Shootings in Boston dropped more than 12 percent during June, July, and August compared with last year, and major crime dropped sharply during the months of May through September, a calm that Police Commissioner William Evans attributed to a strategy of targeting hotspots and major players and getting guns off the street.
“There’s only a small pocket of kids out there driving the violence in the city,” Evans said Tuesday. “If you focus on those kids and you focus on those places, you can have some pretty good success. And that’s what we’ve been doing.”
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Preliminary statistics suggest that major crimes, which include homicide, rape and attempted rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, and auto theft, dropped almost 15 percent during the months of May through September compared with last year....
This summer’s decline follows a bloody start to the year, which saw nine people killed in January, and the Feb. 7 shooting death of 9-year-old Janmarcos Peña by his 14-year-old brother, Juanly Peña, at their Morton Street home.
Following that early burst of violence, Boston police joined with community leaders to begin a gun buyback program, which has so far this year removed 385 guns from the streets. Boston police have taken an additional 496 guns through arrests and investigations, according to police statistics.
“We had a horrible January and February; it scared the hell out of everybody,” said Emmett Folgert, executive director of the Dorchester Youth Collaborative.
“People didn’t panic, didn’t lose confidence,” he said. “And now, there are results.”
Folgert credited coaches, mentors, and people who run jobs programs and said police have been “relentlessly” hunting for guns. When young people know that authorities are focused on getting firearms, he said, they are less likely to carry them around. That makes it harder for fistfights to escalate into gun battles.
“They’re texting their friends, ‘Bring the gun,’ ” said Folgert. “And then [they’re] getting stuck in traffic jams and not getting to the scene of the fight.”
Evans said that police have been closely watching gang members and others likely to commit acts of violence. Officers arrest them for firearms or other offenses or talk to them and offer them city services to get them out of gang life and into jobs.
Come work with our gang.
Uniformed police maintain a presence by walking parks and neighborhoods or parking on dangerous streets with their blue lights flashing, Evans said.
Last year, Evans said, he began a program to increase police presence in trouble spots by putting graduates of the city’s Police Academy on the streets in Dorchester, Mattapan, and Roxbury right after their June graduation for the duration of the summer. This year, he said, 55 graduates joined officers in those areas. Evans, who was appointed commissioner this January, also consolidated the bike unit and put officers in those hotspot areas.
The department ran a junior police academy this summer and worked with local organizations to put on summer camps, and officers held flashlight walks and drove a canteen truck distributing hot dogs and ice cream.
“I think more than ever, we were really embedded in the playgrounds, in the community, this summer, and it worked,” Evans said.
Major crimes for the whole year to date are down 5 percent by Sept. 21 compared with the same period last year, according to police statistics, though there were 39 homicides this year compared with 34 last year at this time.
“It’s certainly a positive, to see the reduction in crime rates, particularly shootings, given the effort that Commissioner Evans and the Boston police have made to specifically address gun violence,” mayoral press secretary Kate Norton said in a statement. “But we also know that statistics don’t bring back innocent lives that we’ve lost and that every victim is someone’s parent, or sibling, or cousin, or friend.”
Though this summer was quieter than previous years, Evans said, he was hit particularly hard by the shooting death of 26-year-old Dawnn Jaffier, a children’s coach who was struck in the head by a stray bullet on Aug. 23 as she made her way to the city’s annual Caribbean festival. Officials have said that Jaffier was the unintended victim of a possible gang-related shooting.
Monalisa Smith, who founded Mothers for Justice and Equality after her nephew was shot to death in 2010, said that every life lost causes pain in the community, but that it is also important to stay positive about successes. And this summer, she said, the effort by police to keep people safe was visible on the streets and felt by the people.
What about the violence of wars?!
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"Makeover plan at Faneuil Hall Marketplace; A hotel, changes in retail, dining" by Casey Ross | Globe Staff September 10, 2014
The operator of Faneuil Hall Marketplace, one of Boston’s most visited yet dated landmarks, is proposing a dramatic overhaul of the historic property that would create a new boutique hotel and shake up a shopping experience that has changed little since the 1970s.
