THE BOSTON GUARDIAN August 28, 2020 Vol. 5 Issue 8 More Colleges Are Reopening Graffiti Incidents Have Not Increased By Ian Stevenson amidst city and nationwide Black Though graffiti appearedLives Matter protests. In early along protest routes during this June, some painted writing By Charlie Wilson Residents’ Association (DBRA) Nucci, SUs senior vice president summer’s rallies against police appeared on the signage surround- Monday. Both schools plan to use of external affairs. “We have brutality, spray-painted incidents ing the Boston Common’s famous Administrators from Suffolk regular viral testing and hotels to found that sharing our plan with in downtown neighborhoods and 54th Regiment Memorial, which University (SU) and Emerson try to reopen safely. individuals and groups around parks have not increased from commemorates the first African College (EC) presented their “There has been a very rigorous the neighborhood has been very earlier years. Over the weekend American Civil War regiment and schools’ reopening plans at a and robust process to get us to helpful to us.” of May 29th, walls, statues, and is currently under repair. meeting of the Downtown Boston this point right now,” said John Continued on Page 3 sidewalks were tagged with graffiti Continued on Page 7 MGH Faces Opposition to Kenmore Square & Downtown Destroying 3 Old Buildings Crossing Named by One Family by Jordan Frias Two bustling areas of the city now known as Kenmore Square and Downtown Crossing earned their names thanks to the efforts of one family. John Druker, grandfather of Ronald Druker of The Druker Company, Ltd. in Boston, sought to rename Governor’s Square on Commonwealth Avenue after his hotel, The Hotel Kenmore, on the same block. “[John] was born in Scotland By Ian Stevenson options, MGH is set on putting and named the Hotel Kenmore up a structure that would involve and the Hotel Braemore on Cut: Governor’s Square, now known as Kenmore Square, in 1915. As Massachusetts General demolishing three 19th and early Commonwealth Avenue after Photo: Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection Hospital (MGH) plans a major 20th-century structures; the West Scottish castles,” Ronald said. a developer at Snider & Druker decades later he and his cousin expansion, some of its West End End Settlement House, West End “So the square was named after Co., which became John Druker got involved in the branding of neighbors are outraged about Tenement House, and the former the hotel, not the hotel named & Son and now The Druker Downtown Crossing, at a time the destruction of three historic public Winchell Elementary after the square. The hotel came Company, Ltd. Ronald, president when the area was simply known buildings that the expansion School. first then the name was changed of the prominent real estate and as Downtown. would entail. After exploring other Continued on Page 2 sometime after.” John worked as management company, said Continued on Page 2 THE BOSTON GUARDIAN 2 | August 28, 2020 MGH Sally Mason Boemer, MGH’s senior vice the buildings and rebuild them.” in 1935 and whose father was a nurse at Continued from Page 1 president for administration and finance, at Much of the past expansion of MGH, MGH. “There will be nothing left, literally, the meeting. “But we were unable to find a which has been in the neighborhood since of the West End.” path to preserve these structures.” the early 19th Century, and is New England’s MGH will now file a Draft Project Impact At a community meeting hosted by the Since the hospital expansion was first largest hospital, happened in tandem with Report (DPIR), which will initiate another Boston Planning and Development Agency proposed in 2019, community members the city’s urban- renewal efforts. “It is a public-comment period. While the project is (BPDA) last Wednesday, Tom Sieniewicz, have raised concerns about the three textbook case for where urban renewal went under review by the BPDA, more communi- of the architectural firm NBBJ, and lead buildings, two on Blossom Street and one terribly, terribly wrong,” McNamara said. ty meetings will be scheduled and held on architect for the proposal, said that over the on North Anderson Street. These are some Those [remaining] buildings are touchstones such topics as transportation to and from the past year the hospital had looked to preserve of the last old buildings remaining in the for the community.” facility and managing traffic on Cambridge the site’s history by building around the neighborhood, which underwent drastic At Wednesday’s meeting, most local Street, a major thoroughfare that runs along structures, relocating them, or keeping only changes during urban-renewal