Upham's Corner News Recommends
Growing Closer to Mother Earth
The Earth Machine - Taking another Step Towards Sustainability
May 7, 2012
 What do you mean: "That's not enough?" That's my alterego raising a fuss when I feel "proud" of my recylcing
efforts. She says: "You want to make a difference?
Start growing your own food and composting the leftovers."
Tired
of listening to her complaints, I bought seedlings and a
composter. Not that a pile of brush, grass and leaves wouldn't
have composted on their own just fine, but the thought of attracting
every rodent on my street to feast on the leftovers in the middle of the night was enough give me "the willies."
Composter: Select, purchase, assemble and feed. - story and photos. What
fun! Add your own thoughts or articles as well. Let's all
step into sustainability together.
Read More
 Neighbors Helping Neighbors
May 8, 2012
When it was
time to plant flowers in the tree pit across the street, the neighbors also removed the stray
grass and weeds growing out of cracks in the sidewalk. Another neighbor happened by and then a photographer (UC News).
By then it was a Neighbor Helping Neighbor party. What a difference in
the appearance of the property and the street. "Let's plan to do this again."
Read More - Photos
Greater Grove Hall - Boston Shines
DND Offers a Helping Hand
On Friday October 27, 2012, staff from Boston's Department of
Neighborhood Developer (DND) helped Greater Grove Hall Main Streets in
their Boston Shines efforts - a great turnout.
Click to view larger composite photo.
Upcoming Events
Informational Meeting: Revolution of Hope!
Friday May 11 at 3:30 at the Dudley Branch of the Boston Public Library
David
France, violinist, has been hitting the streets of Boston, having tons
of meetings at
the State Capital and City Hall trying to garner support for Revolution
of Hope. Local teenegers who want to be in a youth
orchestra in Roxbury are excited about this opportunity. David
has finished the first draft of the
project's business plan and will be holding an information session for
interested students: 5/11/12 3:30pm.
For more Information: davidfranceviolin@gmail.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/revolutionofhopeboston
Friends of the Upham's Corner Library - Monthly Meeting
Saturday, May 12, 2012
9:30 AM
The May meeting of the Friends of the Uphams Corner Branch Library will
be Saturday, May 12 at 9:30 am in the "round room" off of the
children's library. Please come and bring a neighbor, friend, or
family member! Upcoming elections will be on the agenda, so if you are
interested in running for any of the offices or to be a board member,
this is the meeting for you!
For more information, email Alexis Frobin: saveuclibrary@gmail.com
16th Annual Mother's Day Walk for Peace May 13
Open to all, the 3.6 mile Mother's Day Walk for Peace is the Louis D
Brown Peace Institute's signature fundraising event - support comes
from pledges to walkers, general donations, and corporate sponsorships.
Walk on your own or as part of a team to honor or remember a loved one.
Registration will be open at 7:00am with the walk starting from Town
Field in Fields Corner shortly after 8:30am.
For more information: http://www.ldbpeaceinstitute.org/
 Bike to Work Day
May 18, 2011 7am
On Friday May 18th, State Representative Carlos Henriquez will join
DotBike in Field's Corner at 7am to celebrate national bike to work
week by riding to city hall plaza for breakfast and bike expo.
"As someone who rides to work and for both recreation and exercise, I
am pleased by the leadership of Mayor Menino and all of the bicycling
advocate groups for making Boston more bike friendly through access and
safety."
DotBike List of Events
Boston Children's Chorus @ The Strand Theatre
Saturday, May 19 2PM
The Boston Children's Chorus will be hosting their All Choir Season
Finale at the Strand on Saturday, May 19th at 2:00 p.m. The Boston Children's Chorus is a leading provider of after school
choral training programs for diverse youth and children ages 7 to 18.
- For more
information, contact the Boston Children's Chorus at info@bostonchildrenschorus.org or call 617.778.2242.
- To contact the Strand
Theatre, email melodi.greene@cityofboston.gov or call
617.635.1403. The Strand Theatre is located at 543 Columbia Road in
Dorchester.
 Boston City Singers Annual Spring Concert @ The Strand Theatre
Sunday May 20 3:00 PM
The Boston City Singers will be having their Annual Spring Concert on
Sunday, May 20th at 3:00 p.m. at the Strand Theater in Dorchester! The
concert, SINGING ALL TOGETHER will feature 350 singers from all Boston
City Singers Training and Concert Choruses and Kodaly Singing Classes
and showcase the pieces the group has been working on throughout the
year.
For more information visit their website www.bostoncitysingers.org.
