Enjoy delicious food, wine, and craft beers, bid on items in a silent auction, and support the biggest fundraiser of the year for The Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay. The party will be held on Thursday, November 9, from 6 – 9 at The Women’s Lunch Place, 67 Newbury Street. Click the link for more information and donation opportunities: https://womenslunchplace.org/nabb
The Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay Annual Meeting will take place Monday, September 18 at 7 pm at Fisher College. A reception will follow the business part of the meeting. For complete information visit https://nabbonline.org/
The Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay Special Events Committee invites you to a live evening on the Esplanade with the Boston Landmarks Orchestra on Wednesday Aug 2nd at 7:00 P.M. at the DCR Hatch Shell. If there was ever a reason to join NABB now, this is it.
The concert will feature George Gershwin’s An American in Paris and a Dvorak cello concerto. A special prelude concert with the Four Strings Academy will set the stage for the rest of the evening.
Please feel free to bring a picnic or snack for dining under the stars at the event. You are welcome to bring chairs, towels and blankets and even your dogs! No alcoholic beverages are allowed in the park. There is no charge for this event. However, chairs are available for rental that evening for $5 each. We will be gathering near the information booth. Look for the NABB sign.
Please RSVP to specialevents@nabbonline.org. if you are planning on attending the event. Payment for the chair will be at the event.
Please mark your calendars and plan to join your Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay neighbors at a special fundraiser party on November 17, 2022, 6pm to 9pm.
Once again, NABB is teaming with the Women’s Lunch Place (WLP), a women’s day shelter on Newbury Street, to produce their second Harvest Festival. In 2019 NABB and WLP held its first Harvest Festival, which garnered rave reviews from participants and the media and provided valuable support for NABB’s non-profit volunteer work and WLP’s shelter services. (Read the feature article on the event that appeared in The Boston Sun.)
This year’s joint benefit, which will feature music, a silent auction, cocktail reception and delicious dinner, will be held at the Women’s Lunch Place at 67 Newbury Street. The proceeds will support NABB’s civic work on homelessness, affordable housing, safety, and other civic issues, as well as WLP’s services for homeless and at-risk women. The Benefit Committee is planning a major publicity campaign to acknowledge sponsors and is now soliciting corporate and individual sponsorships. Individual tickets are $125 and sponsorships begin at $2,000. This is the only fundraiser of NABB since 2019. The Garden Club of the Back Bay is supporting the event with a donation of a holiday wreath certificate, so check it out!
Visit https://womenslunchplace.org/nabb) for more details, including sponsorships, suggested auction items to donate, and to purchase tickets.
Copley Square Park is slated for an extensive transformation in 2023. After more than a year of various meetings and community feedback regarding several design concepts, the Boston Parks and Recreation Department has agreed to repair and improve the existing fountain in Copley Square. This decision was made thanks to persistent feedback from the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay, Friends of Copley Square and other members of the public that the existing fountain should be preserved rather than replaced. The Parks and Recreation Department announced the release of the updated plan at https://www.boston.gov/departments/parks-and-recreation/improvements-copley-square-park The final park design is likely to be similar in layout to the previously proposed City Platform Plan, although it will retain the existing fountain. It will include a large lawn in front of Trinity Church, a hardscape plaza area for events and the Farmers Market, and a raised platform area to protect tree roots and provide space for additional lower plantings.
The Green Committee of The Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay presents a webinar on Tuesday, October 19 at 5 pm. Worried about climate change? Learn what you can do to help. The topic: Trees and Climate Change: Health, Equity, and Action. Speakers will be Professor Danielle Ignace, Department of forest and Conservation Services, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Nathan Phillips, Department of Earth and Environment, Boston University, and Lokita Jackson, Crane Ledge Woods Coalition and MassAudubon. Moderator is Michael McCord, Chair of NABB’s Green Committee. RSVP: With the link below to receive the Zoom link for the webinar: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0sf-qhrTopHt0QfhufGEvBApsBdxyDsOUs
What must a city actually DO to get to a Carbon Free Future? Come to the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay’s second Climate Action Webinar on August 3 at 4 pm to learn more about Boston’s Forward-Thinking Answer. Boston Emissions Reporting Disclosure Ordinance (BERDO) – is a transformative carbon reduction piece of legislation filed in City Council on June 16. The Council voted unanimously to approve taking the next step, which is to hold a public hearing.
