Beacon Hill addresses parking problems with garage expansion proposal

By KC Cohen

BEACON HILL—Beacon Hill is famous for its windy, lamp-lit cobblestone streets—and its lack of parking spots. Steep hills make parking difficult, and the tenement-converted apartment buildings usually lack off-street spaces.

The Massachusetts Convention Center Authority has recently proposed an expansion of the Boston Common parking garages, which would extend south beneath the Boston Common baseball field, said James Rooney, executive director of the authority.

“Parking—it’s a nightmare,” said Suzanne Besser, executive director of the Beacon Hill Civic Association. “It’s been a problem in Beacon Hill since at least 1922, when the BCHA was founded.”

Some restaurants and vendors offer valet parking for patrons as a solution. The Civic Association frowns on valet services, but it allows businesses to use them, with the expectation that they will park outside neighborhood boundaries.

As an alternative to valet parking, businesses suggest their customers use the Boston Common parking garages a few blocks from Charles Street.

“Hotel guests and restaurant patrons simply have to fend for themselves,” said Benson Willis, former general manager of the Beacon Hill Bistro. “The confusing issue is getting back to the hotel from the garage because of the difficult traffic flow on Beacon Hill.”

The Beacon Hill Civic Association does not have an official stand on the expansion, said Besser, but the association does not support the increased amount of traffic it would cause.
Beacon Hill’s famed Cheers Bar has only six parking spaces, and general manager Billy DeCain said he often steers patrons to the Common garages. The Hampshire House uses the garages for off-site valet parking.

Beacon Hill residents are allowed street parking with a residential parking permit. There is no limit on permits per family, which causes overcrowding and counts for a considerable amount of the neighborhood’s available parking spaces.

Besser estimates there are four times as many residential parking permits as available parking spaces.

The civic association’s volunteer Transportation Committee is attending meetings with the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority to assess the plan’s feasibility. They will consider construction costs, parking demand, and impact on historic sites. It not been determined who would pay for the expansion.

“We are still very much in the beginning stages,” Besser said, “but it seems like parking has been a problem in Beacon Hill since the invention of cars.”

New programs decrease Boston Common drug use

By KC Cohen

BEACON HILL—Drug arrests on the Boston Common have decreased over the past year due to increased police presence and drug busts.

After a 50 percent spike in drug arrests from 2003 to 2007, crime in the area has dropped 12 percent in 2008, according to a crime report put out by the Boston Police Department in July of this year. The police department estimated 2,037 arrests in District A-1, which contains the Common, in 2007, compared to 1,788 in 2008.

The decrease could be due in part to the 2007 introduction of a curfew restricting overnight use of the Common, said Paula O’Keeffe, chair of the Beacon Hill Civic Association Safety Committee.

“The police are doing a good job,” said George Coorssen, representative for the Midtown Neighborhood Advisory Committee which has been addressing the issue of crime in the Boston Common since the 1970s. “This is the result of everybody taking responsibility and actively pursuing a safe neighborhood policy.”

Beacon Hill residents became more concerned about the area’s amount of crime in August 2007 after a bullet fired from the Common hit the State House, injuring two teens. The event led to the development of the nighttime curfew and an increase in the number of uniformed and undercover officers in the area.

Crack-cocaine use has dropped drastically in the area because A-1 District Police Captain Bernard O’Rourke ordered the removal of park benches that were being used as drug trafficking sites.

“It’s been a long, arduous trip to get to a place where it’s pretty comfortable around here,” Coorssen said. “Bad guys just know they’re not welcome here.”

City Councilor Michael P. Ross is working with the Special Committee on the Boston Common to increase foot traffic in the area, which has been shown to decrease crime. One proposal is to look at a way to bring a restaurant to the Common, which would provide year-round crowds, said Rueben Kantor, chief of staff for Councilor Ross.

Some Boston residents still avoid the area.

“I don’t like to come down here,” said Carol Ann Petruccelli of the Back Bay, who was passing through the Common with her two sons. “I don’t feel safe, especially with the boys.”

Beacon Hill Community Embraces Plans for Somerset Street Art Center

By KC Cohen

BEACON HILL—After Beacon Hill residents blocked previous efforts by Suffolk University to expand on 20 Somerset St., the parties have agreed on the school’s plan to build a $68 million academic center on the site.

“The neighborhood is happy with the way the school is approaching it,” said Karin Mathieson, director of constituent relations for the City Councilor Michael Ross. “There were reservations at first, but feedback on the design at this point is positive.”