Greater Boston House Concerts presents
John McDonald in a Salon of New Music
May 26, 2012 8PM
A "fresh, inventive, urbane, and keen-witted young composer" (Boston
Globe) and "a splendid pianist" "with a born pianist's command of
colors, textures, dynamics", John McDonald has earned international
acclaim as a musician.
Explore the mind and music of composer/pianist John McDonald, in a
soiree of his recent compositions for flute, guitar, and piano, with
flutist Elizabeth Erenberg, guitarist Aaron Larget-Caplan and the
composer himself at the piano.
View poster with more information about the artists.
Seats must be reserved prior to concert
$15.00 - students $20 - general byob/w
Purchase seats online: www.brownpapertickets.com/event/246014
FB: www.facebook.com/events/453934717954476/'
Upham's Corner Main Street Fundraiser
June 14, 2012 6:30-8:30pm
Strand Theatre
Mayor Thomas M. Menino & UCMS present the Upham's Corner Adventure
- celebrating the Upham's Corner community - past, present, and future!
Come enjoy local food, local entertainment, and local company inside
the historic Strand Theater.
For more information and to order tickets ...
From Prior Issues
Dorchester Bay Awarded $150k Grant
On
Thursday, April 12, 2012 Lt. Gov. Tim Murray, the Massachusetts
Broadband Institute, and federal and state officials announced four
grant awards from the Massachusetts Broadband Institute totaling
$600,000.
The good news for Upham's Corner is that one of the four grant awards
went to one of our local CDC's, Dorchester Bay.
On April 19, the
governor's office officially awarded the $150,000 check to Dorchester
Bay at a ceremony held at the Strand Theatre.
This particular
loan and grant product from Mass Broadband can be partnered with other
DB loans to support and strengthen our local businesses.
Read more
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Upham's Corner InSight into the News
Got Art? Upham's Corner sure did! - A Terrific Art Exhibit over the Weekend!
May 4, 2012
 Beginning
with a Friday evening reception at the Main Street office and
transitioning well over a hundred people into the gallery space on
Stoughton Street, the champions of "Art in Upham's Corner" were on a
high. "I really like it here." "I'd like to come back and
work here."
UMass students exhibiting their multi-media "Synonym for Change"
artworks in the newly renovated art gallery couldn't have been more
enthusiastic with the "Friends of Upham's Corner Arts Scene"
chaperoning the start of a new wave of activity in our cherised
neighborhood.
Click here to see a selection of the awesome artwork.
"Synonym for Change (Diverge)" - Ashley Overko
This art piece is a combination of two and three dimension, which is a
metaphoric representation about divergence that connects to the
personal or interpersonal.
The purpose of the piece is to create
an individual response that explores and examines divergence in one's
own personal life and on a larger scale of society.
In creating the art, I wanted to show that divergences happen all the
time in everything you do and that's what the lines on the black are
all about. But the reflection is generated by the branch that
sits three-dimensionally on top.
Ashley Overko artwork and interview
"How our Paths have Crossed (Adapt)" - Carrie Savage
"There are all these different paths that each person can take in their
lifetime. My piece is about what happens when those paths cross.
My piece also addresses how two people begin to "adapt" to one another
over time. It's about the organicity these interactions can have."
Overall the shape of
each piece is a mountain. The surface of each piece has a series of off white
stitching which helps make the pieces look like topographical maps.
But in between is colored thread - dark brown and green - which are
trails and represent people in our lives. I hung each piece so the
trails would match up.
Carrie Savage artwork and interview
 "The Death of Innocence (Transform)" - Shana Harden
Literally I was transforming this innocent wedding dress into a dark
layered materialized piece of art, more sculptural than anything
else. Although there is an influence of fashion, it is
still wearable in the gallery space and sculpturally it is considered
high art and not commercial wear. So imagine walking into a
wedding shop and seeing this dress on display. People would
say: That needs to be in an art gallery.
I knew it would be black which has certain
associations with it - darkness, evil. So by taking
this one dress, representing innocence and security, and the red roses,
and building on top of an object that represents life in general.
We start out with no influence, being completely innocent and having no
idea what there world really is.
Shana Harden artwork and interview
 Au Revoir and Farewell
Our Savior's Lutheran Church
500 Talbot Ave - Dorchester
Sun May 13, 2012 11 AM
Sat May 19, 2012 2 PM
May 13 is the last Sunday service for a 93 year long church near
Ashmont. May 19 is the closing Festival Eucharist. Originally called Vasa Lutheran, Our
Saviour's Lutheran Church was founded by Swedes recently arrived from "the old" country.