projects that residents, many of whom have lived in the the south end of the site. the facades. All of the proposals, it conclud- began the 1950s. West End since the 1940s and ‘50s, were Though many residents were critical of the ed, were too expensive and impractical. “At the mid-century, there was a perception sharply critical of the hospital’s proposal. current proposal, many were careful to note The proposed 12-story building, which that cities were dying and there was a need to “We’re here, and you keep taking and that they understand the hospital’s need to would cost more than $1 billion, would reinvigorate them,” Martha McNamara, an taking,” said a West End resident at modernize its facilities and that they value house operating rooms and cancer treatment architectural historian who lives in Beacon Wednesday’s meeting who requested her the hospital’s services. facilities, private rooms for inpatients, Hill and teaches at Wellesley College, told name not be used. She was born in the “Maybe there’s another way to thread this medical imaging equipment and a large The Boston Guardian. “Because [the West neighborhood in 1944 and was raised a few needle,” said Greg Galer, executive director underground garage. End] was immigrant and working class, the blocks from the site of the remaining houses. of the Boston Preservation Alliance, at the “We recognize [demolishing] the three neighborhood was perceived as destitute and “We’re tired of it.” meeting. “It is a challenge, but challenges West End structures would represent a obsolete….The answer was to just sweep the “We cannot let these buildings be can be surmounted.” significant loss to the community,” said slate clean, take everyone out, tear down all destroyed,” said Paul Senecal, who was born Kenmore Square own suggestion and logo in mind headline was “Walkers rule idea never took off. Rosemarie Continued from Page 1 for the area. downtown,” followed by the Sansone, president and CEO of “The BRA wanted to name sub-headline “‘Downtown the Downtown Boston Business Downtown Crossing the Crossing’ gives shoppers a carefree, Improvement District, said the Research from Ronald’s cousin Ronald said. “Before it became Downtown Freedom Mall since it car-free haven” inside the paper. name “Downtown Crossing” Steven Simon led to the discovery Downtown Crossing people might was an auto-restrictive zone and I “For five blocks alongfollowed the revitalization of of the name Washington Crossing, have referred to it as simply the thought that was not a good name,” Washington, and on all of Winter Quincy Market during the which was referenced in some Downtown. The area had gone Ronald said. “They proposed to and part of Summer Streets, not an mid-1970s. articles read at the Boston Public from being a normal zone to an have a logo with a foot on it … I auto was in sight… just thousands “Following Quincy Market’s Library in the 1970s. auto-restricted zone.” voiced my opinion and came up of people ambling along in the successful revitalization, city Simon, in between undergrad- With the change from with an alternative and everyone sunshine,” a reporter wrote. planners turned their attention uate and graduate school, was a multi-modal system to liked it.” The same newspaper, known slightly south, to the central interning at The Druker Company, a pedestrian-only system, Thus was born Downtown now as the Boston Herald, report- business district,” she said. “During Ltd. when he was tasked with the Boston Redevelopment Crossing, which was described ed in 2006 that the city toggled 1978-79, they created Boston’s researching the former name of the Authority (BRA), now known as “the city’s first ‘urban mall’” in with another name change for first, and only, pedestrian zone. In popular downtown area. as the Boston Planning & a 1978 Boston Herald American the area suggested by a marketing the process, they renamed the area “It never really had a name,” Development Agency, had their article. The article’s front-page consultant and developers. The ‘Downtown Crossing.’” THE BOSTON GUARDIAN THE BOSTON GUARDIAN IS PUBLISHED ON FRIDAYS. ©2020 GUARD DOG MEDIA, INC. PRESIDENT ROBERT WHITCOMB EDITOR/PUBLISHER REPORTERS CONTRIBUTORS DAVID JACOBS JORDAN FRIAS JASON CARLTON ASSOCIATE EDITOR IAN STEVENSON DAN FRIEDMAN GEN TRACY CHARLIE WOLFSON MANNY LEWIS P.O. BOX 171558, BOSTON, MA 02117 TELEPHONE: (857) 265-3022 FAX: (857) 990-3128 EmaIL: [email protected] LIKE US ON FACEBOOK@thebostonguardian FOLLOW US ON TWITTER@bostonguardian The reproduction in whole or part, of any information contained herein and prior is forbidden without the express written permission of the publisher. 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