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Porter Square Redesign

11 May

Protected bike lanes aren’t in final proposal for traffic changes coming to Porter Square

 

By Tom Meek 

A human wall formed at an April 26 bicyclist protest in Porter Square to dramatize the need for protected bike lanes to city transportation officials. (Photo: Tom Meek)

Final plans for traffic safety improvements in Porter Square were presented Tuesday, updated from a form presented Jan. 18 but not erasing fully the strong opposition by residents and cycling activist groups.

The presentation had the square’s current five-phase traffic signal cycle (including one for pedestrians only, and another to leave the mall parking lot) still being replaced by a simpler three-phase cycle.

A left exit from the Porter Square shopping plaza through a zebra-striped pedestrian pavilion will remain; the January plan showed it being eliminated, with the exit blocked by cement planters – a proposal called cheap and ugly by many in attendance.

In addition, a pedestrian island between lanes of traffic where Somerville Avenue meets Massachusetts Avenue will remain, shifted a bit toward the T stop and widened some. The move is meant to better distribute motor vehicle traffic and allow for implementation of buffered bike lanes, which have gridded white paint separating bicycle and motor vehicle traffic. The buffered lanes are planned for both sides of Somerville Avenue.

“We want to move forward with this plan,” said Joseph Barr, director of the city’s Traffic, Parking & Transportation Department, to a crowd of about 75 at Lesley University’ University Hall, “but that does not preclude future safety enhancements.”

The project would run “over the next few months [during] construction season,” he said.

Barr said plans were altered based on input from the community and an April 26 protest by the Cambridge Bicycle Safety Group, but he still received criticism from cycling activists who felt their message went unheard.

“Worthless,” is what one angry attendee called the plan, and city councillor Quinton Zondervan asked senior traffic engineer Patrick Baxter repeatedly why there could not be plastic flex posts – the primary demand of the April protest – where the city planned to put buffered bike lanes. An April 30 council order, though passed with some debate, also hoped for more extensive steps toward bike safety.

Baxter said trucks coming trough the snaky area would shear off posts in the curves, drawing criticisms from one upset cyclist that the city was “prioritizing trucks over bikes.” As part of the April protest, people formed a human wall in the Somerville Avenue bike lane buffer area to prove protected lanes were possible – and cars and bikes passed by without incident, using the lanes on either side of them.

Changes to the square were spurred by two deaths in 2016: Psychotherapist Marcie Mitler, 63, was hit by a car at 5:56 a.m. Feb. 18 while walking at Somerville Avenue and White Street, and died later at Massachusetts General Hospital; Ironwood Pharmaceuticals employee Bernard “Joe” Lavins, 60, was hit by an 18-wheel truck at 8:08 a.m. Oct. 5 while bicycling on Massachusetts Avenue across from the shopping plaza and pronounced dead at the scene.

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Agnes Varda

7 Mar

A Pioneer Of The French New Wave, Filmmaker Agnès Varda’s Career Spans The Playful And Pointed

February 23, 2018
Tom Meek
Filmmaker Agnès Varda with street artist JR. (Courtesy Cohen Media Group)closemore

Filmmaker Agnès Varda has seen and done much in her life — from witnessing the German invasion of France during World War II, to becoming the female face of the French New Wave, to hanging out with enigmatic Doors’ frontman Jim Morrison and, now, being recognized with a Charles Eliot Norton professorship at Harvard.

Varda, who was born in Brussels and spent most of World War II on a boat off the French port of Sète (where her mother was born), stumbled into film. Bestowed with the birth name of Arlette Varda, she changed it at the age of 18 — something that other famed French filmmakers of the time like Jean-Pierre Melville and Chris Marker did as well. A photographer by trade, Varda returned to Sète to shoot pictures for a friend who was physically unable to make the journey to the Mediterranean fishing port.

