Boston Flora

Tag: Boston Public Library

  • Wednesday, May 12, 6:00 pm – 8:30 pm – Frameworks for the Future: Activities, Circulation, Wayfinding and Landscape

    On May 12, 2010, you are invited to join The Esplanade Association and the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) to review and comment on proposed improvements to the Charles River Esplanade. These suggested changes, made by the Esplanade 2020 Project and conceptual in nature, are meant to both improve the visitor experience and raise the ecological and aesthetic standards of the riverfront park. Team leaders of the Esplanade 2020 Design Group will present, and there will be ample time for community feedback and questions.

    Frameworks for the Future: Activities, Circulation, Wayfinding, and Landscape
    An Esplanade 2020 Public Meeting
    Wednesday, May 12, 6-8:30pm
    Boston Public Library, McKim Lower Level Conference Room

    Presentations at the public meeting will include: Overview of the Esplanade 2020 Project (John Shields, AIA, President of SheildsDESIGN); Activities (John Stebbins, AIA, LEED AP, Principle Emeritus of Cambridge Seven Associates); Circulation (Anthony Pangaro, Principle of Millennium Partners – Boston, Architect, former Manager of Boston’s Southwest Corridor Project); Wayfinding (Mark Favermann, Architect, President of Favermann Design); and Landscape (Craig Halverson, FASLA, President of Halverson Design Partnership).

    The Esplanade 2020 Project is an initiative of The Esplanade Association, in collaboration with DCR, which is crafting a shared vision for the future of the Charles River Esplanade. In celebration of the park’s Centennial Anniversary, the Esplanade 2020 Project is suggesting visionary but realistic changes to the park that will elevate it to its intended status as a world class destination over the next ten years and beyond. Guided by community feedback collected at a series of public meetings, a core group of architectural, planning, and horticultural professionals is working to analyze current park conditions and make suggestions for substantial park improvements. Esplanade 2020 is an inclusive project, and broad community participation is encouraged.

    For more information about Esplanade 2020, or to RSVP, please visit www.esplanadeassociation.org or contact Chris Murton at 617.227.0365 or cmurton@esplanadeassociation.org.

  • Tuesday, April 27, 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm – “The Garden” Film Screening

    Whole Foods sponsors “Let’s Retake Our Plates” film series at the Boston Public Library, Tuesday, April 27, from 7 – 9 pm. When bulldozers threaten a 14 acre community garden in South Central Los Angeles, concerned citizens unite and fight for the country’s largest urban farm.  This 2008 film takes an unflinching look at the struggle between urban farmers and the city, and powerful developers.

    The Garden centers around a community’s struggle to hold onto a fourteen-acre garden in South Central Los Angeles. The community’s struggle received widespread attention in 2004-2006, when the farmers were fighting the city of Los Angeles and developer Ralph Horowitz to maintain control of the garden, ultimately working to raise funds to buy the land. The community garden was established on government property following the 1992 riots and was the largest of its kind in the U.S.

    The details of the story provide great footage: a wealthy developer engages in a shady real-estate deal with the city of Los Angeles to acquire the property, a city council member helps push through the secret deal, tensions between the Black and Latino communities complicate matters, while the impoverished Latino farmers at the heart of the story struggle not just for land but their livelihoods.

    The fourteen-acre garden was originally owned by developer Horowitz but the city acquired it under eminent domain, paying him $5 million. He sued the city unsuccessfully but ultimately struck a back-room deal to buy it back for $5 million, despite property values having skyrocketed in the intervening years. When the farmers are forced to consider buying the garden, Horowitz raises the price tag to $16.2 million.

    The film is moving and expertly captures the intricacies of the farmers’ struggle. Where another documentary filmmaker might have shied away from some of the nuance such as divisions between communities of color, filmmaker Scott Hamilton Kennedy delves into the tough subjects, highlighting complex racial and political dynamics. Free admission.

    http://www.racewire.org/archival_images/the-garden-large.gif

  • Wednesday, March 10, 6:00 – 8:00 pm – Findings and Directions: An Esplanade 2020 Community Input Session

    On March 10, 2010, The Esplanade Association and the MA Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) invite you join us at 6pm at the Boston Public Library, McKim Lower Level Conference Room B,  for Findings and Directions, the second of four Esplanade 2020 community meetings.

