, can appeal each suspension. The club's general manager declined to comment on the suspensions yesterday.
Police said that on Aug. 15, after the Washington Street club had closed, a female bartender began arguing over a cell-phone charger with a man she had been dating. The man allegedly slammed the bartender’s head on a table, giving her a concussion and causing her head to bleed.
A manager at the bar gave the woman two shots of alcohol and a wet towel before taking her to a nearby hospital, the police report said. The manager told the bartender to explain her injuries had occurred because “she had fallen down and hit her head'' behind the bar, it said.
On June 12, a female patron was walking down a flight of stairs at the club with her friends. After exchanging brief words with three women walking behind her, the patron was jumped by the three women who punched her in the face, knocked her to the ground, stole her purse and cell phone, and tried to take her shoes, according to a police
report.
The victim told police that when she reported the incident to the club’s bouncers they simply told her to go home. When she reported the incident to police, the woman had a “severely swollen left cheek,” a small scratch on her face, swollen left hand, and bruised left arm, according to the police report.
The club was cited and consequently given a suspension for failing to notify police or emergency medical personnel of a patron-on-patron assault and battery on the premises.
The licensing board also cited the club for serving alcohol after the 2 a.m. closing hour.
E-mail Matt Rocheleau at mjrochele@gmail.com.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Clio gets state's first wine keg to be used in a restaurant
Grub Street Boston
Clio Taps the Keg
9/23/10 at 12:00 PM
Clio isn't exactly a frat house, but it's currently hosting one hell of a keg party. The Ken Oringer-owned restaurant is the proud owner of the first wine keg in all of Massachusetts, spokesperson Rachel Wormser tells Grub Street. The wine in question, a Riesling, is made in New York City and is dispensed tableside. Sounds like a nice accompaniment to Clio's killer cocktail list.
By: Leila Cohan-Miccio
Clio Taps the Keg
9/23/10 at 12:00 PM
Clio isn't exactly a frat house, but it's currently hosting one hell of a keg party. The Ken Oringer-owned restaurant is the proud owner of the first wine keg in all of Massachusetts, spokesperson Rachel Wormser tells Grub Street. The wine in question, a Riesling, is made in New York City and is dispensed tableside. Sounds like a nice accompaniment to Clio's killer cocktail list.
By: Leila Cohan-Miccio
Lawsuit against Upper Crust to proceed
Boston Herald
Worker lawsuit vs. Upper Crust to go forward
By Donna Goodison | Thursday, September 23, 2010 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Business & Markets
A federal lawsuit alleging that the Upper Crust pizza chain illegally deducted wages from its employees’ paychecks will proceed while a U.S. Department of Labor probe of the company continues.
U.S. District Court Judge Rya Zobel refused Upper Crust’s request to temporarily stop court proceedings until the conclusion of the federal investigation.
“We think it would have been preferable to hear what the (DOL) had to say about this case, but apparently she felt the case should go forward,” Upper Crust’s attorney, David Berman, said.
Former Upper Crust cooks Valdeir Pereira Pinto and Cleverson Batista originally filed the proposed class-action lawsuit in Suffolk Superior Court in July.
They claim Upper Crust violated state wage laws by requiring workers, through payroll deductions, to pay back thousands of dollars in retroactive overtime payments that the company was forced to make following an initial federal investigation last year.
Upper Crust agreed to pay $341,545 to 121 employees after the DOL determined it had violated federal wage laws by failing to give overtime compensation to workers from April 2007 to April 2009.
“We’ve had managers who said that employees were told if you want to keep your jobs, you have to pay the money back,” the workers’ attorney, Shannon Liss-Riordan, said.
The lawsuit also accuses Upper Crust of retaliating against workers by firing those who did not agree to the payroll deductions.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/business/general/view.bg?articleid=1283606
Worker lawsuit vs. Upper Crust to go forward
By Donna Goodison | Thursday, September 23, 2010 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Business & Markets
A federal lawsuit alleging that the Upper Crust pizza chain illegally deducted wages from its employees’ paychecks will proceed while a U.S. Department of Labor probe of the company continues.
U.S. District Court Judge Rya Zobel refused Upper Crust’s request to temporarily stop court proceedings until the conclusion of the federal investigation.
“We think it would have been preferable to hear what the (DOL) had to say about this case, but apparently she felt the case should go forward,” Upper Crust’s attorney, David Berman, said.
Former Upper Crust cooks Valdeir Pereira Pinto and Cleverson Batista originally filed the proposed class-action lawsuit in Suffolk Superior Court in July.
They claim Upper Crust violated state wage laws by requiring workers, through payroll deductions, to pay back thousands of dollars in retroactive overtime payments that the company was forced to make following an initial federal investigation last year.
Upper Crust agreed to pay $341,545 to 121 employees after the DOL determined it had violated federal wage laws by failing to give overtime compensation to workers from April 2007 to April 2009.
“We’ve had managers who said that employees were told if you want to keep your jobs, you have to pay the money back,” the workers’ attorney, Shannon Liss-Riordan, said.
The lawsuit also accuses Upper Crust of retaliating against workers by firing those who did not agree to the payroll deductions.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/business/general/view.bg?articleid=1283606
South Boston to get Australian food truck this fall
Universal Hub
Apparently there's more to Australian cuisine than shrimps on the bahbie and bloomin' onions
By adamg - 9/23/10 - 9:10 am
Sometime this fall, A Street in South Boston will be getting KO Catering and Pies, "Boston's first Australian food truck serving savory pies and fresh food off the grill." No word if they'll also be serving vegemite sandwiches.
Apparently there's more to Australian cuisine than shrimps on the bahbie and bloomin' onions
By adamg - 9/23/10 - 9:10 am
Sometime this fall, A Street in South Boston will be getting KO Catering and Pies, "Boston's first Australian food truck serving savory pies and fresh food off the grill." No word if they'll also be serving vegemite sandwiches.
Liquor license transfer could bring Poe's Pub to Tremont and Mass. Ave intersection
Universal Hub
Liquor-license merry-go-round could mean new restaurant at once neglected South End corner
By adamg - 9/22/10 - 3:36 pm
The Boston Licensing Board decides Thursday whether to grant a series of liquor license transfers that would begin with a bar in the Alley off Boylston Street giving up its liquor license and end with a new "eclectic" pub opening at the intersection of Tremont Street and Mass. Ave.
Under the deal, the Lyons Group would sell its all-alcohol license for Suite to the owners of the Parish Cafe II at Tremont and Mass. Ave., who in turn would sell their current beer, wine and liqueurs license to the operator of a new restaurant, called Poe's Pub, across the street.
Poe's Pub is also seeking permission to stay open until 2 a.m. James Byrne, the attorney representing Brian Poe and the owners of the Parish Cafe, said the upscale restaurant will not be seeking permission for valet parking because Poe wants to just serve the surrounding neighborhood.
An association of Chestnut Square residents and the mayor's office said they support Poe's plans for what is now a vacant space, but said they'd rather the 2 a.m. closing be limited to just Fridays and Saturdays.
One nearby resident, Lloyd Fillion, attended today's hearing and said he would prefer to see even more limited hours - 11 p.m. on most nights and midnight on Fridays and Saturdays - until the restaurant can prove it could fit into the racially and economically diverse neighborhood.
Byrne, however, said Poe needs the late hours to recoup the expenses of renovating the space - and to compete with other nearby restaurants that are open that late. Such limited hours would be a deal breaker, he said.
Liquor-license merry-go-round could mean new restaurant at once neglected South End corner
By adamg - 9/22/10 - 3:36 pm
The Boston Licensing Board decides Thursday whether to grant a series of liquor license transfers that would begin with a bar in the Alley off Boylston Street giving up its liquor license and end with a new "eclectic" pub opening at the intersection of Tremont Street and Mass. Ave.
