City kids choked up with asthma PAGE3 !J Community Newspaper Company www. allstonbrightontab.com FRIDAY, JUN E 24, 2005 Vol. 9, No. 46 48 Pages 3 Sections 75¢ NURSING HOME House of Horrors By Audlti Guha STAFF WRITER With 35 patient<; still waiting for new homes, the Provident Skilled Nursing Center at 150 I Common­ wealth Ave. may not close this week as previously scheduled, said state officials. But meanwhile, a TAB review of the facility and inspection records reveals that Provident may not be a safe and clean place for the ailing and elderly who are waiting for new beds. Ch1istine Hill said she is glad the nursing home is closing. The Mattapan resident c..ime to visit her brother Tuesday evening after she heru·d the place is closing. Hill is lucky her brother has been placed in a New­ ton nursing home. "We don't like the way patients are treated here," she said. ··we call, but we get no info1mati m. so we came to fi nd out what's going on," she said. 'They didn't say \\-hy they are closing." NURSING HOME, page 12 Daly STAf H IT BY i\\'1 ~().. N Jen Doyle of Brighton joins t he OLP School " funeral procession" as It marched along Washington Street Sund y. The school, of course, got a last-minute field of reprieve from the archdiocese two weeks ago, a"MI the funeral had t he feeling of a victory march. nightmares By Audit l Guha 9b - ~~RS STAFf WRITER AG No one\ l?Oinu to confuse Bri~hton\ l),11\ Field \\Ith a majo~ league ballpark. U~less Fem\;) Park has holes in it<, field.,, weeds all O\er the place. a tom and falli ng apart chain link fen<.:e :.111d a ba<llv main­ tained infield. State officials said lt e) plan to ~heck it STRUT THEIR ST out this week. At 6 p.m. Monday, the state-ff aintajned field on By Audltl Guha market 'alue for 52.5 million and Sick to stomach I "We can't trust the church any­ Nonantum Road was alive with a busOe of activity, STAFF WRITER tum it into a communil) center and Brighton re., idem Jtrick more, and it should be separated from Little League games to joggers and ballplayers. t wa<; Mardi Gras in Oak Square pri vate -.-.h<X)l. Heuson. \\.ho had a IO-year- Id in from the schools," he said. This is the first year the Allst )n-B1ighton Little last weekend. Even ..1mi<l the celebration, some the school, said he \\.as "sick o the Pushing a pram in the march, League hac; expanded in a long time, but the number I After camping out in the cold remained \keptical. stomach" with the goings o over Nancy DeRosa said her 5-year-old of ball fields is still the same. The teams were forced and protesting in the rai n for two the la<,t few months. OLP, page 12 to schedule games on Daly Field, according to Jim weeks, the Oak Square community P1ince, coachi ng a group of 13- to 16-yeru·-olds. celebrated with an Iri sh wake and OLP teacher "Jt's a mess," he said, pointing to clumps of gra% marched to a New Orleans-style and weed and a broken bench that stood propped up jazz band playing a funeral dirge on against a trash barrel. 'Tve never seen anything like a sunny Saturday. says goodbye this." "We're going to Pied Piper these Pri nce played softball on the fie:d 25 years ago and By Audlt i Guha recal led better days. good folks to the Green Briar," STAFF WRITER quipped Made in the Shade band So did Chuck McGilvray, who took care of the Claudia Rufo sti ll remember<; her member Crick Diefendorf, strum­ park as a vol unteer when he was 16. ming on a banjo in the Oak Square first day in the Our Lady of Presen­ "We would rake the field, mow the gra% and tation School 22 years ago. Her park around 4 p.m. Sunday. empty barrels every day," he said, as he watched his daughter was in the fi rst pre-K class Presentation School Foundation daughter bat. "We would do the \\-hole infield and put and the teacher needed extra help. Chai rman Kevin Carragee said the FIELD, page 13 Havi ng taught in a Catholic Irish wake honors the long and rich school in Dorchester after graduat­ tradition of the Our Lady of Presen­ ing Boston State College, Rufo de­ tation School in the community. cided to help out the pre-K teacher Foundation members, who have For kids, free and began working at the Oak been opposing the closing of the Square school part time. school, said the Irish wake and vic­ Her love for teaching soon got lunch just tory march was in celebration of her in it full time, and she became their recent talks with the Boston an inseparable part of the Oak Archdiocese. Square family that revolves in and The archdiocese closed the waiting there around the neighborhood school. school two days before its sched­ 'The faculty became my uled shutting earlier this month, but By Audltl Guha friends," she said. ··we worked as a STAFF WRITER is now consideri ng the communi­ team there and really enjoyed our ty's proposal to buy the building at For many families, the free meals that public work. We became a family a long, schools provide their kids are often the difference long time ago. The hardest thi ng is between their kids going to bed hungry. Now, More meetiq_gs set our fam ily is breaking up ... I am thanks to a city program, those kids won't have to The Presentatio~ndation hanging on." go without fu ll bell ies in the sL mmer. is scheduled to meet with the With everybody packing and When school is out, fam il ies on free and re­ archbishop on Monday, June supporting each other, Oak Square duced-meal programs have two options for food, 27, at 3 p.m. in the chancery for has seen two weeks of last-minute according to city officials, who are spreading the further discussions about the activity and emotions. "We have word about the underused summer breakfas t and ownership of the Oak Square been going back [to the school] lunch program, offered free an<l without any eligi­ school building. every single day," Ru fo said. bility requirements, to children age 4-18. "Progress was made in our "We want parents to know that if they need a last meeting, and we hope that Hanging on place fo r children to go for meals, they should process can move forward in a A Brighton resident al l her li fe, check out the local centers," said Helen Mont­ expeditious manner," Founda­ Rufo is one of many teachers who Ferguson, director of the city's Depai1ment of tion Chairman Kevin Carragee SToll"" • Y .i> 0 "'!)'\O, have spent the last week carting out Food and Nutri tion Services. "It's a wonderful op­ said. The Made In the Shade jazz band leads the OLP School "funeral procession" portunity fo r children to [eat] low-cost, nutritious Sunday. TEACHER, page 12 MEALS, page 13 Please '1.\EL The .F inest Call For a Free <:111 Rf tl,H.\( :Tl(: m ~orlgage Loans Market Analysis! recycle Swiss Watch Repair Local knowledge. Sports Authorized Salts & Sen ice BESTOF BOSTON Experienced answers. 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The society's earliest baptisms (Baptist doctrine BRIGHTON~ ST""' w s- St v ~TY re! ulred both adult baptism and total Immersion) took place In the Charles River near Riverside Press This week's contest was a tough one, but several of the regulars broke out the eyeshade and dug In ambrldge, now the site of Technology Park. After the destruction of this wooden 1857 bulldlng In through enough records to recognize It as t he Brighton Avenue Baptist Church. Here we see one of a pectacular fire In October 1929, the Baptists constructed a new masonry church on a lot they Allston-Brighton's most striking 19th-century landmarks which stood In Union Square on the site now owned at the northeast comer of Cambridge and Gordon streets, less than a half-mlle t o the west of occupied by the Union Square Fire Station. Brighton's Baptist Society was organized In 1853 as the the origlnal bulldlng. Despite the change of street address, It was decided to retain t he orlglnal name community's fourth religious society. Its members met Initially In the Brighton Town Hall In Brighton - t hus the Brighton Avenue Baptist Church came to be situated on Cambridge Street - an anomaly Center and later In Union Hall on t he west ern side of Union Square.