    The Charles River Esplanade is a park for people, and though it is loved by many, it has the potential to be much more. An initiative of The Esplanade Association, in collaboration with DCR, the Esplanade 2020 project is bringing together community members, public officials, and design professionals to craft a shared vision for the future of the Esplanade. The March 10 Findings and Directions meeting provides the public with an opportunity to review and assess a proposed, increasingly refined direction for Esplanade 2020. Since commencing the visioning project, and based on public comments made at the first community input session in January, the Esplanade 2020 Design Committee has created a framework of principles to guide our shared vision. Moreover, the Design Committee has begun to explore possible solutions to park issues and areas of concern voiced by community members. Findings and Directions will allow the public to evaluate these proposed guidelines and alternatives, and will help The Esplanade Association and DCR steer the vision of Esplanade 2020 in a direction embraced by the community.

    Findings and Directions will be moderated by The Esplanade Association, and will include substantial time for public input. A more detailed agenda will be distributed ahead of the meeting. The Esplanade 2020 project is gathering members of the community and asking them to dream big. Broad public participation in the project is invaluable as we work together to realize the full potential of the Charles River Esplanade, and we hope that you will join us. For more information about Esplanade 2020, or to RSVP, please visit www.esplanadeassociation.org or contact Chris Murton at 617.227.0365 or cmurton@esplanadeassociation.org.

    http://www.usgwarchives.org/ma/suffolk/postcards/esplan.jpg

  • Wednesday, December 16, 6:00 – 8:00 pm – Urban Sustainable Living Talk with Patti Moreno

    From the Boston Society of Architects Lecture Series: December 16, 6:00 pm at the Boston Public Library in Copley Square, Rabb Lecture Hall, hear Patti Moreno speak on Urban Sustainable Living.  Through websites, videos, workshops and unlimited energy, this Roxbury mother, businesswoman and self-proclaimed “Garden Girl” shares her passion for urban garden ing and her message of urban sustainable living. Patti has created a true urban farm in the middle of Roxbury with extensive gardens and several kinds of livestock. Her website, www.gardengirltv.com, has been recommended on this site previously.  Hear Patti in person – admission free.

    Patti's Blog

  • Tuesday, November 17, 6:30 pm – Reanimating Extinct Plants

    Science for the Public presents Dr. Jonathan P. Wilson, California Institute of Technology, Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, at the Boston Public Library on Boylston Street in a free lecture on Tuesday, November 17 beginning at 6:30 pm.

    A nature walk in New England 300 million years ago would have looked quite different from one near Boston today. Instead of forests composed of oaks, maples, and pines, the area would have been dominated by unusual extinct forms: mostly climbing ferns and seed plants under a canopy of trees that more closely resemble telephone poles than anything in a modern garden. How did these plants work?
    In this talk, he will explore how recent advances in plant physiology allow paleontologists to understand, in a quantitative fashion, how extinct plants functioned. Are there fundamental physiological differences between extinct plants and living ones? What can we learn about ancient environments and ecosystems from looking at fossil plants? For more information, log on to www.cityofboston.gov.

    http://www.plantcare.com/oldSite/httpdocs/images/MM/IMG0504090.jpg

  • Wednesday, October 28, 7:00 – 9:00 pm – Creating Sustainable Food Production

    Join EcoLogic at the Boston Public Library Mezzanine Conference Room, 700 Boylston Street, on Wednesday, October 28 beginning at 7 pm for a panel discussion to explore alternative agricultural methods such as organic and sustainable farming available to you here in the United States as well as to rural farmers in developing countries. Coffee will be served after the discussion. Panelists include: Jennifer Hashley, Director of the New Entry Sustainable Farming Project; Jason Bond, Executive Chef at Beacon Hill Hotel & Bistro; JJ Gonson, personal chef; and Shaun Paul, Executive Director of EcoLogic Development Fund. More information on panelists to come soon! Admission: $8 ($5 for full-time students with valid ID) Buy tickets at www.ecologic.org/grenag.