That photographic mission inspired Varda to make a cinematic postcard of the area with Philippe Noiret (“Cinema Paradiso”) cast as a man trying to reconcile a rocky marriage. The result was the 1955 film “La Pointe Courte” — the title referring to a small, water surrounded quarter of Sète. Shot using natural locations on an incredibly modest budget — and reluctantly edited by fellow filmmaker Alain Resnais who was working on a similar effort at the time — the film is widely considered the forerunner of the French New Wave. Continue reading →

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Porter Square Alterations

3 Feb

Changes to Porter Square traffic flow include eliminating island, mall exit

 

By Tom Meek 
Sunday, January 21, 2018
Last revised on: Monday, January 22, 2018.
Planned changes in Porter Square allow left turns from White Street and close one shopping plaza exit. (Image: City of Cambridge Traffic, Parking & Transportation Department)

Traffic safety improvements in Porter Square would remove the pedestrian island where Somerville Avenue feeds into Massachusetts Avenue; close an exit from the mall allowing for a left-hand turn onto Massachusetts Avenue; and make the left turn from Massachusetts Avenue onto Somerville Avenue a single, dedicated left lane, replacing a center southbound lane that can be either left or straight.

The goal is to simplify the nest of intersections surrounding the mall and T stop and make it safer for all – drivers, pedestrians and cyclists, Traffic, Parking & Transportation Department representatives said. The current five-phase traffic signal cycle (including one for pedestrians only and another to leave the mall parking lot) would be replaced by a simpler three-phase cycle.

The changes, intended to be low-cost and and come as soon as spring or summer, were shared Thursday with around 100 people gathered in University Hall at Lesley University, presented by Phil Goff of Alta Planning and city engineer Patrick Baxter. Continue reading →

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Neon Blaze

12 Jan

Company blazes name over Brattle Street; councilor sees signal to reassess the rules

 

By Tom Meek 
Wednesday, January 10, 2018
Kensho Technology’s sign over 44 Brattle St., Harvard Square. (Photo: Tom Meek)

The bidirectional bike lane on Brattle Street has company in controversy since Kensho Technologies, a growing player in the machine learning and analytics market targeting the finance, health care and national security sectors, has alerted residents and visitors to its new digs at 44 Brattle St. by erected a giant, electric blue neon sign – an intensely bright beacon that one passer-by described as an “optical oddity.”

Nowhere else in the historically zoned Harvard Square are there any such stark illuminations. The Kensho moniker stands out even more against the sheer spareness of the glass-encased building it occupies and the wintertime darkness that consumes Brattle Street at night.

The sign went up just over a week ago.

According to Charles Sullivan, executive director of the Cambridge Historical Commission, it is not in violation of any code or ordinance. “The Kensho sign was reviewed by [Community Development and Inspectional Services] and found to conform with the provisions of the sign code. The City Sports signs on the exterior of the building will be replaced with Kensho signs also,” Sullivan said, referring to the remains of the sporting goods store that closed all of its 26 stores in 2015.

“The other issue,” he pointed out, “is the commission’s lack of jurisdiction over interior features generally.”

The city has lagged in writing and adopting coherent outdoor-lighting laws since invasive light complaints came before the City Council and city planners at least a decade ago; the lack of ability to limit illumination leaking from building interiors has been cited by many as a weakness of the most recent efforts. In September, a despairing councillor said the city would be better off adopting a resident-written law from 2013.

Some are concerned about the precedent set by the tech company’s branding. “Kensho’s new neon window sign points to the need to reconsider standards for both exterior and interior signage in the Harvard Square Conservation District,” said vice mayor Jan Devereux, who believed a study group was in process to review the conservation district’s guidelines.

The lights can be dimmed, Kensho said. But inside its offices, workers seemed literally above any complaints.

“We hadn’t had any such feedback as of yet,” said Bhavesh Dayalji, head of client operations for the company. “We’re happy to be part of revitalizing Harvard Square, as more and more retail spaces are left empty. We’re also one of the largest employers of engineers in the Cambridge community and excited about some of the plans we have for the future that will benefit the wider Cambridge community.”

Most innovation ventures in Cambridge settle in and around Kendall Square, and much of the office space that Kensho now occupies, as Dayalji points out, had been vacant for some time.

One observer in Harvard Square seemed to appreciate what Kensho had installed, calling it “a sign of the times. You’ve gotta keep up.”

