Gone are the days when Garden Club of the Back Bay members ventured out to clean up the neighbors’ front yards. In April of 1972, the following notice was sent the members:
“On Saturday, May 6th, the joined forces of our small group should be able to make a large impression on our neighborhood by a front yard clean up. Hopefully in one fell swoop we will be able to … improve the front yards of our Back Bay. We are looking for a member or volunteer to do one half of each block.”
Beige polyethylene garbage bags were put in the front hall of each Back Bay building. On the front of the bag was a self sticking Garden Club of the Back Bay label. An attached flyer stated that yard waste was to be put in the bag for pick up by a Garden Club volunteer three days later. The bags then went into the alleys for pickup by the City.
Assuredly some bags were ignored by residents, but GCBB members actively worked to make the area neat and attractive, and the project was a forerunner of today’s Alley Rally spring clean-up day. Although we have no image of those beige bags, the picture below from www.laweekly.com is a humorous representation of what they would not have looked like.
