Category — Newton Highlands

The Newton Highlands Beautification Committee seeks volunteers to help plant flowers in pots and planters that line the village center’s sidewalks.

If you can make it, join the group on Tuesday, May 31, from 9-11:30am for their annual planting day. Volunteers are asked to meet in front of Bread and Chocolate at 4 Hartford Street and to bring gardening gloves, trowels, neighbors, and friends. Children are welcome. No experience necessary.

Rain Date: Wednesday, June 1.  Questions and to RSVP: Janet Zerlin Fagan, 617-965-9617, jzfagan@aol.com.

A Greek-inspired cafe/bistro called Christina’s is coming to Newton Highlands, as one of our blog’s readers tells us. The owners are currently renovated the Walnut Street space vacated by Dunkin Donuts earlier this year.

Christina’s will serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner. When I spoke with the owner this morning, workers were painting the interior columns in the renovated space and finalizing the menu. The restaurant hopes to open up around Memorial Day.

Sadly, the consignment store next door has posted a “going out of business sign.”

Newtonville, as reported in the Newton Tab Blog, is losing both the American Cancer Society’s Discovery Shop, a thrift store on Walnut Street, and the Asian grocery across the street, Jin Mi Oriental Food Company.

In Newton Centre, Learning Express is getting a new neighbor, the fitness studio Pure Barre, the national company’s first Massachusetts franchise.

Want to voice your thoughts about the future of Needham Street? If so, then mark your calendar for a community meeting at 7pm on Thursday, April 14, in the War Memorial in City Hall.

The city’s Planning and Development Department is moving forward with its efforts to develop a “master plan” for the commercial corridor. These conversations will build on work done last fall by graduate urban planning students at MIT whose semester-long project envisioned some redevelopment options and recommended some implementation strategies to shaping future development along the commercial corridor.

The April 14 meeting, which is open to the public, will provide “a summary of the development ideas to date, and will invite participants to share their thoughts about what’s good and not so good about the existing conditions” on Needham Street. The planning department encourages property owners, business owners, and all interested Newton residents to attend this and subsequent meetings.

For more information, please contact Candace Havens, 617-796-1137, chavens@newtonma.gov.

Earlier posts on this topic:

• Needham Street 2.0
• Envisioning Needham Street

The John M. Barry Boys & Girls Club of Newton and more than a dozen village businesses are working together this week to raise money for the youth center.

The club provides after-school programs, school vacation camp, summer camp, and many other services for children ages 6 to 18.

The hundreds of children attending the Boys & Girls club come from 15 Newton elementary schools and other area schools. To defray tuition costs, the club is able to offer full or partial scholarships to more than 200 children.

Merchants participating include:

[Read more →]

Volunteers forming the Newton Upper Falls Area Council (Facebook page and NewtonPatch story) are invited interested residents to attend tonight’s meeting of the city’s only existing area council to learn more about the organization and how it can benefit their village.

The Newton Highlands Area Council meets tonight at 8pm in City Hall Room 222. Some Upper Falls residents will be there to confirm the planned boundaries of the Upper Falls Area Council. Those interested in running for the Upper Falls Area Council can also see how an Area Council operates.

To learn more, please contact Anil Adyanthaya at adyanthaya@aol.com. Also, see earlier posts about Newton’s neighborhood area councils.

As reported in the Boston Globe earlier this week, Eunice Feller of Bread & Chocolate will appear in an upcoming episode of the Food Network show “Throwdown! With Bobby Flay.’’

Mark your calendar (and set your TiVo) for 8:30pm on Wednesday, March 9, when Feller takes on celebrity chef Bobby Flay in a Boston cream pie battle. Of course, we’re rooting for the home team.

Feller and her husband Steve reside in Newtonville and run the bakery and cafes in Newtonville and Newton Highlands. Not to get sentimental, but the Newtonville cafe was the first village business profile posted on our Newton Villages website last year.