The plan, from Ashkenazy Acquisition Corp., is designed to bring Boston residents back to a central retail district that remains popular with millions of tourists but has lost much of its appeal for locals.
Related: Israel Occupies Faneuil Hall
The company’s proposal would turn the marketplace’s crowded central food court into more open retail spaces, bars, and sit-down restaurants. It would add several glass pavilions for shopping and dining, and the South Market building would get a 180-room hotel.
Many of the changes, described to the Globe in interviews Tuesday, could be in place as soon as next summer, pending regulators’ approval.
“We want to create an environment that’s active 12 months a year,” said Barry Lustig, an Ashkenazy vice president. “Our intent is to make this a relevant property to the people of Boston, where families and couples can be in the kind of space you can’t find anywhere else.”
Renovation plans for the city-owned market, one of the most familiar and historic gathering places in Boston, need approval from the Landmarks Commission and the Boston Redevelopment Authority.
Mayor Martin J. Walsh said the plans are “a good first step” and that the city would “continue the conversation” with the developer and the marketplace’s vendors.
Faneuil Hall is steeped in history, which helps make it one of the world’s most visited sites. It served as a rallying point for the American Revolution, and the three buildings constructed near it — Quincy Market, South Market, and North Market — have become a hub of commerce and culture that attracts more than 20 million visitors a year. The market, established in 1742, currently hosts more than 70 vendors.
The property has been managed in recent decades by a succession of private companies. Ashkenazy bought a ground lease to operate the market in 2011 and has been working on a renovation plan for nearly three years.
The head of Faneuil Hall’s merchants association, Carol Troxell, said she hoped that any changes would not cause vendors to be displaced from the market.
“The local merchants welcome modern upgrades to the property; we just want to be part of the marketplace,” she said. “We recognize that it has to be a mix of vendors. But it’s a local market, and we want it to be primarily local Boston and New England merchants.”
Troxell said merchants are worried about rent increases and whether they will be able to afford rents in the upgraded property. Ashkenazy has said its plan will cost tens of millions of dollars, but its executives declined to be more specific.
Lustig said the company intends to retain the vast majority of the current vendors, but acknowledged some will be replaced and others will be moved to new locations in the complex.
“The pushcarts and the food vendors that are truly unique to Boston are going to absolutely be part of the future evolution of this property,” Lustig said. “There are some who are selling goods that are not really Boston, and that’s a little different.”
Ashkenazy’s overhaul of the property would bring the first major changes since the 1970s, when the buildings were renovated into a so-called festival marketplace. Though it has remained a popular tourist destination, the area lacks the dining and retail options popular with local residents.
Lustig said the company intends to add several restaurants and stores in coming years. He declined to name any but promised a mix of national brands and local entrepreneurs.
The Quincy Market Colonnade, a food court that includes local and national vendors, would be transformed into an open-concept space. Instead of the current jam-packed corridor, open bars and eateries would fill the center of the walkway, surrounded by food counters with additional seating along the windows and a few narrow counters lining the walls.
The ends of the colonnade would include new retail shops, while the rotunda in the center would have additional seating during the day and an area for live performances at night.
The renovation plans would also modernize the market’s architecture and outdoor spaces. The proposal calls for outdoor spaces to be used for yoga classes and set up with table tennis stations and chess boards.
Ashkenazy devised its plan with help from a prominent Boston firm, Elkus Manfredi Architects, and designer Dan Biederman, who spearheaded the successful revitalization of New York City’s Bryant Park, next to the New York Public Library’s main building.
The plan calls for the market’s uneven brick walkways to be replaced by smoother stone paths. New patios could host small music concerts and give visitors more comfortable places to relax outdoors.
Digital kiosks would also be added to direct people to historic sites and shopping options. Plans call for the tinted glass windows that line the Quincy Market building to be replaced with clear glass. And many of the area’s dying honey locust trees would be replaced.