Under the deal, the Lyons Group would sell its all-alcohol license for Suite to the owners of the Parish Cafe II at Tremont and Mass. Ave., who in turn would sell their current beer, wine and liqueurs license to the operator of a new restaurant, called Poe's Pub, across the street.
Poe's Pub is also seeking permission to stay open until 2 a.m. James Byrne, the attorney representing Brian Poe and the owners of the Parish Cafe, said the upscale restaurant will not be seeking permission for valet parking because Poe wants to just serve the surrounding neighborhood.
An association of Chestnut Square residents and the mayor's office said they support Poe's plans for what is now a vacant space, but said they'd rather the 2 a.m. closing be limited to just Fridays and Saturdays.
One nearby resident, Lloyd Fillion, attended today's hearing and said he would prefer to see even more limited hours - 11 p.m. on most nights and midnight on Fridays and Saturdays - until the restaurant can prove it could fit into the racially and economically diverse neighborhood.
Byrne, however, said Poe needs the late hours to recoup the expenses of renovating the space - and to compete with other nearby restaurants that are open that late. Such limited hours would be a deal breaker, he said.
Martha's Vineyard coffeehouse could open downtown
Universal Hub
Downtown could get new coffee option; Allston could get new froyo to go
By adamg - 9/22/10 - 3:47 pm
An Edgartown coffeehouse wants to branch out - to 33 Broad St. - while a local entrepreneur wants to broaden Allston's frozen-yogurt options with a new store at 66 Brighton Ave..
Thomas McManus, owner of Espresso Love on Martha's Vineyard, told the Boston Licensing Board that in addition to espresso and other coffee varieties, he would also serve sandwiches, soups, quiches and fresh baked goods. WiFi? You bet.
Jimmy Nguyen says he hopes to satisfy Allston's craving for sweetness with his proposed 16-seat Mixx Frozen Yogurt.
The licensing board will decide whether to grant the two common victualer's licenses on Thursday.
Downtown could get new coffee option; Allston could get new froyo to go
By adamg - 9/22/10 - 3:47 pm
An Edgartown coffeehouse wants to branch out - to 33 Broad St. - while a local entrepreneur wants to broaden Allston's frozen-yogurt options with a new store at 66 Brighton Ave..
Thomas McManus, owner of Espresso Love on Martha's Vineyard, told the Boston Licensing Board that in addition to espresso and other coffee varieties, he would also serve sandwiches, soups, quiches and fresh baked goods. WiFi? You bet.
Jimmy Nguyen says he hopes to satisfy Allston's craving for sweetness with his proposed 16-seat Mixx Frozen Yogurt.
The licensing board will decide whether to grant the two common victualer's licenses on Thursday.
Boston Book Festival adds concert to conclude event
Hub Arts.com by Joel Brown
Boston Book Festival - now with music!
The Boston Book Festival has added a music-centric closing event featuring Nick Zinner of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Kristin Hersh, Dean Wareham, Nick Flynn and Joe Pernice and hosted by Steve Almond. Almond and Flynn write about music a lot, while Zinner, Hersh, Wareham and Pernice make music and also write. The show, with a $10 minimum donation for admission, is set for Oct. 16 at 7:30 p.m. in John Hancock Hall at the Back Bay Events Center (180 Berkeley St., Boston), as the festival winds down around Copley Square. Tix go on sale at www.bostonbookfest.org today at 10 a.m. Press release with details on the performances after the jump.
Boston Book Festival - now with music!
The Boston Book Festival has added a music-centric closing event featuring Nick Zinner of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Kristin Hersh, Dean Wareham, Nick Flynn and Joe Pernice and hosted by Steve Almond. Almond and Flynn write about music a lot, while Zinner, Hersh, Wareham and Pernice make music and also write. The show, with a $10 minimum donation for admission, is set for Oct. 16 at 7:30 p.m. in John Hancock Hall at the Back Bay Events Center (180 Berkeley St., Boston), as the festival winds down around Copley Square. Tix go on sale at www.bostonbookfest.org today at 10 a.m. Press release with details on the performances after the jump.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Emerald Necklace visitor center to open in the Fens
The Boston Globe
Adding a welcome sign
Building to invite visits to Emerald Necklace
By Peter Schworm, Globe Staff | September 22, 2010
For the legions who wind their way through the Back Bay Fens, the low-slung stone building has long been a charming curiosity, a graceful structure with no apparent purpose beyond its weathered beauty. Built in 1883 to regulate water flow in the marshy area, the cottage-like gatehouse on the edge of the park has stood vacant for years, a landmark from another time.
Now the Old Stony Brook Gatehouse, designed by renowned 19th-century architect H.H. Richardson, will be reborn as a gateway to the Emerald Necklace, the ribbon of parks that stretches from the Boston Common to Franklin Park. Work has begun on a first-ever visitors center for the Frederick Law Olmsted-designed park network that coils through the city, a hub that will offer walking and biking tours, maps and exhibits, and information on activities in the parks.
At a ceremonial groundbreaking yesterday, city officials and leaders of the Emerald Necklace Conservancy said they hope the center will introduce newcomers to the series of parks and encourage return visitors to explore further.
The $1.3 million project, privately funded and backed by some of the city’s biggest philanthropists, should be completed by year’s end.
“A once-forgotten architectural gem will sparkle again,’’ said Julie Crockford, the conservancy’s president.
“We have wanted to do this for a very long time.’’
Crockford said the building’s location — at a main entrance to the Fens near the Museum of Fine Arts, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and a host of Fenway-area colleges — makes it an ideal launching point for visitors. From there, the necklace extends along the Riverway to Jamaica Pond, the Arnold Arboretum, and Franklin Park.
The restored building, which will be known as the Emerald Necklace Visitor and Volunteer Center, will also serve as the conservancy’s headquarters and a meeting place for volunteers who help maintain the parks.
The conservancy plans to offer tours of the Fens and its popular gardens and to hold classes to train volunteers as guides.
Designed by Richardson, Olmsted’s friend and collaborator, and standing in the first park Olmsted designed in the necklace, the gatehouse is a fitting place to showcase Olmsted’s work, organizers said.
Beginning in the late 1870s, Olmsted spent 20 years creating the Back Bay Fens, The Riverway, Olmsted Park, Jamaica Pond, Arnold Arboretum, and Franklin Park.
He linked the park network to the already established Boston Common and the Public Garden via the Commonwealth Avenue Mall.
Recognized as the nation’s leading park creator, he died in 1903. “I think he’d be pleased’’ by the new center, said Myra Harrison, superintendent of the Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site in Brookline, where Olmsted lived and worked.
The gatehouse, which stands beside a companion gatehouse that is still active, was built as part of Olmsted’s plan to regulate the flow of storm water into what was then a foul-smelling marsh. But in the 1970s, it was decommissioned and gradually fell into disrepair.
In 2002, the city restored the exterior of the one-story building and replaced its gently sloped roof. The conservancy is now remodeling its interior, which has brick walls and wood-beamed ceilings.
The conservancy is leasing the building from the city for $1 a year.
“This was a jewel that had been neglected,’’ said Jeanine Knox, the conservancy’s director of external affairs. The renovation will not alter the building’s structure.
When complete, the center will feature maps, bike racks, and benches made from the current granite steps.
The center will also be used for community meetings and educational presentations.
Mayor Thomas M. Menino said the center will help preserve Olmsted’s parks “for generations to come’’ and will enrich the experience for visitors.
Recalling the city’s former parks commissioner, Justine Mee Liff, Menino said the project will honor her legacy. A champion of the Emerald Necklace, Liff died in 2002, and the conservancy established a fund in her name to support special projects in the parks.
Menino said Liff was guided by a “love of beauty and a commitment to making the world a better place,’’ and added that he fondly remembered the high-top sneakers she wore each day.
The conservancy has raised $1.2 million for the project, including gifts from the Yawkey Foundation, Jane’s Trust, the Lynch Foundation, and three anonymous foundations.
Malcolm Rogers, who directs the MFA, welcomed the conservancy to the Fenway.