  • Tuesday, October 6, 6:00 pm – No Impact Men with Colin Beavan and David Owen

    Hear two authors speak at the Boston Public Library Abbey Room, 700 Boylston Street, on Tuesday, October 6, beginning at 6 pm.  Meet the two men who are concerned about the environment, and about leaving as little impact on the environment as possible.  No Impact Man (a book and a movie) is a deeply honest and riveting account of the year in which Colin Beavan and his wife attempted to do what most of us would consider impossible: buy nothing, waste nothing, and reduce their carbon footprint to zero – while living with a young child in a 9th floor Manhattan apartment. He’s known as the guy who went a year without toilet paper.

    In a persuasive and provocative challenge to established environmental thinking, David Owen’s Green Metropolis: Why Living Smaller, Living Closer, and Driving Less are the Keys to Sustainability challenges much of the conventional wisdom about being green and shows how the greenest place in the United States isn’t Portland, Oregon or Snowmass, Colorado, but New York, New York.  For more information, log on to www.bpl.org.

    "No Impact Man" by Colin Beavan Farrar, Straus and Giroux

  • Tuesday, September 15, 6:30 pm – Notes from the Wildlife Hot Zone

    In recent decades, a wave of enigmatic population crashes and extinctions has swept through frog species in the Americas, Australia and elsewhere. More than two decades of research strongly suggest that a recently introduced fungal disease was largely responsible for this biodiversity catastrophe. More recently and closer to home, bats have been dying in droves in the caves and mines of their eastern United States wintering sites. Again, the most likely suspect is a recently introduced fungal disease. Biologists were tragically slow to accept a disease as the principal cause of frog disappearances and even slower to act. Can bat biologists learn from these mistakes? Is it possible to intervene to help wildlife populations threatened by disease?
    Dr. Bryan Windmiller, Ecological Consultant and Founder of Hyla Ecological Services, Concord, Massachusetts will present this free lecture at the Boston Public Library, 700 Boylston Street, Conference Rooms 5 & 6, on Tuesday, September 15 beginning at 6:30 pm.  No advance registration required.

    http://imagecache5.art.com/p/LRG/7/790/GGCI000Z/bats.jpg

  • Monday, August 31, 6 pm – Boston Bikes Initiative Community Meeting

    The Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Services and Boston Bikes invite you to a

    COMMUNITY MEETING

    Monday, August 31, 2009
    6:00 PM
    Boston Public Library Central Branch
    Mezzanine Conference Room
    700 Boylston Street

    As part of Mayor Menino’s Boston Bikes Initiative, the City of Boston is creating bike lanes on major roadways to improve access and safety for all users.  The purpose of this meeting is to discuss the proposed installation of bike lanes on Commonwealth Avenue.

    For more information, please contact:
    Will Onuoha, Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Services
    (617) 635-3485
    Nicole Freedman, Boston Bikes
    (617) 918-4456

    Boston Bikes is part of Mayor Menino’s plan for a vibrant and healthy city that benefits all its citizens. It seeks to make Boston a world-class bicycling city by creating safe and inviting conditions for all residents and visitors.  The Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay supports a public process but has some reservations about the plan as proposed, and encourages us to attend this first public meeting.

  • Wednesday, May 27, 6 pm – Turning Back Bay Green

    Boston City Council President Mike Ross is bringing the war against climate change directly into our neighborhoods. He is working with a number of environmental and community organizers to sponsor a forum on May 27 at 6pm in the Boston Room of the Boston Public Library about ways neighbors can work together to save money and reduce consumption and waste.  This is a pilot program in the Back Bay that will focus efforts on the residences and businesses from Exeter St. to Dartmouth St. between Commonwealth Ave. and Boylston St.  All are welcome in this important conversation, and we urge you to learn more about how you can include your building, home or business in this effort. For more information, contact michael.ross@cityofboston.gov, or call 617-635-4225.