Lay
Minister, Ms. Adelita Callwood, is to be greatly commended for
maintaining the church's spiritual message for years. The
church's closing is not a finality, but rather the start of a new
beginning. Mission Director, Tiffany Cheney, will establish a new
minstry
(still Lutheran) under a new name over the next several months.
Full article including accolade to Ms. Callwood and photos.
From Prior Issues
Upham's Corner Spring Flowers Welcome You
 Look closely for the colors of nature
Everywhere in our beautiful community
Make haste for Spring lasts but moments
You'll miss them - the flowers and the grasses
The birds and pools of shiny water
Leaves all bent in windswept waves.
Golden clusters in beds of green
Wild grasses tall and ready to seed
Look closely for the living
And catch the magic of life.
View Photos
Edward Everett Square Residents Cry out for Help
April 11, 2012
The EE Square Residents Committee organized a highly publicized and
well attended public meeting to get city officials to pay attention to
problems of vagrancy, drinking, drugs, violence and panhandling that
has plagued their community for years.
The evening's planned agenda consisted of
listening to residents testify to the severity of the problem, hearing
from advocates for neighborhood, civic and cultural access and finally
providing opportunities for public and private agencies to speak up,
all of this to answer the question -
What is to be done?
Read More
St. Kevin's Meeting like a Frenetic "Waiting for Godot"
The Archdiocese of Boston's in-house developer held an update
meeting but there is little new to report - a couple modifications but mostly
a rehash of the past (history lesson on
the developer's accomplishments).
The
real story was the emotional and psychological state of the
community during the meeting. Anger, hostility and a warring
attitude toward the developer pervaded
the interaction over the entire two-hour meeting. This was the
latest in a series of antagonistic encounters with POUA (poo-wah), the
Planning Office for Urban Affairs.
At
the January 2012 Westside meeting with POUA reps present, a
resident said she felt like she was in the midst of a contentious
divorce proceeding. The April 24 meeting pitted increasingly more
frustrated residents against a "developer team" that didn't care "one
hoot" while the residents believed the developer might listen.
But all
the developer team said was: No! No! and No!
Read More
St. Kevin's uses St. Mary's as a Ploy for your Good Graces
Why is the Archdiocese of
Boston's in-house developer repeatedly citing St. Mary's Center for Women and
Children when they talk about St. Kevin's?
Analysis of the facts shows that the relationship between St. Kevin's
and St. Mary's (SMCWC) may be "notorious" but it is patently
unfounded. The developer's allusion to St. Mary's homeless
women and children being somehow related to St. Kevin's is comparable
to connecting "saving the baby seals" to snow on the ground in Upham's
Corner. The only (circumstantial) issue they have in common is snow or
maybe the cold.
Depending on how the 20 units, cited by St. Kevin's for the St. Mary's
residents, are developed (if the developer ever gets funding), St.
Mary's may have NO influence on who lives there because the Boston
Housing Authority will decide, not St. Mary's. The developer
(now) even admits to this.
Yet at the March 10, 2011 BRA hearing, political stakeholders put
themselves on the line for St. Kevin's because of its supposed
connection to St. Mary's. What do these two places have in
common? It sure isn't housing. They are both in Upham's Corner
and they are both controlled by the Catholic Church. That's it!
Who broadcast this erroneous relationship causing all the world to fall
for the "pity party" - believing it or in cohoots with its spurious
connection? Marty Walsh, Maureen Feeney, John Barros, Project
Hope and the Archdiocese spokespeople (SMCWC and POUA).
Read More
Community Voice Ignored & Suppressed
April 24, 2012
Did they invite you to the party? No?
Don't worry about it. They invited almost nobody.
The "party" is another event in a string of incompetencies carried out
by the Archdiocese of Boston's in-house developer in (mis) managing the
St. Kevin's Redevelopment Project.
In a display of callous disregard for standard community involvement,
the Planning Office of Urban Affairs (POUA) scheduled an update meeting
in response to a demand letter written by the Westside Neighborhood
Association but failed to notify almost everybody.
Read More
St. Kevin's offers Beds for the Homeless - Open Air Fresh and Cardboard Comfort
April 28, 2012
While Upham's Corner Main Street and the Department of Neighborhood
Services coordinated a concerted effort to comply with the spirit of
Boston Shines, not all buildings came through with filying colors. Photos
taken by UC News at St. Kevin's show human waste, an
abandoned Boston Shines broom and trash galore.
A bright spot: St.
Kevin's is offering free beds to the homeless or those who choose not
to sleep at home. Touching the ground and open to the sky, these
beds offer a healthy alternative to human-made beds. In five different
varieties, there is sure to be one that pleases, but come early to
select your favorite as they go quickly.
Read More & Photos
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