 

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The films of Jean-Pierre Melville

3 Dec

6 Films To Celebrate French Noir Master Jean-Pierre Melville’s Centennial At The MFA

December 01, 2017
Tom Meek

Serge Reggiani in Jean-Pierre Melville's "Le Doulos," released in 1962. (Courtesy Rialto Pictures)closemore

If he were alive today, Jean-Pierre Melville, one of the great faces of French cinema, would be 100 years old. (He was born in 1917 and died of a heart attack in 1973). To commemorate the filmmaker’s 100th birthday, the Museum of Fine Arts is running a retrospective of the auteur’s work.

If you’re unfamiliar with the name (and too many Americans are), Melville minted chic, noir-ish gangster flicks that have been widely cited for their influence and echoed in the hip, popular works of Quentin Tarantino, Michael Mann and John Woo. Melville also was a contemporary of, and collaborator with, many of the iconic directors of the French New Wave in the ’50s and ’60s — namely Jean-Luc Godard — and employed many of the great French actors of the time, most notably Alain Delon, Jean-Paul Belmondo and Catherine Deneuve.

Now revered for his unique style and approach (he made the fedora and the trench coat as synonymous with the French gangster genre as dusters and 10-gallon hats are to the American Western) Melville almost didn’t become a filmmaker. Born an Alsatian Jew by the surname Grumbach, he fled to England after the 1940 German invasion of France. Later, he returned as a member of the French Resistance. His nom de guerre was indeed copped from the “Moby Dick” author, who the young freedom fighter held in high regard. After the war, Melville applied to become an assistant director, but his license application was denied so he launched his own production company. The rest, so to say, is cinematic history. Melville produced a spartan 14 films — nearly all fine cut gems. Continue reading →

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Update on Evergood Market

3 Dec

Evergood Market space remains empty after 16 months, for replacement grocer

 

By Tom Meek 
Wednesday, November 29, 2017
Last revised on: Thursday, November 30, 2017.
The storefront and fixtures at Evergood Market remain intact at 1676 Massachusetts Ave. nearly a year and a half after the store closed. (Photo: Tom Meek)

The Evergood Market space, empty for almost a year and a half on Massachusetts Avenue between Harvard and Porter squares, is being held so it can become another neighborhood grocery store, an owner said.

The 1676 Massachusetts Ave. property was not being actively marketed because Stone Investment Holdings is in negotiations with a butcher and grocer to occupy the space, but specifics couldn’t be given because terms and bank loans were all in flux, said Nancy Stone, one of the principals of Stone Holdings.

When asked about the fate of the property if the deal feel through, Stone said she was committed to bringing a similar business to the space – around 8,600 square feet between the ground floor and a basement.

Evergood shuttered in July 2016 after 67 years of operation, and residents of the Agassiz, North Commons, Radcliffe and Avon Hill neighborhoods have been wondering what will become of the space.

Residents have been frustrated by months of non-responses from the property owners and managers. Some who knew grocers interested in the space shortly after the store closed told identical stories of being stymied when attempting to make contact.

“The whole thing is indeed a mystery,” said Pattie Heyman, a Neighborhood 9 resident. “Why this store would be left almost a year and a half in the same condition with no cleaning up and a total eyesore is beyond my comprehension.”

Stone Holdings also owns nearby properties housing a Starbucks and the swank eatery Shepard. Marc Levin, part of the management team at Chestnut Hill Realty, acts as the leasing agent, but repeated inquiries as to the status of the property and its availability were ignored by Levin. His assistant said the property was not Chestnut Hill business and that Levin would need to respond to the query directly. (Initially the property’s availability was advertised in the window listed by UBA Realty, but eventually it came down. A call to UBA pointed Cambridge Day to Levin.)

The store’s founding family, the Scholnicks, sold the store 16 years ago to manager William R. Carr. Two years later, Carr died. His wife, Diana Carr, took over the store and its financial challenges, but aging equipment and deepening financial pressures took their toll, leading her to close the store.

The unchanged storefront and lingering fixtures inside serve as a reminder of the loss to the community. “As a regular customer I miss a grocery where I can pick up food to make dinner,” resident Sarah Block said.