Another distinctive addition would be a new glass retail pavilion next to Faneuil Hall. The leaf-shaped pavilion, designed by Howard Elkus, is planned to replace the current glass greenhouse-like structure, which over the years has housed a flower market and several other vendors.
Elkus said that the pavilion, which is expected to house a new retail store, was designed to be a light touch at the property edge’s that would not distract from the historic grandeur of Faneuil Hall.
“We want to create something transparent that floats in the space and is not hard edged,” said Elkus, a principal of Elkus Manfredi. “The intention is more for you to see through it than look at it.”
Ashkenazy’s executives said that other glass pavilions would be added outside the Ames Plow and Salty Dog restaurants. Those pavilions would be fitted with retractable roofs and large windows so they could be open in summer but closed and fully heated during the winter.
--more--"
"Compact Boston may have Olympic advantage; Close array of venues a contrast with rivals’ spread-out plans" by John Powers | Globe Staff September 16, 2014
The 2024 Summer Olympics may be a decade away, but in just four months the US Olympic Committee probably will decide whether to enter a US city in the international competition to host the event — and Boston has a potential edge in that race.
Boston is offering itself as a city with compact venues, and if the International Olympic Committee, meeting in Switzerland in December, decides that is what it wants, Boston is seen as a strong candidate. It would probably gain an advantage over its US competitors, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington, whose plans offer less intimate settings.
“The city is the Olympic park,” said Dan O’Connell, president of the Boston 2024 Partnership, the city’s potential bid committee. “It becomes a public-transit and walking Olympics.”
By contrast, Los Angeles would have five of its facilities in Long Beach, 25 miles to the south. Washington would use sites in Maryland and Virginia. San Francisco would spread its venues in a large loop around the Bay Area.
While Suffolk Construction chief executive John Fish, who chairs the partnership, acknowledges that “theoretically we have a 25 percent chance as one of four cities,” he publicly has reckoned the city’s odds of being named the US entry as 75 percent based on the perceived reaction to Boston’s pitch to USOC officials.
In the race to secure the US bid to host the 2024 Olympics, Boston could have an advantage over rival domestic candidates Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.
“I’m not in this to lose,” Fish said. “I would never bet against myself.”
But even if Boston is selected, it is not clear that the city is ready to commit to staging the Games. The only first-time bidder among the four, it is still investigating the feasibility and availability of sites in the vicinity.
With potential host cities for the 2022 Winter Games scared off by the exorbitant $50 billion cost of this year’s event in Sochi, Russia, the IOC is expected to make things easier and cheaper for future cities. That could be done not only by having more compact venues, but also by favoring the use of temporary or existing facilities. That would help relieve cities of the burden of expensive “white elephants” destined to lie idle after the Olympics....
--more--"
Related: Proposed Financial District tower could alter Boston’s skyline
Linehan proposes 29% raise for City Council
"A proposal by City Council President Bill Linehan to give himself and fellow councilors a 29 percent pay increase this year is running into major roadblocks with the State Ethics Commission and the administration of Mayor Martin J. Walsh. The commission is challenging whether the councilors’ move to grant themselves a pay hike would amount to a violation of the state’s conflict-of-interest law."
Also see:
Bill Linehan’s City Council raises are too much too soon
City program will boost men, boys of color
Time to get you kids off to school:
"Boston school bus drivers rally for union leader; Lawyer argues charges against union chief should be dismissed" by Peter Schworm | Globe staff September 15, 2014
Members of the Boston school bus drivers’ union filled Dorchester District Court Monday in support of Steve Kirschbaum, a union leader charged with trespassing and assault following a June rally.
Kirschbaum’s lawyer, Barry Wilson, said the charges were trumped up and the bus company was “using the courts to resolve a labor dispute.”
“This is nothing more than an attempt by the company to use the courts to resolve matters that should be before the NLRB,” he said, referring to the National Labor Relations Board. “The courts are being abused.”
He asked that the charges be dismissed. Prosecutors said they should go forward.