“We’re thrilled this building is coming alive and to have you as neighbors,’’ he said.
© Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company
Adding a welcome sign
Building to invite visits to Emerald Necklace
By Peter Schworm, Globe Staff | September 22, 2010
For the legions who wind their way through the Back Bay Fens, the low-slung stone building has long been a charming curiosity, a graceful structure with no apparent purpose beyond its weathered beauty. Built in 1883 to regulate water flow in the marshy area, the cottage-like gatehouse on the edge of the park has stood vacant for years, a landmark from another time.
Now the Old Stony Brook Gatehouse, designed by renowned 19th-century architect H.H. Richardson, will be reborn as a gateway to the Emerald Necklace, the ribbon of parks that stretches from the Boston Common to Franklin Park. Work has begun on a first-ever visitors center for the Frederick Law Olmsted-designed park network that coils through the city, a hub that will offer walking and biking tours, maps and exhibits, and information on activities in the parks.
At a ceremonial groundbreaking yesterday, city officials and leaders of the Emerald Necklace Conservancy said they hope the center will introduce newcomers to the series of parks and encourage return visitors to explore further.
The $1.3 million project, privately funded and backed by some of the city’s biggest philanthropists, should be completed by year’s end.
“A once-forgotten architectural gem will sparkle again,’’ said Julie Crockford, the conservancy’s president.
“We have wanted to do this for a very long time.’’
Crockford said the building’s location — at a main entrance to the Fens near the Museum of Fine Arts, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and a host of Fenway-area colleges — makes it an ideal launching point for visitors. From there, the necklace extends along the Riverway to Jamaica Pond, the Arnold Arboretum, and Franklin Park.
The restored building, which will be known as the Emerald Necklace Visitor and Volunteer Center, will also serve as the conservancy’s headquarters and a meeting place for volunteers who help maintain the parks.
The conservancy plans to offer tours of the Fens and its popular gardens and to hold classes to train volunteers as guides.
Designed by Richardson, Olmsted’s friend and collaborator, and standing in the first park Olmsted designed in the necklace, the gatehouse is a fitting place to showcase Olmsted’s work, organizers said.
Beginning in the late 1870s, Olmsted spent 20 years creating the Back Bay Fens, The Riverway, Olmsted Park, Jamaica Pond, Arnold Arboretum, and Franklin Park.
He linked the park network to the already established Boston Common and the Public Garden via the Commonwealth Avenue Mall.
Recognized as the nation’s leading park creator, he died in 1903. “I think he’d be pleased’’ by the new center, said Myra Harrison, superintendent of the Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site in Brookline, where Olmsted lived and worked.
The gatehouse, which stands beside a companion gatehouse that is still active, was built as part of Olmsted’s plan to regulate the flow of storm water into what was then a foul-smelling marsh. But in the 1970s, it was decommissioned and gradually fell into disrepair.
In 2002, the city restored the exterior of the one-story building and replaced its gently sloped roof. The conservancy is now remodeling its interior, which has brick walls and wood-beamed ceilings.
The conservancy is leasing the building from the city for $1 a year.
“This was a jewel that had been neglected,’’ said Jeanine Knox, the conservancy’s director of external affairs. The renovation will not alter the building’s structure.
When complete, the center will feature maps, bike racks, and benches made from the current granite steps.
The center will also be used for community meetings and educational presentations.
Mayor Thomas M. Menino said the center will help preserve Olmsted’s parks “for generations to come’’ and will enrich the experience for visitors.
Recalling the city’s former parks commissioner, Justine Mee Liff, Menino said the project will honor her legacy. A champion of the Emerald Necklace, Liff died in 2002, and the conservancy established a fund in her name to support special projects in the parks.
Menino said Liff was guided by a “love of beauty and a commitment to making the world a better place,’’ and added that he fondly remembered the high-top sneakers she wore each day.
The conservancy has raised $1.2 million for the project, including gifts from the Yawkey Foundation, Jane’s Trust, the Lynch Foundation, and three anonymous foundations.
Malcolm Rogers, who directs the MFA, welcomed the conservancy to the Fenway.
“We’re thrilled this building is coming alive and to have you as neighbors,’’ he said.
© Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company
Boston restaurant bar food evolves to a higher level
The Boston Globe
DINING OUT
So a dish walks into a bar ...
Lobster, risotto, and lamb heart meatballs are taking the place of onion rings, fries, and mozzarella sticks at Boston's watering holes
By Devra First, Globe Staff | September 22, 2010
Once upon a time, bars were for drinking and restaurants were for eating. Beer nuts, onion rings, and mozzarella sticks were the middle ground. Bar food was there for you when you needed it, but you didn’t go out of your way to get it.
As restaurants became more “chef-driven,’’ and chefs more ambitious, bar food evolved. Today, many bars are dining destinations in their own right. The food offered is increasingly serious — as much a distillation of the chef’s vision as the fare in the dining room.
“I love jalapeno poppers, but that’s not what we serve,’’ says Tony Maws, chef-owner of Craigie on Main in Cambridge. The bar food “is still within the philosophy of the restaurant. It’s still coming from me. I can’t take a sharp turn.’’
There are economic as well as culinary reasons for restaurants to pay more attention to bar menus. Customers are looking to spend less when going out. Owners are looking to drive high-profit alcohol sales. Bar dining satisfies both parties.
“People are looking for lower-priced options,’’ says Bonnie Riggs, restaurant industry analyst for market research company the NPD Group. “They’re also looking for smaller portions.’’ Restaurant industry traffic has been negative for the past two years, she says, except in two areas: breakfast and snacks. According to NPD research, snacks account for 40 percent of industry growth over the past five years. In a new report, “The Future of Foodservice,’’ NPD predicts snacking at restaurants will grow by 9 percent over the next decade.
These combined forces mean that bar menus around town just keep getting better. When an exciting new restaurant opens, it’s likely to offer an equally exciting bar menu. When a restaurant gets a new chef, he or she is likely to revamp the food served in the bar as well as in the dining room. Sometimes the bar becomes as much of a draw as the restaurant itself.
Craigie on Main is one example. Its reputation is built on a French-inspired menu of dishes featuring the best ingredients the kitchen can get each day. The restaurant relocated from Craigie Street to Main Street in 2008; the larger new space meant room for a bar. Now Craigie is known for its burger as well as its seasonal 10-course tasting menus. “At 5:20, there’s a line outside the door and everyone rushes into the bar,’’ Maws says.
At $18, while not inexpensive, the burger is a more accessible pleasure. It’s an estimable one, a large patty of loosely packed local, grass-fed beef enriched with added fat. Bright pink at the center, served on a house-made bun, it’s topped with cheddar from Vermont’s Shelburne Farms and, if you wish, house-smoked bacon for $3 more.
The burger is widely loved, but it’s far from the only attraction at Craigie on Main’s bar. A potato galette is a construct of thin potato slices fried to a deep brown crisp on the outside, submerged in horseradish cream and decorated with bacon bits and plump, orange salmon roe.
Maws takes nose-to-tail dining literally. While his a la carte menu features a roasted pig’s head for two, the bar menu makes the most of the other end. Pigs’ tails, fatty and juicy, come in a pool of the funky, spicy Vietnamese condiment nuoc cham, with cilantro, chili slices, and bits of peanut. Gnawing on them and sopping up sauce with a bit of bread is an elemental pleasure.
Lamb heart meatballs originated on a tasting menu, and the chefs realized they’d make a great bar dish, Maws says. The rich little spheres melt in the mouth; they’re paired with creamy buckwheat polenta and pecorino. Craigie on Main’s bar food doesn’t have the sophistication of its main menu. But at its best, it’s soulful in a way the dining room fare is not.