The nearest grocery stores are Star Markets on Beacon Street in Somerville and in Porter Square.

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Battle Over Bike Lanes in Cambridge

3 Dec

Outrage over protected bike lanes is clear; second citizens committee forming, less so

 

By Tom Meek 
Saturday, November 18, 2017
Last revised on: Sunday, November 19, 2017.
Fritz Donovan, presiding officer of the Mid-Cambridge Neighborhood Association, speaks at a Wednesday group meeting on bicycle concerns. (Photos: Tom Meek)

A neighborhood group gathered and voted Wednesday seemingly to form a committee urging city officials to reevaluate and fix recently installed bike lanes it felt weren’t addressing traffic-safety goals. It was similar to the conclusion of a Monday meeting held by a different group.

There was overlap in attendance between the Monday “Safe Streets for All” meeting in East Cambridge and the Mid-Cambridge Neighborhood Association meeting held Wednesday, but Fritz Donovan, the neighborhood group’s presiding officer, said this was “a neighborhood initiative that had been set up before.” More than 60 people attended the earlier meeting; nearly 100 gathered Wednesday at a Spaulding Hospital meeting room, including association members, bicyclists and other concerned citizens.

After many speakers and a near-unanimous association vote to set up a committee, there was little time to discuss how the two groups might collaborate or cooperate in getting more bicyclist traffic enforcement, “revisiting” the installed bike lanes on Brattle and Cambridge streets and playing a bigger role in future installations. Continue reading →

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Appreciation

13 Nov

Remembering David Pendleton, film lover whose passion, generosity enlivened HFA

 

By Tom Meek 
Friday, November 10, 2017
David Pendleton

The film community in Cambridge and Boston dimmed Monday when Harvard Film Archive programmer David Pendleton passed away after a long battle with cancer. Pendleton, 52, was a highly respect ambassador of film and its preservation, and a fixture in Harvard and Porter squares.

If there was one aspect about Pendleton – beyond his inexhaustible passion for film – cited universally by those who knew him, it was a kind and easy manner that allowed him to interact with filmmakers and the public seamlessly. “He was a generous collaborator,” said Haden Guest, director of the Harvard Film Archive. Pendleton spent 10 years as the HFA’s programmer, following Guest east from the Film & Television Archive at the University of California at Los Angeles. (Pendleton, who was born in Dallas, earned a doctorate in critical studies from UCLA.)

Pendleton especially loved French cinema and classical Hollywood, Guest said, but had an interest in world cinema that included building strong programing slates focused on Korean, African and African-American filmmakers. Pendleton was “very inclusive and had a soft sport for marginalized people, and wanted to give them a voice,” HFA publicist Brittany Gravely said.

One of the ongoing programs Gravely cites as part of Pendleton’s imprint on the HFA and its community is the monthly film/discussion forum “Cinema of Resistance,” designed to orchestrate a conversation about salient social topics through film. During his tenure Pendleton also complied “complete” retrospectives of some of his favorite filmmakers, including Robert Altman, Pasolini and Jean Renoir, and helped assemble “A Burt Lancaster Centennial Tribute” in honor of one of his favorite actors.

Special guests Pendleton was instrumental in bringing to the HFA, and whose works he helped curate, included Kathryn Bigelow (“The Hurt Locker”), Harmony Korine (“Spring Breakers”) and Leos Carax (“Holy Motors”). “David’s legacy,” Guest said, “was his ability to spark conversations between filmmakers and the public. He hosted many great evenings full of energy.”

“If there was one thing about David,” Gravely said, “he was thoughtful and unflappable, and always willing to reconsider things.”

Pendleton’s programs were cited regularly by the Boston Society of Film Critics (I am a member) in its year-end Film Series selections. “David’s programing was diverse, discriminating and eclectic,” Guest said, “and that made it exciting.”

Despite his advanced degrees and revered station in film preservation, Pendleton had a reputation for being accessible and open. “He was very nice and approachable man. I could always commiserate with him about the problems of running a repertory film program,” said John Galligan, curator of the Channel Zero repertory film series. “He was no snob.”

