Category — Upper Falls

As you may know, MassDOT is working to widen I-95 to include four travel lanes from Route 24 to Route 9. The design work will likely be completed in fall 2012, with construction to begin in 2013 and completed in 2016. The proposed 127 million dollar project will widen 3.3 miles of I-95 including the three interchanges (Kendrick Street, Highland Street and Route 9).

The Public Safety & Transportation Committee of the Board of Aldermen will hear a report from the City’s Director of Transportation, Clint Schuckel, on Wednesday, February 8, in Room 202 of City Hall. The public is invited to ask questions about the project and its expected impacts.

The Clarks Companies Foundation hosts its annual yard sale on Saturday, Oct. 1, at 156 Oak Street in Newton Upper Falls

The sale includes from furniture, books, kitchenware, appliances, and a lot of discounted Clarks shoes. The company expects well over 3,000 new pairs of shoes to be for sale at the event.

The yard sale benefits a non-profit charity created to pay tribute to Bill Bianchini, former senior vice president of product development, who died at age 55. The Foundation uses the funds to support an annual college scholarship program aimed at young people in the
Great Boston community in need of financial assistance.

As reported this week by NECN, the U.S. Postal Service is considering closing four post offices in Newton’s villages, including:

• Newton Lower Falls,
• Newton Upper Falls,
• Nonantum, and
• West Newton.

These four post offices are among 43 Massachusetts ones being considered. As many as 124 post offices in New England are being evaluated.

“Our customer’s habits have made it clear they no longer require a physical post office to conduct most of their postal business,” says the USPS announcement. Instead, it envisions a new model:

Village Post Offices would be operated by local businesses, such as pharmacies, grocery stores and other appropriate retailers, and would offer popular postal products and services such as stamps and flat-rate packaging.

With the rise of so many forms of electronic communication which provide alternatives to paper, coupled with current economic situation in the U.S., the erosion of this public institution is perhaps inevitable.

Nonetheless, it is a sad thing to envision these villages losing four traditional meeting places. The urban sociologist Ray Oldenburg coined the term “third places” to describe these informal gathering places and their importance to community vitality – and even to local democracy.

Unlike home and work, places that Oldenburg called first and second in people’s lives, third places – coffee shops, sidewalk cafes, parks, retail stores, post offices, and pubs – provide a level playing field for community interaction.

Tony Moreira, who teaches technology courses at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, has posted an article about a series of items he’s hidden around Newton as part of a “geocaching” project, a scavenger hunt that require the use of GPS technology.

He’s hidden caches in 13 different village locations — even in Thompsonville. (Given today’s forecast, I’m hoping some are located near ice cream vendors.)

Moreira writes:

Childhood memories were the inspiration for the hides, and while looking for each cache, be sure to take in the local sights, shops, and check the cache’s listing at the geocaching.com website for interesting historic information about each location.

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 →]