The Boston Public Library will host a series of roundtable conversations to update Boston Public Library users and interested residents on the Johnson Building Improvement Project. An overview of the master planning process will take place on Thursday, August 15 at 6 pm in the Boston Room at the Central Library in Copley Square. Find updates on the Johnson Building and other major projects taking place across the library system on www.bpl.org/compass.
Author Alexandra Marshall and The Beacon Hill Garden Club present an author talk on Tuesday, May 7, beginning at 6 pm, entitled Hidden Gardens of Beacon Hill: Creating Green Spaces in Urban Places. The event will take place at the Boston Public Library, Copley Branch, 700 Boylston Street, in the Commonwealth Salon. Alexandra Marshall, novelist and member of the Beacon Hill Garden Club, will discuss the history of how our utilitarian backyards evolved into beautiful and charming hidden gardens. She will unlock the secrets to creating green spaces in any urban setting by discussing character, walls, paving, levels, gates and doors, ornaments, furniture, light, color and plants. The accompanying slideshow will feature photographs from the book and beyond which invite you into Beacon Hill’s hidden gardens.
The Beacon Hill Garden Club’s new book, Hidden Gardens of Beacon Hill: Creating Green Spaces in Urban Places describes how Beacon Hill’s gardeners cope with the conditions that are typical in the city and illustrates with more than 100 photographs of members’ gardens the successful techniques and solutions they employ. This is the fifth book published by this nonprofit organization and all proceeds go to local and national environmental, horticultural, and civic organizations. There will be refreshments after the lecture with an opportunity to buy the book and tickets for Annual Hidden Gardens Tour and President’s Luncheon at the Hampshire House on Thursday May 16th.
From the revolutionary camaraderie of the Colonial taverns to the saloons of the turn of the century; from Prohibition—a period rife with class politics, social reform, and opportunism—to a trail of nightclub neon so bright, it was called the “Conga Belt,†Drinking Boston pays tribute to the fascinating role alcohol has played throughout the city’s history. Includes book sale at the event, which will take place Thursday, March 14 beginning at 6 pm in the Rabb Lecture Hall of the Main Branch of the Boston Public Library, 700 Boylston Street in Boston.
Stephanie Schorow serves up a remarkable cocktail representative of Boston’s intoxicating story: its spirit of invention, its hardscrabble politics, its mythology, and the city’s never-ending battle between personal freedom and civic reform—all told through the lens of the bottom of a cocktail glass.
Stephanie Schorow wasn’t born in Boston, but the day she moved here in 1989, she knew she had come home. Ms. Schorow is the author of six books on Boston, including, with co-author Beverly Ford, The Boston Mob Guide: Hit Men, Hoodlums & Hideouts, published in December 2011, by the History Press and Drinking Boston: A History of the City and Its Spirits, published by Union Park Press on November 1, 2012.
The Garden Club of the Back Bay held its annual January Tea this year at The Catered Affair at The Boston Public Library, and we would like to thank Holly Safford, the magnificently talented owner of The Catered Affair, and most especially Food and Beverage Manager Markos Doyle, for the delicious and elegant tea. Pictures of members enjoying themselves can be found on our Facebook Page, but below are a couple of photos to tempt you – tea is served Wednesday through Friday, 2 – 4.
Each January we thank our members for their support with a Winter Tea, this year to be held Tuesday, January 15 beginning at 3 pm at The Courtyard Restaurant at The Boston Public Library. Overlooking the beautiful Italianate courtyard in the BPL’s historic McKim building, the Courtyard Restaurant is steeped in history and loaded with delightful tea selections. Holly Safford of The Catered Affair will see to our every need. We will enjoy a selection of tea sandwiches which may include (subject to the whims of the market) cucumber with herb cream cheese, smoked salmon butter canapes, apricot chicken salad, turkey & Earl Grey butter on marble rye, lobster with chive cream cheese on mini lemon butter crust buns, tomato with crumbled bacon, date nut bread with honey cream cheese, currant scones, four fruit marmalade, Devonshire double cream, plus fresh fruit tartlets, assorted French macaroons, Irish coffee bars, raspberry thumbprints, chocolate sinclairs, and your choice of premium loose leaf teas. Members are invited to ask friends to join them, although we must charge a separate increased fee for guests. The Club underwrites a substantial portion of the expense of this meeting on behalf of our valued volunteers. $35 for Garden Club members, $45 for guests. Members will receive a written invitation after the first of the year. If you are not a member but would like to attend, please email info@bostonflora.com to put your name on the invitation list.