Bergamot in Somerville is the kind of restaurant that might once not have bothered with a bar menu at all. Opened in April, it’s small, intimate, and focused on technique. But chef Keith Pooler also wanted to offer a homier, more rustic style of food he says appeals to everyone, himself included. “Everybody loves fried clams, loves calamari, good charcuterie, things like that,’’ he says. “Eating at the bar is more of a social event. It’s for people who don’t want the fuss and muss of sitting in the dining room.’’ When he goes out, he tends to gravitate toward the bar.
At Bergamot’s bar, customers don’t miss a thing. They can still order off the dining room menu, even though dining room patrons can’t sample the bar food. It hardly seems fair. They’re missing out on Pooler’s signature calamari, fried crisp and served with nutty grains of wild rice, scallions, slivered water chestnuts, and a sweet chili sauce. It tastes familiar, like old-school American Chinese food, but all dressed up. “You want another bite after you eat it,’’ Pooler says. There’s also a rotating preparation called “bacon and egg or egg and bacon.’’ The night I order it, it features chicharron in the role of “bacon.’’ The pork belly has been scored, marinated, and deep-fried, so it curls out into fatty spokes. It comes with a runny fried egg and spicy cabbage slaw. And anyone who lives in the neighborhood might make a regular meal of the lobster melt — big chunks of fresh, sweet meat sandwiched with gooey cheddar, mayonnaise, and scallions between slices of crisp, eggy, buttery brioche.
“The eight seats at the bar are probably the eight best seats,’’ Pooler says.
When former “Top Chef’’ contestant Tiffani Faison became the chef at Rocca in March, she filled the menu at the South End Italian restaurant with bright flavors and elegant dishes: scallop crudo with grapefruit and horseradish; whole wheat tagliarini with blueberries, mint, and Meyer lemon; spiced lamb loin with turnips, radishes, and licorice.
At the bar, she went for dishes she calls “craveable.’’ Instead of french fries, you’ll find fried gnocchi or “fries with eyes,’’ tiny fried fish with crisp basil leaves, chilies, salt, and pepper. And there are crostini and pizzette with toppings that command you to order them all. “I didn’t want dumbed-down pizzas,’’ Faison says. “I wanted to continue the flavor profiles I’m interested in, that speak to me. What’s interesting and can be done with pizza?’’
Lots. A pizzetta topped with grilled lamb, goat cheese, duck fat fingerlings, grilled scallions, and tomato jam, for instance. Faison’s favorite combines house-made ricotta, earthy and smoky Friarelli peppers, and salumi.
My favorite thing on the menu may be a crostino of lobster salad, decadent yet balanced. It features grilled bread slathered in lobster butter, topped with lobster salad, chili-spiked tomato sauce, microgreens, and a drizzle of olive oil. “Lobster and butter in whatever form are friends and should not be separated,’’ Faison declares. Amen, sister.
“Bar food as seen through a chef’s eyes is a bit tongue in cheek,’’ she says. “We get to play around, be a little more adventurous. Things aren’t as much of a price commitment, so we can push harder and test the waters a bit. And inevitably, it’s what we want to eat while drinking.’’
Eating at the bar also feels homey. (As Pooler puts it, “People want to feel like Norm coming into Cheers.’’) When Charles Draghi and Joan Johnson opened Erbaluce two years ago, they wanted to draw more formal diners, but also to be a frequent stop for residents in the Bay Village neighborhood. “We want to treat people like they’re in our home,’’ says Draghi, the chef. “We have a lot of regulars who are like family. We’re open six nights, but on the seventh we’re still here, and if people knock and say hi, I’ll start the fire and make them something.’’
Their enoteca menu helps create this feeling. “I think the bar menu is a manifestation of our whole philosophy,’’ Draghi says. “Come on in, sit down, we’ll take care of you. Take a load off, relax from your day. A lot of people who come in have stressful careers, but they can forget about it for a bit and have some nice pasta, a nice bowl of soup.’’
While Erbaluce’s dining room menu changes daily, its enoteca menu remains more constant. It includes zuppa Pavese, broth made from game birds with a poached duck egg, crostini, and Parmesan. (Originating in the college town of Pavia, the soup may be the Italian equivalent of instant ramen; Draghi explains that it gets many Italians through their poor student days.) There are juicy boar meatballs; mussels in a tomato and saffron broth; platters of seafood antipasti that might include the likes of smoked bluefish salad, lemon-cured striped bass, orange-marinated salmon with purple basil, and pickled green tomatoes and watermelon rinds. “I’ve worked in so many technical restaurants, but this is the food I really like to eat,’’ Draghi says. “Most chefs like simple food with really good ingredients.’’ (It should be noted that his idea of “simple’’ involves things like house-cured olives and beautiful floral garnishes.)
His favorite enoteca dish, he says, is risotto Edoardo, named for the uncle who taught him to make it. “With mushrooms, green peppers, and parmigiano reggiano,’’ says the menu. This humble description does not prepare you for the perfect plate of comfort you are about to consume. A bit of chicken liver stirred in at the end with the cheese is what gives this dish its distinctive taste, Draghi says. “Every time we make that risotto, the smell and the taste take me back to being a kid.’’
But chefs ought to be careful when constructing bar menus. It’s hard to predict what will become a signature dish. Create something wonderful, and you could be making it for the rest of your career. Just ask Paul O’Connell, the chef at Chez Henri in Cambridge. No matter how ambitious and delicious his French-Cuban food may be, the dish he’s most associated with is the pressed Cuban sandwich of slow-roasted pork served at the bar.
“It’s tried and true,’’ he says. “It pays a lot of bills. I joke that people say yeah, he cooks some great food, but he makes a mean sandwich.’’ Recently, people suggested he update the bar menu, so he added oxtails, meatballs in chipotle sauce, a lobster roll made with the Peruvian pepper aji amarillo. “Some really nice stuff,’’ he says. “It just didn’t sell.’’ Everyone was still ordering that pressed Cuban sandwich.
“I respect the Cuban,’’ he says. “The thing just became an icon.’’
Devra First can be reached at dfirst@globe.com.
© Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company
DINING OUT
So a dish walks into a bar ...
Lobster, risotto, and lamb heart meatballs are taking the place of onion rings, fries, and mozzarella sticks at Boston's watering holes
By Devra First, Globe Staff | September 22, 2010
Once upon a time, bars were for drinking and restaurants were for eating. Beer nuts, onion rings, and mozzarella sticks were the middle ground. Bar food was there for you when you needed it, but you didn’t go out of your way to get it.
As restaurants became more “chef-driven,’’ and chefs more ambitious, bar food evolved. Today, many bars are dining destinations in their own right. The food offered is increasingly serious — as much a distillation of the chef’s vision as the fare in the dining room.
“I love jalapeno poppers, but that’s not what we serve,’’ says Tony Maws, chef-owner of Craigie on Main in Cambridge. The bar food “is still within the philosophy of the restaurant. It’s still coming from me. I can’t take a sharp turn.’’
There are economic as well as culinary reasons for restaurants to pay more attention to bar menus. Customers are looking to spend less when going out. Owners are looking to drive high-profit alcohol sales. Bar dining satisfies both parties.
“People are looking for lower-priced options,’’ says Bonnie Riggs, restaurant industry analyst for market research company the NPD Group. “They’re also looking for smaller portions.’’ Restaurant industry traffic has been negative for the past two years, she says, except in two areas: breakfast and snacks. According to NPD research, snacks account for 40 percent of industry growth over the past five years. In a new report, “The Future of Foodservice,’’ NPD predicts snacking at restaurants will grow by 9 percent over the next decade.
These combined forces mean that bar menus around town just keep getting better. When an exciting new restaurant opens, it’s likely to offer an equally exciting bar menu. When a restaurant gets a new chef, he or she is likely to revamp the food served in the bar as well as in the dining room. Sometimes the bar becomes as much of a draw as the restaurant itself.