Pendleton is survived by his parents, his brother and two nieces. To honor his legacy, his family has urged donations to the American Civil Liberties Union, human rights organizations or LGBT groups.

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Critical Ban

9 Nov

Boston Film Critic Head Explains Solidarity With LA Peers After Disney’s Strike Against Press

November 07, 2017 Updated November 07, 2017 3:55 PM
Tom Meek
Visitors walk through Disneyland in Anaheim, California, in January 2015. (Jae C. Hong/AP)closemore

Tom Meek, a film critic for The ARTery, is the president of the Boston Society of Film Critics.

Update:

On Tuesday afternoon, Disney told the New York Timesthat the company “agreed to restore access to advance screenings” for Los Angeles Times critics.

Our original post: 

A recent retaliatory measure enacted by the Walt Disney Company triggered a rapid solidarity response by film critics groups, including ours in Boston, over the weekend.

On Tuesday morning, four critics groups announced they would drop Disney-produced films from award consideration until the company rescinds its blackout of the Los Angeles Times.

The Boston Society of Film Critics joined the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Society of Film Critics in speaking out against Disney’s systematic blackballing of the Times from its press screenings, interview opportunities and other media access.

The situation erupted last week when the LA Times film critics were barred from attending the press screening of the Disney-produced Marvel adventure “Thor: Ragnarok.” The studio was upset by the paper’s Sept. 24 report about the company and its financial arrangements with — and political influence in — the city of Anaheim (where Disneyland is nestled). Disney cited the paper’s “disregard for basic journalistic standards” as the basis for the move. (The company did not respond to my requests for information.)

Given the course of events, there’s a grave irony that arises in that a company, so effusive in its pursuit to maintain a wholesome, “family-friendly” image, is the hand behind such Machiavellian manipulation tactics. Continue reading →

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Staying local to protest the Free Speech rally

22 Aug

With violence at Boston rally all too likely, kids ran a lemonade fundraiser for peace

By Tom Meek 
Monday, August 21, 2017
James Selvitella and Declan Haley run a peace-themed lemonade stand Saturday in front of the Cambridge Main Library. (Photos: Haley family)

As up to 40,000 Bay Staters made ready to descend Saturday on the Boston Common to protest a “Free Speech Rally” linked to white supremacists, many parents – fearful of the same type of fatal violence that broke out at a Charlottesville, Va., white supremacy march the previous weekend – struggled with whether to bring their children. Even though the organizers of the rally insisted they were not affiliated with Charlottesville rally organizers, the slate boasted some of the same speakers with ties to hate groups, and the City of Boston and Boston Police Department were on high alert.

Children make art at the lemonade stand Saturday – an alternative to marching in potential danger in Boston.

For one Cambridge family that wanted to spread the word of peace and inclusion – and be part of the movement without risking getting caught in the fray – the reasonable option took the form of a lemonade stand outside the Cambridge Main Library, with the proceeds going to Black Lives Matter Cambridge and the recently vandalized New England Holocaust Memorial.

Elizabeth Haley, a resident of Inman Square, didn’t feel comfortable taking her 8-year-old son to the rally, and sought other ways to engage the community and support the movement. “It was my son, Declan, who came up with the idea,” Haley said. The stand, prominent on Broadway with the banner “Lemonade for Peace,” wasn’t your typical impromptu corner stand; the Haleys had come wth a large folding table, colorful signs and art supplies to engage thirsty passers-by.

The art angle was the brainchild of Haley’s friend, Julie Selvitella, a Cambridge resident who teaches art in Andover, and her son James, who felt a communal art project would enrich the effort and bring unity. People getting drinks or just stopping by could write a message of acceptance and hope on a heart, with those hearts then hung on pinwheel structures hanging from the great willow tree sheltering the stand.

Hearts with messages left by lemonade buyers became decorations for the kids’ stand.

“The day worked out so well because it was so last-minute and we didn’t complicate things by overthinking it,” Haley said. “We met a lot of people who were on their way to the rally. Also,. there were many families with small children who felt the same way we did, so they were happy to make a donation and work on the art installation.”

The stand raised a few hundred dollars in just three hours, Haley said.

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