Owners of older homes love the fact that they can live in living, vibrant, often historic, reminders of the past. They may not know that, with a little effort, they can bring those homes into the “green†present. Now, there is good news for those owners: The Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay (NABB) is sponsoring a special forum, offering tips and answering questions about how older homes can make the transformation to green energy conservation. The event will take place November 8, 2012 from 5 to 8 PM in the Orientation Room of the Boston Public Library’s main branch on Boylston Street in the Back Bay. Chris Skelly, director of local government programs for the Massachusetts Historical Commission, Rebecca Harris, field officer of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and Sally Zimmerman, manager of historic preservation services for Historic New England, will provide guidelines and information about how older or historic houses can be turned green without losing their historic character. Some areas that will be covered are: how to add alternative energy systems, the value of retaining and upgrading wood windows, and ways to properly insulate an historic house. The event is free and open to the public. To reserve a place for “Greening the Older Home,†contact the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay at 617-247-3961 or info@nabbonline.com.
The Boston Parks and Recreation Department and The Friends of Copley Square will co-host a public information meeting from 6 – 8 on Wednesday, May 9 in the Rabb Lecture Hall in the Boston Public Library, Central Branch, in Copley Square, to discuss the scheduled removal of 20 diseased London plane trees in Copley Square. The trees have canker stain fungal infection. The Parks Department staff will be on hand to present details about the tree removal and the remedies planned for the site, including planting of replacement trees and enhanced tree care needed for the park’s remaining trees. All are invited to attend. For additional questions or information, visit www.friendsofcopleysquare.org. Picture from www.universalhub.com.
Anthony Sammarco, noted author of more than sixty books on Boston and surrounding cities and towns, will outline in an illustrated slide lecture the history of this dynamic and ever evolving neighborhood of Boston. The presentation will take place at the Brighton Branch of the Boston Public Library, 40 Academy Hill Road in Brighton. Free admission.
Originally known as Little Cambridge, Allston-Brighton remained largely a rural farming area for almost two centuries after the Massachusetts Bay Colony was settled in 1630 by the Puritans. Agitation in the early nineteenth century led to the creation of the Town of Brighton. Throughout the 19th century, Brighton thrived with not only the stock yards where cattle was king, but also numerous nurseries, among them that of Joseph Breck, founder of the Breck Seed Company. That evening, Amy Ryan, president of the Boston Public Library, will announce the Bonifazio and Angela Cocuzzo Cedrone Fund, which Mr. Sammarco created to honor longtime Brighton residents and the late parents of his partner Joe Cedrone. The Cedrone Fund will benefit the Brighton Branch, Boston Public Library.
Join historian Robert E. Guarino on a nostalgic journey down a highway of history when he discusses his new book Beacon Street: Its Buildings & Residents, at the Boston Public Library’s Rabb Lecture Hall, 700 Boylston Street, on Thursday, January 26 at 2 pm. The grand mansions and the elegant attached row houses of Beacon Street are the homes of Boston’s elite and a backdrop for the city’s long history. The iconic street is crowned with Charles Bulfinch’s magnificent 1798 Massachusetts Statehouse overlooking the legendary Boston Common, where the British occupiers trained and cows once roamed freely. Historian Robert E. Guarino deftly narrates the development of the street, from its expansion as land from the top of Mount Vernon extended its length to Horace Gray’s efforts in 1837 to found the Public Garden. Join Guarino as he takes a fascinating and nostalgic journey down the historic and storied highway of Beacon Street. Mr. Guarino, currently a resident of Vermont, is a trustee of the Vermont Historical Society.
Patsy Boyce, former President of The Garden Club of the Back Bay, age 77, passed away in August in Sun City West, Arizona. She is survived by her husband Joseph Sidlovsky and her son James Boyce. Among her many neighborhood accomplishments, Patsy designed the courtyard of The Boston Public Library prior to its latest incarnation, and the four magnificent Japanese maple trees she acquired were removed and replanted at Mt. Auburn Cemetery. She was also a flight attendant, and secretary to President Lyndon B. Johnson. There will be a memorial service for Patsy at Trinity Church at Copley Square on Saturday, October 1 beginning at 10 am.  We anticipate that many Garden Club members will wish to attend and pay their last respects to one of our most cherished members. James Boyce plans to establish a fund with The Garden Club of the Back Bay in his mother’s memory, providing horticultural assistance to Boston neighborhoods with fewer resources than ours, details of which will be announced soon. Contributions in lieu of flowers may be sent to The Garden Club of the Back Bay, c/o Elisabeth Lay, 239 Marlborough Street, Boston, MA 02116.