Craigie on Main is one example. Its reputation is built on a French-inspired menu of dishes featuring the best ingredients the kitchen can get each day. The restaurant relocated from Craigie Street to Main Street in 2008; the larger new space meant room for a bar. Now Craigie is known for its burger as well as its seasonal 10-course tasting menus. “At 5:20, there’s a line outside the door and everyone rushes into the bar,’’ Maws says.
At $18, while not inexpensive, the burger is a more accessible pleasure. It’s an estimable one, a large patty of loosely packed local, grass-fed beef enriched with added fat. Bright pink at the center, served on a house-made bun, it’s topped with cheddar from Vermont’s Shelburne Farms and, if you wish, house-smoked bacon for $3 more.
The burger is widely loved, but it’s far from the only attraction at Craigie on Main’s bar. A potato galette is a construct of thin potato slices fried to a deep brown crisp on the outside, submerged in horseradish cream and decorated with bacon bits and plump, orange salmon roe.
Maws takes nose-to-tail dining literally. While his a la carte menu features a roasted pig’s head for two, the bar menu makes the most of the other end. Pigs’ tails, fatty and juicy, come in a pool of the funky, spicy Vietnamese condiment nuoc cham, with cilantro, chili slices, and bits of peanut. Gnawing on them and sopping up sauce with a bit of bread is an elemental pleasure.
Lamb heart meatballs originated on a tasting menu, and the chefs realized they’d make a great bar dish, Maws says. The rich little spheres melt in the mouth; they’re paired with creamy buckwheat polenta and pecorino. Craigie on Main’s bar food doesn’t have the sophistication of its main menu. But at its best, it’s soulful in a way the dining room fare is not.
Bergamot in Somerville is the kind of restaurant that might once not have bothered with a bar menu at all. Opened in April, it’s small, intimate, and focused on technique. But chef Keith Pooler also wanted to offer a homier, more rustic style of food he says appeals to everyone, himself included. “Everybody loves fried clams, loves calamari, good charcuterie, things like that,’’ he says. “Eating at the bar is more of a social event. It’s for people who don’t want the fuss and muss of sitting in the dining room.’’ When he goes out, he tends to gravitate toward the bar.
At Bergamot’s bar, customers don’t miss a thing. They can still order off the dining room menu, even though dining room patrons can’t sample the bar food. It hardly seems fair. They’re missing out on Pooler’s signature calamari, fried crisp and served with nutty grains of wild rice, scallions, slivered water chestnuts, and a sweet chili sauce. It tastes familiar, like old-school American Chinese food, but all dressed up. “You want another bite after you eat it,’’ Pooler says. There’s also a rotating preparation called “bacon and egg or egg and bacon.’’ The night I order it, it features chicharron in the role of “bacon.’’ The pork belly has been scored, marinated, and deep-fried, so it curls out into fatty spokes. It comes with a runny fried egg and spicy cabbage slaw. And anyone who lives in the neighborhood might make a regular meal of the lobster melt — big chunks of fresh, sweet meat sandwiched with gooey cheddar, mayonnaise, and scallions between slices of crisp, eggy, buttery brioche.
“The eight seats at the bar are probably the eight best seats,’’ Pooler says.
When former “Top Chef’’ contestant Tiffani Faison became the chef at Rocca in March, she filled the menu at the South End Italian restaurant with bright flavors and elegant dishes: scallop crudo with grapefruit and horseradish; whole wheat tagliarini with blueberries, mint, and Meyer lemon; spiced lamb loin with turnips, radishes, and licorice.
At the bar, she went for dishes she calls “craveable.’’ Instead of french fries, you’ll find fried gnocchi or “fries with eyes,’’ tiny fried fish with crisp basil leaves, chilies, salt, and pepper. And there are crostini and pizzette with toppings that command you to order them all. “I didn’t want dumbed-down pizzas,’’ Faison says. “I wanted to continue the flavor profiles I’m interested in, that speak to me. What’s interesting and can be done with pizza?’’
Lots. A pizzetta topped with grilled lamb, goat cheese, duck fat fingerlings, grilled scallions, and tomato jam, for instance. Faison’s favorite combines house-made ricotta, earthy and smoky Friarelli peppers, and salumi.
My favorite thing on the menu may be a crostino of lobster salad, decadent yet balanced. It features grilled bread slathered in lobster butter, topped with lobster salad, chili-spiked tomato sauce, microgreens, and a drizzle of olive oil. “Lobster and butter in whatever form are friends and should not be separated,’’ Faison declares. Amen, sister.
“Bar food as seen through a chef’s eyes is a bit tongue in cheek,’’ she says. “We get to play around, be a little more adventurous. Things aren’t as much of a price commitment, so we can push harder and test the waters a bit. And inevitably, it’s what we want to eat while drinking.’’
Eating at the bar also feels homey. (As Pooler puts it, “People want to feel like Norm coming into Cheers.’’) When Charles Draghi and Joan Johnson opened Erbaluce two years ago, they wanted to draw more formal diners, but also to be a frequent stop for residents in the Bay Village neighborhood. “We want to treat people like they’re in our home,’’ says Draghi, the chef. “We have a lot of regulars who are like family. We’re open six nights, but on the seventh we’re still here, and if people knock and say hi, I’ll start the fire and make them something.’’
Their enoteca menu helps create this feeling. “I think the bar menu is a manifestation of our whole philosophy,’’ Draghi says. “Come on in, sit down, we’ll take care of you. Take a load off, relax from your day. A lot of people who come in have stressful careers, but they can forget about it for a bit and have some nice pasta, a nice bowl of soup.’’
While Erbaluce’s dining room menu changes daily, its enoteca menu remains more constant. It includes zuppa Pavese, broth made from game birds with a poached duck egg, crostini, and Parmesan. (Originating in the college town of Pavia, the soup may be the Italian equivalent of instant ramen; Draghi explains that it gets many Italians through their poor student days.) There are juicy boar meatballs; mussels in a tomato and saffron broth; platters of seafood antipasti that might include the likes of smoked bluefish salad, lemon-cured striped bass, orange-marinated salmon with purple basil, and pickled green tomatoes and watermelon rinds. “I’ve worked in so many technical restaurants, but this is the food I really like to eat,’’ Draghi says. “Most chefs like simple food with really good ingredients.’’ (It should be noted that his idea of “simple’’ involves things like house-cured olives and beautiful floral garnishes.)
His favorite enoteca dish, he says, is risotto Edoardo, named for the uncle who taught him to make it. “With mushrooms, green peppers, and parmigiano reggiano,’’ says the menu. This humble description does not prepare you for the perfect plate of comfort you are about to consume. A bit of chicken liver stirred in at the end with the cheese is what gives this dish its distinctive taste, Draghi says. “Every time we make that risotto, the smell and the taste take me back to being a kid.’’
But chefs ought to be careful when constructing bar menus. It’s hard to predict what will become a signature dish. Create something wonderful, and you could be making it for the rest of your career. Just ask Paul O’Connell, the chef at Chez Henri in Cambridge. No matter how ambitious and delicious his French-Cuban food may be, the dish he’s most associated with is the pressed Cuban sandwich of slow-roasted pork served at the bar.
“It’s tried and true,’’ he says. “It pays a lot of bills. I joke that people say yeah, he cooks some great food, but he makes a mean sandwich.’’ Recently, people suggested he update the bar menu, so he added oxtails, meatballs in chipotle sauce, a lobster roll made with the Peruvian pepper aji amarillo. “Some really nice stuff,’’ he says. “It just didn’t sell.’’ Everyone was still ordering that pressed Cuban sandwich.
“I respect the Cuban,’’ he says. “The thing just became an icon.’’
Devra First can be reached at dfirst@globe.com.
© Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company
Faneuil Hall eateries safe from potential ban on soda sold on city property
Sugar stays safe from city at Faneuil Hall
By Donna Goodison | Wednesday, September 22, 2010 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Business & Markets
Boston health officials eyeing a crackdown on sugary sodas sold on city property likely will have their hands tied when it comes to the bars, restaurants and food courts across the street from City Hall at Faneuil Hall Marketplace, which sits on city-owned land.