The 10-story glass center will replace the former Metropolitan District Commission building and serve mainly as a new home for Suffolk’s New England School of Art and Design, now in the Back Bay. It will also include general classroom space.

Residents defeated Suffolk’s earlier proposal to build a dormitory on the site, fearing a traffic increase and an influx of undergraduates to the neighborhood.

“We were concerned for a while,” said Suzanne Besser, executive director of the Beacon Hill Civic Association. “But we entered into an agreement with the administration, and they agreed not to expand the university farther into the community.”

Beacon Hill residents opposed the dormitory project after the university failed to take the effect on the community into account, said Gerald Autler, Boston Redevelopment Agency senior manager.

“Beacon Hill is not a neighborhood that is used to giving up without a fight, so they mobilized,” Autler said. “But Suffolk convinced people that they would address their concerns and that this project would be an asset to the community, and the opposition disappeared.”

A committee of Beacon Hill residents and Suffolk representatives will meet four times a year to discuss the project’s progress.

The school has met with Beacon Hill residents for 20 months and included their input in the final proposal, said Elizabeth Leary, manager of government and community affairs for Suffolk University.

The building will include LED digital art displays and a sidewalk show of students’ work, said Alex Krieger, the building’s architect. The university will also add seating and trees to the nearby Garden of Peace.

“The plan benefits the school and the community,” said William Onuoha, neighborhood coordinator and District 8 representative. “That area needs a facelift.”

The university has recently signed an agreement with the Beacon Hill Civic Association and the Boston Redevelopment Agency to discontinue its purchase of Beacon Hill buildings.

“Suffolk has made decisions that were not easy but really will pay off in the long run,” Autler said. “People have started to see their presence as something that could benefit the community.”

Community leader reawakens Jewish tradition

By KC Cohen

BEACON HILL — Steven Greenberg found his purpose in the classified section of The Jewish Advocate.

In 1995, the 58-year-old read that Boston’s Center for Jewish Culture was looking for someone to oversee the renovation of the Vilna Shul, a Beacon Hill synagogue, and immediately set up an interview.

“I convinced them that I could take this building, and I could turn it into a Jewish cultural center,” said Greenberg, now the executive director of the Shul.

After Beacon Hill’s Jewish population moved to the suburbs in the early 1900s, the Vilna Shul was abandoned. Thanks to Greenberg’s efforts over the last 3 years, Boston’s only immigrant-era synagogue is now a renovated celebration of Jewish culture and spirituality.

“We are a piece of history that people can access,” Greenberg said, “and the effect of that is tremendous.”

Greenberg has dedicated the majority of his life to community service. In 1973, he provided documentation as evidence to the Supreme Court in the case of Brown v. Board of Education (II) that “white flight,” wherein families move across district lines to avoid segregated schools, was a serious social issue. Later, he helped found Shadows, a homeless shelter for single women in Natick.

“He’s very gregarious,” said Bentley College professor Gesa Kirsch, who lives across the street from the Vilna Shul and witnessed its renovation. “He connects people and ideas.”

Since the Vilna Shul’s reopening, Greenberg has started film nights and a speakers series. He also created “The Boston Jewish Experience: Reconnect to the Tapestry,” an exhibit on Jewish life in the city between 1850 and 1950.

“He reminds me of one of those ‘fixers’ for the journalists in Iraq,” said Shoshana Fagen, a volunteer for Havurah on the Hill, a group at the Shul focused on invigorating Jewish culture in Boston’s young adults. “Sometimes he just anticipates what needs to be done.”

Until recently, Greenberg was the only Vilna Shul employee.

“When Steven started working here, the building was rarely open,” said Rachel Cylus, Vilna Shul program coordinator, who was hired in June. “Now it’s open six days a week.”

From 11 a.m. until 5 p.m., the Shul opens its doors to visitors for tours and educational programs. The center seeks to educate non-Jews on the facets of Judaism and provide a means for the Jewish population to understand their spirituality, culture and history.

Support for the Vilna Shul is growing. More than 1,000 people found their way to the Phillips Street building during the Beacon Hill Art walk last June, and student visitors are increasingly common.

“People know the Vilna Shul,” said Deborah Melkin, chair of High Holidays at the center. “It’s something really special.”

Twelve years after the center’s reopening, Greenberg has achieved his goal—he has united community and spirituality.

“When you’re lucky enough to have a job that allows you to do something as interesting and expansive as this,” Greenberg said of the long hours, “you do what you can.”