15 voters by 9 in ward 11 precinct 1

While a poll-worker played a gentle classical guitar a glacial drip-drip-drip of district seven voters moved through the ward 11 precinct 1 polling station at Roxbury Community College.  There were fifteen voters recorded on the counting machine by nine o'clock.

65 voters at 5 pm at Ward 11 Precinct 01

Today is the preliminary election for a replacement city councillor for district seven.

65 votes were registered on the counting machine at the Roxbury Community College voting location for ward 11 precinct 1. 

We saw signs for Jackson, Williams, Carithers, and Mills, but no campaign workers.  With six precinct workers, it seems an expensive way to run an election.

Today is the special preliminary municipal election; the polls close at 8 pm.  The general election ("special municipal election") is 15 March.

Here is the Boston Election Department website with information for the district seven special elections and for the municipal elections in the fall.

Feeling stimulated? Some of ARRA's $787B comes your way

First it was Talbot Avenue, crosswalks, bike lanes, parking strips, and 'adjusting' the Codman Square traffic flow.  Very nice.

Then it was Blue Hill Avenue, done at the beginning of rush hour, that made Morton Street/Rt. 203 an attractive alternate route.  Didn't MLKing Blvd get redone, too?

Now tonight it sounds like Marine One is hovering low, in front of Roxbury Community College.  Our stimulus dollars have arrived circa your house.

The spreader machine with its dump truck tender is surprisingly quiet.  It's the growler in the picture on the bottom (and its mate) that make all the low rumbling noise.

The politicians want you to know that all that American Recovery and Reinvestment Act dough is well spent.  Here's what the Feds have to say.  This is the Commonwealth's take on things.  The City of Boston provides its accounting here.

The Old Sad Dudley Manor on Centre Street

The Board of Regents & Roxbury Community College (RCC) are making their mark in Highland Park.

As the owners of record of 167 Centre Street, the Regents had been leasing out the premises to to long-time tenants, F.I.R.S.T Askia Academy. For many years FIRST Academy held a Christmas Tree sale from the adjacent RCC parking lot. They were decent neighbors, keeping to themselves and keeping the grounds in reasonably good shape.

But some time before February 2010, FIRST Academy pulled up stakes and left. We had first noted that the building was vacant toward the end of February. [The Harvard Street Neighborhood Health Center and The Dimock Center seem to be the only non-aggregating sites on the web that describe FIRST.]

It is a gracious house and we wanted to write about it, but hesitated to bring attention to it when it was vacant and disused.

We needn't have worried.

The picture at the beginning of this post is what in-bound commuters on Columbus Avenue see when they look across the parking lot after passing the intersection with Centre Street. The careless, unpainted boards of plywood fairly cry out to those passing by Abandoned! Disused! Vacant! Disinvestment!


We know times are tough for everyone. We're sure that at the time this boarding up was done, it was done with the best intention of securing an important community asset. The plywood, no doubt, seemed a responsible guard against squatting, vandalism, and worse.

And yet, we wish there had been more thought given before these plywood sheets were slapped up. When RCC was being built there was talk of making the Dudley Manor into the president's house. What a grand president's house it would have been. But a "residential treatment program for recovering substance abusers" was a righteous use, too.

At the end of August, City Councillor Rob Consalvo proposed (with Councillors Maureen Feeney and Steve Murphy concurring) an amendment to a city ordinance governing maintenance of foreclosed property. It would have enabled the Inspectional Services Department to require owners of foreclosed property to secure the windows and doors from the inside to make the property look more secure and less offensive. If the City government considers compelling absentee landlords to treat the streetscape with respect, RCC might do well to reconsider how it has defaced the Dudley Manor. [Universal Hub article from 8/25/10 1:26 pm]

This summer RCC undertook a significant program of resetting all the granite coping on its three brick buildings. No doubt there was other work done at the roof line as well that was not obvious from the ground. The community is happy that the college is taking care of its buildings.

But, the old Dudley Manor house should receive at least as much care from RCC as do the new buildings. Perhaps there is a plan for this historic house. It would be nice to learn what it is.

Here is the Dudley Manor on a warm February afternoon before its plywooding.


Curiously, there is very little to be found about the Dudley Manor on the web. Except for the mention on the Harvard Street Neighborhood Health Center site, it is not even clear that the building should be called the Dudley Manor.