Boston Public Health Commissioner Barbara Ferrer hasn’t even contemplated including the marketplace, which is managed and operated by General Growth Properties, in discussions about the city’s anti-obesity efforts.
“We’re so not at that point,” Ferrer said. “There’s going to be no decision on this for at least a couple of months while we do due diligence. Whatever we’re going to do, there’s going to be a fairly comprehensive strategy.”
Limiting sales of sugar-sweetened drinks in municipal buildings is one of a myriad of options that’ll be under consideration by a special panel of city education, health and housing leaders. The panel is charged with targeting consumption of the drinks as a condition of a federal grant.
“The main goal is to make sure there are a lot of healthy options and there is a real emphasis on creating a healthy environment in municipal buildings,” Ferrer said.
In addition to possibly limiting sales of soda in vending machines, cafeterias and concessions in city-owned buildings, strategies on the table include educational outreach, pricing changes to make sugar-heavy beverages less attractive to buyers, and point-of-sale information alerting consumers to the effects of consuming too many of the drinks.
Making the leap from trying to keep city employees healthy to trying to do the same largely with tourists would be a legal challenge in addition to a blow to the marketplace retailers’ bottom lines.
General Growth’s lease doesn’t expire until 2074, and its terms preclude the city from that kind of interference. “The things we have control of are the overall uses in Faneuil Hall Marketplace and the external appearance, so it’s not even something that’s within our control,” a Boston Redevelopment Authority spokeswoman said.
Food court vendors expressed disbelief that a ban even would be considered. “It would be great for this economy,” one vendor, who didn’t want her name used, said sarcastically. “We’re barely making it now, and that would affect the sales, of course, for everyone.”
And marketplace customers in search of a sugary fix could just go across the street to a shop or McDonald’s, the vendor said. “If you’re going to buy it, you’re going to buy it,” she said.
“We have to sell soda,” said Mohamed Hocine, who works at the Philadelphia Steak & Hoagie stall. “No soda, store closes.”
Visitors also thought a ban would go too far. “The government has more important things to regulate,” said Julia Dudley-Kramer, 15, of Reading.
Regulating soda consumption at schools is one thing, said her friend, Lexie Gozdiff, but “it’s too much to stop selling sugary drinks here.”
“It would be tough to get a drink - beer or bust,” said Derrick Landry, in town from New Hampshire for a Red Sox [team stats] game.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/business/general/view.bg?articleid=1283262
By Donna Goodison | Wednesday, September 22, 2010 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Business & Markets
Boston health officials eyeing a crackdown on sugary sodas sold on city property likely will have their hands tied when it comes to the bars, restaurants and food courts across the street from City Hall at Faneuil Hall Marketplace, which sits on city-owned land.
Boston Public Health Commissioner Barbara Ferrer hasn’t even contemplated including the marketplace, which is managed and operated by General Growth Properties, in discussions about the city’s anti-obesity efforts.
“We’re so not at that point,” Ferrer said. “There’s going to be no decision on this for at least a couple of months while we do due diligence. Whatever we’re going to do, there’s going to be a fairly comprehensive strategy.”
Limiting sales of sugar-sweetened drinks in municipal buildings is one of a myriad of options that’ll be under consideration by a special panel of city education, health and housing leaders. The panel is charged with targeting consumption of the drinks as a condition of a federal grant.
“The main goal is to make sure there are a lot of healthy options and there is a real emphasis on creating a healthy environment in municipal buildings,” Ferrer said.
In addition to possibly limiting sales of soda in vending machines, cafeterias and concessions in city-owned buildings, strategies on the table include educational outreach, pricing changes to make sugar-heavy beverages less attractive to buyers, and point-of-sale information alerting consumers to the effects of consuming too many of the drinks.
Making the leap from trying to keep city employees healthy to trying to do the same largely with tourists would be a legal challenge in addition to a blow to the marketplace retailers’ bottom lines.
General Growth’s lease doesn’t expire until 2074, and its terms preclude the city from that kind of interference. “The things we have control of are the overall uses in Faneuil Hall Marketplace and the external appearance, so it’s not even something that’s within our control,” a Boston Redevelopment Authority spokeswoman said.
Food court vendors expressed disbelief that a ban even would be considered. “It would be great for this economy,” one vendor, who didn’t want her name used, said sarcastically. “We’re barely making it now, and that would affect the sales, of course, for everyone.”
And marketplace customers in search of a sugary fix could just go across the street to a shop or McDonald’s, the vendor said. “If you’re going to buy it, you’re going to buy it,” she said.
“We have to sell soda,” said Mohamed Hocine, who works at the Philadelphia Steak & Hoagie stall. “No soda, store closes.”
Visitors also thought a ban would go too far. “The government has more important things to regulate,” said Julia Dudley-Kramer, 15, of Reading.
Regulating soda consumption at schools is one thing, said her friend, Lexie Gozdiff, but “it’s too much to stop selling sugary drinks here.”
“It would be tough to get a drink - beer or bust,” said Derrick Landry, in town from New Hampshire for a Red Sox [team stats] game.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/business/general/view.bg?articleid=1283262
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
City set to approve Seaport Square, largest development ever in Boston
The Boston Globe
BRA poised to give a thumbs-up to bold Seaport Square project
By Robert Preer, Globe Correspondent | September 21, 2010
The Boston Redevelopment Authority board tonight is expected to approve zoning for Seaport Square, a planned $3 billion project that would turn 23 acres of what is now mostly parking lots on the South Boston Waterfront into a new neighborhood.
The development team of Morgan Stanley, Gale International, and retail developer WS Development plans to break ground next spring for an apartment building and innovation center, the first phase of an ambitious 10-year building process.
The redevelopment authority staff, which has been reviewing the project and meeting with developers for three years, recommends approval.
“It is a bold and optimistic plan,’’ said Kairos Shen, chief planner for the BRA. “It needs to be in order to build the workforce and businesses that Boston needs to be competitive for the next 50 years.’’
The project, which would have 6.3 million square feet of floor space, would be the largest single development in Boston’s history. It would include condominiums and apartments for about 5,000 residents, two hotels, restaurants, shops, office buildings, and research facilities, as well as a performing arts center, landscaped boulevard, church, and two public parks. Twenty new city blocks would be created in an area bounded by Northern Avenue, Seaport Boulevard, Congress Street, and Summer Street.
A spring groundbreaking could signal a reawakening for private development, which has been largely dormant in the city since credit markets froze amid the global financial crisis and ensuing recession.
The developers filed plans for Seaport Square in June 2008. The proposal underwent significant revisions early this year to conform with Mayor Thomas M. Menino’s vision for a South Boston Waterfront innovation district, which he unveiled in his inaugural address in January.
Menino wants the 1,000-acre waterfront to become a vibrant new neighborhood that will attract entrepreneurs and young professionals to live, work, and play. The mayor hopes to build a cluster of technology-based start-up businesses in the district.
“Seaport Square has embraced the challenge of the innovation district: to be bold, creative, and keep our economy growing,’’ Menino said yesterday.
The developers have agreed to the city’s request to build an innovation center that can be used as both a business incubator and a venue for public meetings and lectures.
Although Boston Redevelopment Authority approval is the biggest hurdle for the developers, the project would still need approval from the city’s Zoning Commission, which is expected to consider it next month. State environmental approvals were issued last month.
To conform to Menino’s vision for an innovation district, the developers made changes to their original plans. More affordable-housing units were added, as was housing with attached work spaces that might be attractive to entrepreneurs.
The developers also have agreed to seek out retailers who are either new to the Boston market or who will offer new retail formats.
A former industrial and warehouse area, the South Boston Waterfront is largely undeveloped. The land where Seaport Square would be built was owned by Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt Jr., who sold it to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. The current development team bought it in 2006.