Although they operate city-owned buses, drivers are employed by Transdev, an Illinois-based company that oversees the city’s four bus yards.
The drivers’ union has been locked in contentious negotiations with the company for several months. But prosecutors said the matter was unrelated to the labor strife.
They said union members broke into a building and that the defendant pushed a table into a woman who was trying to prevent them from coming in. She and another person then locked themselves in an office “afraid of what they might do,” the prosecutor said.
Union members said they were allowed to be in the building and that they entered without incident.
The judge said he would review the defense motion and set a hearing for Oct. 6.
--more--"
Meanwhile, Walsh has been playing in Ireland.
NEXT DAY UPDATES:
State rejects plan for $244 million downtown school
Propriety of pay hike worries Boston City Council
Menino pens a new chapter with book
Longtime merchants worry about their future in Faneuil Hall Marketplace
"New transit station to connect Allston to downtown; A step in effort to transform area near Pike" by Nicole Dungca | Globe Staff September 30, 2014
State officials announced plans Tuesday for a $25 million transit station at the old rail yard in Allston that will allow commuters to take the train from the neighborhood to the Back Bay, South Station, and possibly Kendall Square.
The tentatively titled West Station is meant to help overhaul the huge swath of land near the Allston-Brighton tolls on the Massachusetts Turnpike, and potentially bring dramatic changes to the transportation landscape of the region. Allston residents, who have long clamored for a commuter rail station, called the plans a transformative change for the neighborhood.
The construction of the station goes hand in hand with the state’s $260 million project to straighten out the Massachusetts Turnpike near the tolls. That massive undertaking is scheduled to begin construction in 2017.
Governor Deval Patrick said Tuesday that the new transit hub will be a way to make “the very best use of this new space, this new land, and the abutting neighborhoods.”
The station, which is expected to open in 2020, initially will serve as a new stop along the Worcester/Framingham commuter rail line....
--more--"
"Makeover plan at Faneuil Hall Marketplace; A hotel, changes in retail, dining" by Casey Ross | Globe Staff September 10, 2014
The operator of Faneuil Hall Marketplace, one of Boston’s most visited yet dated landmarks, is proposing a dramatic overhaul of the historic property that would create a new boutique hotel and shake up a shopping experience that has changed little since the 1970s.
The plan, from Ashkenazy Acquisition Corp., is designed to bring Boston residents back to a central retail district that remains popular with millions of tourists but has lost much of its appeal for locals.
Related: Israel Occupies Faneuil Hall
The company’s proposal would turn the marketplace’s crowded central food court into more open retail spaces, bars, and sit-down restaurants. It would add several glass pavilions for shopping and dining, and the South Market building would get a 180-room hotel.
Many of the changes, described to the Globe in interviews Tuesday, could be in place as soon as next summer, pending regulators’ approval.
“We want to create an environment that’s active 12 months a year,” said Barry Lustig, an Ashkenazy vice president. “Our intent is to make this a relevant property to the people of Boston, where families and couples can be in the kind of space you can’t find anywhere else.”
Renovation plans for the city-owned market, one of the most familiar and historic gathering places in Boston, need approval from the Landmarks Commission and the Boston Redevelopment Authority.
Mayor Martin J. Walsh said the plans are “a good first step” and that the city would “continue the conversation” with the developer and the marketplace’s vendors.
Faneuil Hall is steeped in history, which helps make it one of the world’s most visited sites. It served as a rallying point for the American Revolution, and the three buildings constructed near it — Quincy Market, South Market, and North Market — have become a hub of commerce and culture that attracts more than 20 million visitors a year. The market, established in 1742, currently hosts more than 70 vendors.
The property has been managed in recent decades by a succession of private companies. Ashkenazy bought a ground lease to operate the market in 2011 and has been working on a renovation plan for nearly three years.
The head of Faneuil Hall’s merchants association, Carol Troxell, said she hoped that any changes would not cause vendors to be displaced from the market.