Speakers will be Councilor Matt O’Malley, City Council President, author of the original BERDO in 2013, and Chief Sponsor of the New Version, and Alison Brezius, Director of Climate and Environmental Planning for the City of Boston, Loie Hayes, representing Green Energy Consumers, BCAN (Boston Climate Action Network), and BCEC (Boston Clean Energy Coalition. The moderator is Michael McCord, Chair of the NABB Green Committee. RSVP by August 3 here to receive the Zoom link to the webinar.
Make a difference in your neighborhood, one alley at a time. The Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay’s City Services Committee organizes Alley Rally annually as a neighborhood cleanup in conjunction with Mayor Walsh’s “Love Your Block.” Join your neighbors in an effort to keep Back Bay beautiful by spending three hours sweeping up our alleys and side streets. All ages welcome and no rsvp necessary.
From 8:30 – 9 meet at the Clarendon Street Playground for coffee, juice and breakfast provided by local Back Bay sponsors. Then, at 9, divide into teams and head off to lean alleys and side streets. Gloves, trash bags, brooms, and other tools will be provided by the City of Boston’s Department of Public Works. Then, at noon, enjoy a free lunch and raffle for all volunteers back at the Clarendon Street Playground. For additional information contact Jason Post at jason.b.post@gmail.com.
Alley Rally has been sponsored by NABB since 1967. In the “old days” there was a lot more to do. The neighborhood was a mix of student buildings, rooming houses, and single family houses, with just a few newly created condominiums in existence. Property owners came out and worked, and in the evening NABB sponsored a dinner at a member’s home for the volunteers. As years passed, fewer residents began showing up, but our wonderful area fraternity brothers lent their muscle to some of the heavy lifting. It’s time to turn back the clock and see more owners out on the streets. The neighborhood is much cleaner than it was in the 1970’s and 1980’s, and volunteers will meet so many good people in this community effort. The more people you know, the safer the Back Bay will be. We urge you to consider participating. Thanks to sponsors Engle & Volkers, Star Market, and Quality Mart.
We kick off our 2018 Wreath of the Day feature with a very scary tale – our entire wreath project was endangered last week when winter storms blasted through Canada and the upper Midwest, leaving multiple feet of snow on the ground and blanketing the roads with ice and snow. In fact, snow in Canada began much earlier than usual, and by October, many tree farms were buried so deeply that workers could not access the trees to prune. The prunings are used to make the holiday wreaths we all enjoy. Even when wreaths were made, they still had to be transported to the lower 48, and trucking was stalled everywhere. Our masterful supplier, Pat Riccardi, had obtained a truckload of standard sized wreaths for us which he was keeping in a truck under lock and key to keep pilferers away, but larger sizes were basically unavailable. The phone calling began, and co-chair Margaret Pokorny ended up traveling to New Hampshire to “score” our 16″ large sized wreaths, which then had to be driven down to The First Lutheran Church. We are warning everyone to secure their wreaths tightly to doors, since wreath theft may be more of a problem this year. Wreath prices, and tree prices, are up by 30%, according to Chris Mitchell, who runs the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay tree sale, going on at the Clarendon Street Playground this weekend, December 8 and 9. To illustrate the snowy near-catastrophe, we feature a silver, black and white flocked wreath which has been hung indoors by the purchaser. Check out our Instagram page @gardenclubbackbay to see it in its new home.
Take a walking tour of the eastern blocks of the Back Bay on Tuesday, May 22, from 3 – 5 pm. The Back Bay is a miracle of preservation, one of the largest examples of Victorian and Edwardian residential architecture in the United States. This walking tour takes a look at some examples of wonderful architectural compositions. The event is presented by the Architecture Committee of the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay (NABB) and http://BackBayHouses.org, as part of the annual Preservation Month celebration.
This event is free and open to the public. To RSVP, please email architecture@nabbonline.com. The event is limited to 30 participants. Meeting place will be confirmed at time of reservation.