John B. Hynes III, a principal in Gale International, has compared Seaport Place to the Back Bay, which was created on tidal flats of the Charles River in the mid-19th century. Hynes is the son of Boston television newscaster Jack Hynes and the grandson of the late John Hynes, who was Boston’s mayor in the 1950s.
WS Development, a Chestnut Hill firm, has built several successful lifestyle center malls in New England, including Dedham’s Legacy Place.
Seaport Square is the largest of several projects either planned or underway on the South Boston Waterfront. Two other important projects are Fan Pier — Joseph Fallon’s planned $3 billion, nine-block project — and Waterside Place, an apartment and retail complex.
Robert Preer can be reached at preer@globe.com.
BRA poised to give a thumbs-up to bold Seaport Square project
By Robert Preer, Globe Correspondent | September 21, 2010
The Boston Redevelopment Authority board tonight is expected to approve zoning for Seaport Square, a planned $3 billion project that would turn 23 acres of what is now mostly parking lots on the South Boston Waterfront into a new neighborhood.
The development team of Morgan Stanley, Gale International, and retail developer WS Development plans to break ground next spring for an apartment building and innovation center, the first phase of an ambitious 10-year building process.
The redevelopment authority staff, which has been reviewing the project and meeting with developers for three years, recommends approval.
“It is a bold and optimistic plan,’’ said Kairos Shen, chief planner for the BRA. “It needs to be in order to build the workforce and businesses that Boston needs to be competitive for the next 50 years.’’
The project, which would have 6.3 million square feet of floor space, would be the largest single development in Boston’s history. It would include condominiums and apartments for about 5,000 residents, two hotels, restaurants, shops, office buildings, and research facilities, as well as a performing arts center, landscaped boulevard, church, and two public parks. Twenty new city blocks would be created in an area bounded by Northern Avenue, Seaport Boulevard, Congress Street, and Summer Street.
A spring groundbreaking could signal a reawakening for private development, which has been largely dormant in the city since credit markets froze amid the global financial crisis and ensuing recession.
The developers filed plans for Seaport Square in June 2008. The proposal underwent significant revisions early this year to conform with Mayor Thomas M. Menino’s vision for a South Boston Waterfront innovation district, which he unveiled in his inaugural address in January.
Menino wants the 1,000-acre waterfront to become a vibrant new neighborhood that will attract entrepreneurs and young professionals to live, work, and play. The mayor hopes to build a cluster of technology-based start-up businesses in the district.
“Seaport Square has embraced the challenge of the innovation district: to be bold, creative, and keep our economy growing,’’ Menino said yesterday.
The developers have agreed to the city’s request to build an innovation center that can be used as both a business incubator and a venue for public meetings and lectures.
Although Boston Redevelopment Authority approval is the biggest hurdle for the developers, the project would still need approval from the city’s Zoning Commission, which is expected to consider it next month. State environmental approvals were issued last month.
To conform to Menino’s vision for an innovation district, the developers made changes to their original plans. More affordable-housing units were added, as was housing with attached work spaces that might be attractive to entrepreneurs.
The developers also have agreed to seek out retailers who are either new to the Boston market or who will offer new retail formats.
A former industrial and warehouse area, the South Boston Waterfront is largely undeveloped. The land where Seaport Square would be built was owned by Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt Jr., who sold it to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. The current development team bought it in 2006.
John B. Hynes III, a principal in Gale International, has compared Seaport Place to the Back Bay, which was created on tidal flats of the Charles River in the mid-19th century. Hynes is the son of Boston television newscaster Jack Hynes and the grandson of the late John Hynes, who was Boston’s mayor in the 1950s.
WS Development, a Chestnut Hill firm, has built several successful lifestyle center malls in New England, including Dedham’s Legacy Place.
Seaport Square is the largest of several projects either planned or underway on the South Boston Waterfront. Two other important projects are Fan Pier — Joseph Fallon’s planned $3 billion, nine-block project — and Waterside Place, an apartment and retail complex.
Robert Preer can be reached at preer@globe.com.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Aquarium / Harbor Garage redevelopement plan downsized
Developer Chiofaro downsizes Harbor Garage plan again
By Thomas Grillo | Monday, September 20, 2010 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Real Estate
The developer of two controversial waterfront towers unveiled the latest downsized version of the $1 billion project, but the announcement has only served to anger City Hall.
Donald Chiofaro, president of the Chiofaro Co., has reduced the height of his proposed Aquarium Place twin towers project near the New England Aquarium by nearly 25 percent and reduced the scale of the mixed-use development by 200,000 square feet.
“We listened to the neighborhood and regulatory concerns,” Chiofaro said. “We hope to begin a constructive dialogue with the city that actually meets the important test of economic feasibility. This is a once in a generation opportunity and we shouldn’t miss it.”
Under the latest compromise plan, a 48-story residential skyscraper and a 38-story office tower would replace the Harbor Garage. The original plan, floated last year, proposed a residential tower with hotel and condominiums that would be 60 stories at its tallest point.
Dot Joyce, a spokeswoman for Mayor Thomas M. Menino, said City Hall is frustrated by Chiofaro’s tactics.
“The Boston Redevelopment Authority is the appropriate agency to submit new proposals for development,” she said. “It would be best if he went thought he proper channels.”
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/business/real_estate/view.bg?articleid=1282905
By Thomas Grillo | Monday, September 20, 2010 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Real Estate
The developer of two controversial waterfront towers unveiled the latest downsized version of the $1 billion project, but the announcement has only served to anger City Hall.
Donald Chiofaro, president of the Chiofaro Co., has reduced the height of his proposed Aquarium Place twin towers project near the New England Aquarium by nearly 25 percent and reduced the scale of the mixed-use development by 200,000 square feet.
“We listened to the neighborhood and regulatory concerns,” Chiofaro said. “We hope to begin a constructive dialogue with the city that actually meets the important test of economic feasibility. This is a once in a generation opportunity and we shouldn’t miss it.”
Under the latest compromise plan, a 48-story residential skyscraper and a 38-story office tower would replace the Harbor Garage. The original plan, floated last year, proposed a residential tower with hotel and condominiums that would be 60 stories at its tallest point.
Dot Joyce, a spokeswoman for Mayor Thomas M. Menino, said City Hall is frustrated by Chiofaro’s tactics.
“The Boston Redevelopment Authority is the appropriate agency to submit new proposals for development,” she said. “It would be best if he went thought he proper channels.”
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/business/real_estate/view.bg?articleid=1282905
Bank of America give MFA $10m; Huntington Avenue entrance renamed
Bank of America giving $10m to MFA
Firm now museum’s top corporate donor
By Geoff Edgers, Globe Staff | September 20, 2010
Bank of America will announce today a $10 million gift to the Museum of Fine Arts, a contribution split evenly between cash and art, with the centerpiece being a prized painting by contemporary artist Ellsworth Kelly. Coming after a $5 million contribution to the MFA’s capital campaign, the gift makes Bank of America the museum’s largest corporate donor, a status formerly held by State Street Corp.
The news highlights a remarkable trend for the MFA, as donations continue to flow after the museum’s successful $504 million expansion campaign, which was completed two years ago and set a record for cultural fund-raising in Boston.
In recognition of the latest gift, the MFA’s Huntington Avenue entrance plaza will be called the “Bank of America Plaza on the Avenue of the Arts’’ — a name chiseled into granite plinths that will be unveiled today by MFA director Malcolm Rogers and Anne Finucane, Bank of America’s global strategy and marketing officer.
Robert Gallery, Massachusetts president of Bank of America, said the gift aligned with the bank’s efforts to make the museum more accessible, highlighted in the past by sponsorships of free admission programs for its account holders. The bank also contributed funds for a recent renovation of the Huntington Avenue entrance.
Gallery recalled bringing his family to the MFA, “the first museum they ever went to, and standing under a statue on Huntington Avenue.’’
“So for the museum to choose to recognize us there, we’re quite honored. To me, it symbolizes opening those doors for the community at large,’’ he said.
