The Friends of the Mary Ellen Welch Greenway invite you to learn how East Boston’s abandoned rail corridor became the beautiful Greenway it is today, on Thursday, May 21 from 6:30 – 7:30 pm at the East Boston Branch Library of the Boston Public Library, 365 Bremen Street in East Boston. Special guest speaker Valerie Burns will speak. Valerie served as the president of Boston Natural Areas Network for the last quarter-century.
The Earth Day 2026 Forum will be hosted by the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay on Wednesday, April 22 from 5 pm – 7:30 pm in Rabb Hall at the Boston Public Library’s main branch in Copley Square. There will be demonstrations, forum speakers, and question and answer sessions. This is a free event open to the public. For details, visit https://nabbonline.org/
Environmental justice warrior, Rhodes Scholar, and founder of Black Girl Environmentalist Wanjiku “Wawa” Gatheru will converse with Boston Public Library President David Leonard as part of the 2023 Lowell Lecture Series You are Here: Climate Change and What’s Next. Their 60-75 minute conversation will followed by an audience Q&A from both the in-person and virtual audiences. The live event takes place at the Lowell Lecture Hall, 15 Kirkland Street in Cambridge.
For Wanjiku “Wawa” Gatheru, caring about the environment started early. While farming with her mom and grandmother as a child, the conversations would often turn to saving the earth. The first-generation American of Kenyan descent became even more invested when taking an environmental science class in high school, when she learned that social justice and climate issues were deeply intertwined. Everything suddenly became personal. “It was in this call I learned that the environment had everything to do with me,” she says.
This lecture is part of the BPL Lowell Lecture Series “You Are Here” on Climate Change and what’s next and produced by GBH Forum Network. This event will begin at 6pm ET. Free. Get tickets and virtual link HERE.
Herbs are an easy way to add freshness, flavor, and health to your cooking, and are simple to grow indoors or out. Learn how you can grow and cook with basil, cilantro, parsley, oregano, rosemary, and more. On Saturday, June 11, beginning at 11 am, the Egleston Square Branch of the Boston Public Library, 2044 Columbus Avenue in Roxbury, will present a class on Growing Herbs at Home. Free. Please contact the Egleston Square Branch at 617.445.4340 for additional information. Space is limited. Image from www.rodalesorganiclife.com.
Please join the Boston Public Library for the 34th Annual Marjorie M. Gibbons Lecture on Monday, May 12, beginning at 6:30 pm, entitled South Boston: Streetcar Suburb? with speaker Patrick E. Francis. Mr. Francis will present an illustrated talk on the use of public transportation by South Bostonians from the days of the horse-drawn trolley to today’s hybrid bus. This free special event is open to all adults. Refreshments will accompany the program. The program will take place at the South Boston Branch of the BPL, 646 East Broadway.
Bill Brumback (New England Wild Flower Society) and Dr. Dennis Whigham (Smithsonian Institution) will present a lively talk on how a strong research and educational partnership between the Wild Flower Society and the Smithsonian Institution is spurring new research and contributing to the founding of the North American Orchid Conservation Center. The talk will also feature interesting information on the ecology and interactions of orchids in the wild, and show common and rare orchids of our region. The lecture will take place in the Orientation Room of the Central Library in Copley Square, 700 Boylston Street in Boston, on Thursday, December 5 at 7 pm.
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.
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.
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.
Only two days left to see the Flower Photographs of local photographer Terry Joyce at the South Boston Branch of the Boston Public Library, 646 East Broadway in South Boston. For hours of operation, log on to www.bpl.org.