“The local merchants welcome modern upgrades to the property; we just want to be part of the marketplace,” she said. “We recognize that it has to be a mix of vendors. But it’s a local market, and we want it to be primarily local Boston and New England merchants.”
Troxell said merchants are worried about rent increases and whether they will be able to afford rents in the upgraded property. Ashkenazy has said its plan will cost tens of millions of dollars, but its executives declined to be more specific.
Lustig said the company intends to retain the vast majority of the current vendors, but acknowledged some will be replaced and others will be moved to new locations in the complex.
“The pushcarts and the food vendors that are truly unique to Boston are going to absolutely be part of the future evolution of this property,” Lustig said. “There are some who are selling goods that are not really Boston, and that’s a little different.”
Ashkenazy’s overhaul of the property would bring the first major changes since the 1970s, when the buildings were renovated into a so-called festival marketplace. Though it has remained a popular tourist destination, the area lacks the dining and retail options popular with local residents.
Lustig said the company intends to add several restaurants and stores in coming years. He declined to name any but promised a mix of national brands and local entrepreneurs.
The Quincy Market Colonnade, a food court that includes local and national vendors, would be transformed into an open-concept space. Instead of the current jam-packed corridor, open bars and eateries would fill the center of the walkway, surrounded by food counters with additional seating along the windows and a few narrow counters lining the walls.
The ends of the colonnade would include new retail shops, while the rotunda in the center would have additional seating during the day and an area for live performances at night.
The renovation plans would also modernize the market’s architecture and outdoor spaces. The proposal calls for outdoor spaces to be used for yoga classes and set up with table tennis stations and chess boards.
Ashkenazy devised its plan with help from a prominent Boston firm, Elkus Manfredi Architects, and designer Dan Biederman, who spearheaded the successful revitalization of New York City’s Bryant Park, next to the New York Public Library’s main building.
The plan calls for the market’s uneven brick walkways to be replaced by smoother stone paths. New patios could host small music concerts and give visitors more comfortable places to relax outdoors.
Digital kiosks would also be added to direct people to historic sites and shopping options. Plans call for the tinted glass windows that line the Quincy Market building to be replaced with clear glass. And many of the area’s dying honey locust trees would be replaced.
Another distinctive addition would be a new glass retail pavilion next to Faneuil Hall. The leaf-shaped pavilion, designed by Howard Elkus, is planned to replace the current glass greenhouse-like structure, which over the years has housed a flower market and several other vendors.
Elkus said that the pavilion, which is expected to house a new retail store, was designed to be a light touch at the property edge’s that would not distract from the historic grandeur of Faneuil Hall.
“We want to create something transparent that floats in the space and is not hard edged,” said Elkus, a principal of Elkus Manfredi. “The intention is more for you to see through it than look at it.”
Ashkenazy’s executives said that other glass pavilions would be added outside the Ames Plow and Salty Dog restaurants. Those pavilions would be fitted with retractable roofs and large windows so they could be open in summer but closed and fully heated during the winter.
--more--"
"Compact Boston may have Olympic advantage; Close array of venues a contrast with rivals’ spread-out plans" by John Powers | Globe Staff September 16, 2014
The 2024 Summer Olympics may be a decade away, but in just four months the US Olympic Committee probably will decide whether to enter a US city in the international competition to host the event — and Boston has a potential edge in that race.
Boston is offering itself as a city with compact venues, and if the International Olympic Committee, meeting in Switzerland in December, decides that is what it wants, Boston is seen as a strong candidate. It would probably gain an advantage over its US competitors, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington, whose plans offer less intimate settings.
“The city is the Olympic park,” said Dan O’Connell, president of the Boston 2024 Partnership, the city’s potential bid committee. “It becomes a public-transit and walking Olympics.”
By contrast, Los Angeles would have five of its facilities in Long Beach, 25 miles to the south. Washington would use sites in Maryland and Virginia. San Francisco would spread its venues in a large loop around the Bay Area.
While Suffolk Construction chief executive John Fish, who chairs the partnership, acknowledges that “theoretically we have a 25 percent chance as one of four cities,” he publicly has reckoned the city’s odds of being named the US entry as 75 percent based on the perceived reaction to Boston’s pitch to USOC officials.
