Upham's Corner Main Street is proposing to improve the
attractiveness
of the Upham's Corner business district by having an information kiosk
installed at a key location in the business district
- somewhere that is accessible to pedestrians and highly visible by
cars and other vehicles.
The content will be decided based on feedback from local residents and
businesses.
Let your Voices be Heard : Preserve Public Transit!
The MBTA is holding a series of public hearings on their proposed fare
hikes and service cuts. Residents attending and speaking up can have a
dramatic impact on our elected officials who have a big say in the
outcome.
Dorchester House Multi-Service Center, Multi-Purpose Room,
1353 Dorchester Avenue, Dorchester
The New England Carpenters Training
Fund (NECTF) will be conducting
interview's to establish an "Eligible Pool of Apprentice Applicants".
Interviews will be conducted in late March or early April of 2012.
Additional interviews will be conducted as demand requires.
Who can Apply?
Anyone age 17 or older, who is a High School graduate or has a GED.
High school seniors may apply with a letter from their school stating
that they are eligible to graduate within three months. Women,
minorities and veterans are strongly encouraged to apply.
A new "train," known as FICCPI, is
making its way down the Fairmount Corridor with a Mayor Menino kickoff scheduled for Feb 21 at the Strand.
While our fair city
will not have the focused planning initiative promised last February, it will
be the FIRST stop on the Fairmount Corridor (transportation) initiative
train ride.
FAQ's on how the "FICCPI" will work and how YOU can get involved.
Vandalism
and vagrancy were a concern to both sides of the "St.. Kevin's fence" -
on one side the neighbors and, on the "parish" side, Fr. Jack
Ahern. Fr. Jack found himself working against the
tide, so to speak, repairing windows and doors in Building B only
to find them broken again.
Whoever wanted inside wasn't taking "no" for an answer. In January 2012
Fr Jack authorized Building B
professionally secured.
What happened? They (??) turned their efforts elsewhere and broke
into Building A.
Reflections on life, death and what's between through the eyes of my crushed van and the journey of my father home.
Little by little, sleep time after shower time, break time after
coffee time, the routines of the living awakened my hibernating soul.
Thoughts emerged like tiny sparkling mushrooms, perspectives changed
like the long afternoon shadows of cloudless skies and gratitude washed
over the muddy, seaweed covered beaches of my introspection.
The man in the moon looked down and grinned. "Go away," and I
laughed.
So you want to surprise someone special with a
gift from yourself? A gift that shows thought and creativity? How
about writing an acrostic poem? It's pretty easy and a lot of
fun. You'll feel good about the time you put in and oh, what a
surprise!
Acrostic poetry is familar to all of us but perhaps not under that
name. A poem that is structured to spell out a name or phrase by
the
first letters of (selected) lines is called "acrostic."
Huffington Post announced the launch of Good News on Jan 12, "a new
section that will shine a much-needed spotlight on what's inspiring,
what's positive, what's working."
From our inception UC News has been highlighting the good.
Starting today, we will call it that: The Good News from Upham's
Corner.
Share stories about yourself and others that highlight the blessed side
of life. What do you like doing, reading, talking about?
What are your hopes and dreams?
Remember: Behind
every beautiful face, there is an equally beautiful story!
The Winter Farmers' Market sponsored by the Dorchester Community Food
Cooperative will run through March 25, 2012. Held in the Great
Hall of Codman Square Sundays 12-3, it draws hundreds of local buyers
to purchase and savor produce, meats, cheeses and breads, all of it
locally grown/produced.
Each week offers a different theme to stimulate your mental faculties
and artistic yearnings. Great for the kids as well.
Boston Youth Fund Job Applications
February 1, 2012
As of February 1, 2012, you (a youth) can apply to the Boston Youth
Fund to be considered for a summer job. You must turn 15 years
old by July 8, 2012 and you cannot turn 18 years old before August 18,
2012.
A well publicized and
highly anticipated "update" from the St. Kevin's
developers (POUA) was a "dud." The POUA reps were "placeholders"
for another meeting to be
scheduled in late February. Judy works somewhere else and Dave is
still getting his feet wet.