In 2007, State Street Corp. announced a $10 million gift to the MFA, at the time the largest single contribution by a corporation in the museum’s history. In return, the MFA’s Fenway entrance was named after the bank. Citizens Bank, Liberty Mutual, and Merrill Lynch also gave $1 million or more to the campaign.
The Kelly painting, “Blue Green Yellow Orange Red,’’ is a 22-foot-long, five-panel piece created in 1968. Jen Mergel, senior curator of contemporary art at the MFA, said it will fill a hole in the museum’s collection.
“This is from the moment where he was really making a statement,’’ Mergel said of Kelly, who graduated from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. “It’s an absolutely monumental and signature image.’’
Meanwhile, as installation work continues inside the new Art of the Americas Wing, a 133,491-square-foot expansion that adds 28 percent more space to the institution and will open in November, other philanthropists have continued to give.
In fiscal 2010, which stretched from July 1, 2009, to June 30, 2010, the MFA received $57 million in funds and art. Since July, the MFA has received additional donations totaling more than $33.6 million, including a group of seven-figure gifts.
Simone Hartman, who is on the MFA’s board of overseers, and her husband, Alan, funded the reinstallation of several European galleries, which will be named after them. Lizbeth and George Krupp gave to support the Linde Family Wing for Contemporary Art, which will house the Kelly painting.
The Lunder Foundation — led by Peter Lunder, the former Dexter Shoe Co. president, and his wife, Paula — gave to support the Museum’s University Membership program for students attending Maine colleges and universities, as well as internships for Maine students.
MFA trustee Frederic Sharf and his wife, Jean, pledged $2 million to endow a post for a curator of design.
Leonard Lauder, the cosmetics company magnate who has given more than $130 million to the Whitney Museum of American Art, has given the MFA $2 million to endow a curatorial position. He also promised his collection of about 100,000 rare postcards. An earlier donation of thousands of his Japanese postcards led to an acclaimed 2004 show at the MFA.
Lauder, in a statement, said that he was pleased to have a permanent home for his collection and that the MFA “and their incomparable curatorial team rightly value these postcards as more than ephemera. We share an appreciation of postcards as individual art and design objects that vividly capture the modern era.’’
Rogers said he wasn’t surprised that people continue to give to the museum, even after the completion of the campaign.
“People like to invest in success,’’ said Rogers. “I think people do make the mistake of thinking that the MFA is an institution that has so much money it doesn’t know what to do with it. The opposite is the case. We are a large institution with many, many programs and a large staff, and we always need resources to serve our community better.’’
The gift of the Kelly painting is meant to be just the start of a more ambitious plan to tap into Bank of America’s vast art collection. Mergers and acquisitions of other banks have meant that many artworks, once on display, have been put in storage and kept out of the public eye.
“Blue Green Yellow Orange Red,’’ for example, was purchased from a New York gallery in 1997 by NationsBank. The following year, BankAmerica Corp. acquired NationsBank. The painting was last on display in 2002, when it was loaned for an exhibition at the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts in St. Louis.
Bank of America’s gift of $5 million in art will include other works to be selected. The bank will also collaborate with the MFA on a show of contemporary photographs planned for next year, said Gallery, and may loan works to the museum.
Geoff Edgers can be reached at gedgers@globe.com
© Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company
Firm now museum’s top corporate donor
By Geoff Edgers, Globe Staff | September 20, 2010
Bank of America will announce today a $10 million gift to the Museum of Fine Arts, a contribution split evenly between cash and art, with the centerpiece being a prized painting by contemporary artist Ellsworth Kelly. Coming after a $5 million contribution to the MFA’s capital campaign, the gift makes Bank of America the museum’s largest corporate donor, a status formerly held by State Street Corp.
The news highlights a remarkable trend for the MFA, as donations continue to flow after the museum’s successful $504 million expansion campaign, which was completed two years ago and set a record for cultural fund-raising in Boston.
In recognition of the latest gift, the MFA’s Huntington Avenue entrance plaza will be called the “Bank of America Plaza on the Avenue of the Arts’’ — a name chiseled into granite plinths that will be unveiled today by MFA director Malcolm Rogers and Anne Finucane, Bank of America’s global strategy and marketing officer.
Robert Gallery, Massachusetts president of Bank of America, said the gift aligned with the bank’s efforts to make the museum more accessible, highlighted in the past by sponsorships of free admission programs for its account holders. The bank also contributed funds for a recent renovation of the Huntington Avenue entrance.
Gallery recalled bringing his family to the MFA, “the first museum they ever went to, and standing under a statue on Huntington Avenue.’’
“So for the museum to choose to recognize us there, we’re quite honored. To me, it symbolizes opening those doors for the community at large,’’ he said.
In 2007, State Street Corp. announced a $10 million gift to the MFA, at the time the largest single contribution by a corporation in the museum’s history. In return, the MFA’s Fenway entrance was named after the bank. Citizens Bank, Liberty Mutual, and Merrill Lynch also gave $1 million or more to the campaign.
The Kelly painting, “Blue Green Yellow Orange Red,’’ is a 22-foot-long, five-panel piece created in 1968. Jen Mergel, senior curator of contemporary art at the MFA, said it will fill a hole in the museum’s collection.
“This is from the moment where he was really making a statement,’’ Mergel said of Kelly, who graduated from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. “It’s an absolutely monumental and signature image.’’
Meanwhile, as installation work continues inside the new Art of the Americas Wing, a 133,491-square-foot expansion that adds 28 percent more space to the institution and will open in November, other philanthropists have continued to give.
In fiscal 2010, which stretched from July 1, 2009, to June 30, 2010, the MFA received $57 million in funds and art. Since July, the MFA has received additional donations totaling more than $33.6 million, including a group of seven-figure gifts.
Simone Hartman, who is on the MFA’s board of overseers, and her husband, Alan, funded the reinstallation of several European galleries, which will be named after them. Lizbeth and George Krupp gave to support the Linde Family Wing for Contemporary Art, which will house the Kelly painting.
The Lunder Foundation — led by Peter Lunder, the former Dexter Shoe Co. president, and his wife, Paula — gave to support the Museum’s University Membership program for students attending Maine colleges and universities, as well as internships for Maine students.
MFA trustee Frederic Sharf and his wife, Jean, pledged $2 million to endow a post for a curator of design.
Leonard Lauder, the cosmetics company magnate who has given more than $130 million to the Whitney Museum of American Art, has given the MFA $2 million to endow a curatorial position. He also promised his collection of about 100,000 rare postcards. An earlier donation of thousands of his Japanese postcards led to an acclaimed 2004 show at the MFA.
Lauder, in a statement, said that he was pleased to have a permanent home for his collection and that the MFA “and their incomparable curatorial team rightly value these postcards as more than ephemera. We share an appreciation of postcards as individual art and design objects that vividly capture the modern era.’’
Rogers said he wasn’t surprised that people continue to give to the museum, even after the completion of the campaign.
“People like to invest in success,’’ said Rogers. “I think people do make the mistake of thinking that the MFA is an institution that has so much money it doesn’t know what to do with it. The opposite is the case. We are a large institution with many, many programs and a large staff, and we always need resources to serve our community better.’’
The gift of the Kelly painting is meant to be just the start of a more ambitious plan to tap into Bank of America’s vast art collection. Mergers and acquisitions of other banks have meant that many artworks, once on display, have been put in storage and kept out of the public eye.
“Blue Green Yellow Orange Red,’’ for example, was purchased from a New York gallery in 1997 by NationsBank. The following year, BankAmerica Corp. acquired NationsBank. The painting was last on display in 2002, when it was loaned for an exhibition at the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts in St. Louis.
Bank of America’s gift of $5 million in art will include other works to be selected. The bank will also collaborate with the MFA on a show of contemporary photographs planned for next year, said Gallery, and may loan works to the museum.
Geoff Edgers can be reached at gedgers@globe.com
© Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company
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