In the race to secure the US bid to host the 2024 Olympics, Boston could have an advantage over rival domestic candidates Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.
“I’m not in this to lose,” Fish said. “I would never bet against myself.”
But even if Boston is selected, it is not clear that the city is ready to commit to staging the Games. The only first-time bidder among the four, it is still investigating the feasibility and availability of sites in the vicinity.
With potential host cities for the 2022 Winter Games scared off by the exorbitant $50 billion cost of this year’s event in Sochi, Russia, the IOC is expected to make things easier and cheaper for future cities. That could be done not only by having more compact venues, but also by favoring the use of temporary or existing facilities. That would help relieve cities of the burden of expensive “white elephants” destined to lie idle after the Olympics....
--more--"
Related: Proposed Financial District tower could alter Boston’s skyline
Linehan proposes 29% raise for City Council
"A proposal by City Council President Bill Linehan to give himself and fellow councilors a 29 percent pay increase this year is running into major roadblocks with the State Ethics Commission and the administration of Mayor Martin J. Walsh. The commission is challenging whether the councilors’ move to grant themselves a pay hike would amount to a violation of the state’s conflict-of-interest law."
Also see:
Bill Linehan’s City Council raises are too much too soon
City program will boost men, boys of color
Time to get you kids off to school:
"Boston school bus drivers rally for union leader; Lawyer argues charges against union chief should be dismissed" by Peter Schworm | Globe staff September 15, 2014
Members of the Boston school bus drivers’ union filled Dorchester District Court Monday in support of Steve Kirschbaum, a union leader charged with trespassing and assault following a June rally.
Kirschbaum’s lawyer, Barry Wilson, said the charges were trumped up and the bus company was “using the courts to resolve a labor dispute.”
“This is nothing more than an attempt by the company to use the courts to resolve matters that should be before the NLRB,” he said, referring to the National Labor Relations Board. “The courts are being abused.”
He asked that the charges be dismissed. Prosecutors said they should go forward.
Although they operate city-owned buses, drivers are employed by Transdev, an Illinois-based company that oversees the city’s four bus yards.
The drivers’ union has been locked in contentious negotiations with the company for several months. But prosecutors said the matter was unrelated to the labor strife.
They said union members broke into a building and that the defendant pushed a table into a woman who was trying to prevent them from coming in. She and another person then locked themselves in an office “afraid of what they might do,” the prosecutor said.
Union members said they were allowed to be in the building and that they entered without incident.
The judge said he would review the defense motion and set a hearing for Oct. 6.
--more--"
Meanwhile, Walsh has been playing in Ireland.
NEXT DAY UPDATES:
State rejects plan for $244 million downtown school
Propriety of pay hike worries Boston City Council
Menino pens a new chapter with book
Longtime merchants worry about their future in Faneuil Hall Marketplace
"New transit station to connect Allston to downtown; A step in effort to transform area near Pike" by Nicole Dungca | Globe Staff September 30, 2014
State officials announced plans Tuesday for a $25 million transit station at the old rail yard in Allston that will allow commuters to take the train from the neighborhood to the Back Bay, South Station, and possibly Kendall Square.
The tentatively titled West Station is meant to help overhaul the huge swath of land near the Allston-Brighton tolls on the Massachusetts Turnpike, and potentially bring dramatic changes to the transportation landscape of the region. Allston residents, who have long clamored for a commuter rail station, called the plans a transformative change for the neighborhood.
The construction of the station goes hand in hand with the state’s $260 million project to straighten out the Massachusetts Turnpike near the tolls. That massive undertaking is scheduled to begin construction in 2017.
Governor Deval Patrick said Tuesday that the new transit hub will be a way to make “the very best use of this new space, this new land, and the abutting neighborhoods.”
The station, which is expected to open in 2020, initially will serve as a new stop along the Worcester/Framingham commuter rail line....
--more--"