That didn't stop the residents who expressed for 1 hour, 15 minutes -
their discontent with the whole project including massing, density,
parking, traffic and the proposal to build subsidized housing.
As one resident voiced it: "What
are you
doing that's positive for Upham's Corner? Nothing."
Discussion was detailed, pointed, referred back to the original
visioning process and made suggestions on what they, the
resdients, wanted in
Upham's Corner. One resident forwarded a map of the "new"
Upham's Corner, depressed artery and all. (Nice!)
The developers will be
back in full force in February. And the
residents? Will they still have the steam they showed at this
meeting?
Six murders in 2011 and the first murder of 2012 on
January 14.
All victims were male and all but one were in their 20's or teen's.
Luis - 18, Edmund - 23, Terrance - 28, Aaron - 25, Francis - 23,
Christopher - 18
There has been little reaction from the Upham's Corner community except
for one Henriquez meeting whose timing coincided with murder #2.
Murders occur, news gets covered, funerals are held and life goes on.
If the potential closing of the Post Office in Upham's Corner could
draw a significant protest crowd, what about the deaths of 6 youth in
less than a year?
Nothing?
Enough is enough! If we are all asleep, if we are all comfortably
protected within our tiny homes, if we don't take the time to reach out
and mourn the deaths of our youth and proclaim: "No more!", there is no hope for our
community.
A
community's reputation is determined by the people who live there but
also by the transitional people - those who come to visit (work, shop,
schools, etc) and those who move out. What they say, their descriptive
language, turns into tightly affixed labels - both good and bad.
Upham's Corner does not have a good reputation and the crime statistics
don't help.
Factors within the community provide ripe opportunity for labels like
"poor" and "uneducated."
Finally, residents are beginning to
realize that poorly made planning decisions have the power to make
the reputation worse. Well made decisions can improve the
reputation. Upham's Corner can use all the help it can get.
In this article we will look at what one resident had to say about
"labels" used to describe Upham's Corner, the urgency of addressing the
problem of crime and a not-so-nice conversation about Upham's Corner on
the internet.
The news today: Someone got shot. Who? Where?
When?
Their condition? And then we forget. The initial BPD press
release may omit the victim's name.
Was there an
obituary? Did we hear anything about the circumstances? Has
anyone been arrested?
In response to the desire to learn more, UC News has put together a
"Murder Map" and an event table providing the most up-to-date
information we were able to locate.
Luis Jorge
Tavares, 18 years old, had come from Cape Verde a year prior and only
the
week before had lost a brother (back home) to a traffic accident.
He was out on the front porch on Groom Street in Upham's Corner where
he lived with his family when he was shot several times.
A resident of Boston, Massachusetts, Edmund
Andrade, Jr. was born on December 22, 1987 and passed away on
Wednesday, April 20, 2011. He had been murdered, fatally shot in the
head.
Terrance Johnson lived on the street and, at the
age of 28, died there as well. Who knows what prompted that horrible
tragedy. An argument? A drug deal gone bad?
Regardless, it was another life lost.
At 8:30 am on July
14, 2011 Aaron Wornum and Anthony Robertson were talking to each other
on their cell phones close to Sumner and E Cottage Streets when
Robertson opened fire and shot Wornum several times.
The argument between Francis Kargbo and
his friend Lester James escalated to a physical confrontation in which
Kargbo suffered a stab
wound to the left side of his chest. He ran down the stairs and
into the street where he collapsed.
A man in his 50's
who was a resident at the Victory Transitional Home for single men with
HIV/AIDS and drug abuse related problems was stabbed several times in
the home and died there.
Responding to a call for a person
shot in the area of 23 Trull Street, officers located Christopher
Pichardo nside suffering from what appeared to be a gunshot
wound. A
neighbor said she saw police officers attempting to resuscitate him
using CPR but he didn't move.
A well publicized and
highly anticipated "update" from the St. Kevin's
developers (POUA) was a "dud." The POUA reps were "placeholders"
for another meeting to be
scheduled in late February. Judy works somewhere else and Dave is
still getting his feet wet. 
Six murders in 2011 and the first murder of 2012 on
January 14.
All victims were male and all but one were in their 20's or teen's. 