Be a Crank on Georges Island

If you’re a baseball purist fed up with millionaire ballplayers, steroid investigations, and sky-high ticket prices, what could be better than taking a trip back in time to the ‘60s?

No, not the 1960s. I’m talking about the 1860s.

If you want to see some seriously old-school baseball, head to Georges Island this Saturday (August 28) where the Essex Base Ball Club will play a doubleheader, including a game against Boston Harbor Islands park rangers. The vintage ball games will take place on the parade ground of historic Fort Warren, which is best known for incarcerating Confederate prisoners of war during the Civil War. Much like the Union soldiers stationed at Fort Warren, the ballplayers this weekend will be playing a little hardball using the rules of the Civil War era.

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of checking out the Essex Base Ball Club for the first time, and it was a lot of fun to be among the cranks (the old-time term for “fans”) watching the action. Seeing the nattily attired players decked out in baggy flannels and pillbox caps definitely gives you a Field of Dreams moment (without the corn and the voices in your head).

What you won’t see the players wearing, however, are gloves. It’s cool seeing the different rules that were used back then. For instance, an out can be recorded if the ball is caught on the first bounce, not just on the fly.

It’s not in the same league as Fenway Park, but the Boston Harbor Islands actually have some hardball history associated with them. One year during the 1800s, the horse rendering factory on Spectacle Island used all the skins to make baseballs, and in the early 1900s Peddocks Island was home to an inn owned by John Irwin, a former professional baseball player in the 1880s and 1890s. Irwin helped organize “Ye Old-Timers’ Gambol,” an annual reunion of retired ballplayers from as far back as the 1860s that drew upwards of two thousand players and fans. The highlight of the day was a baseball game with the retired players in what was one of the earliest old-timers games in baseball history. (I’ve also read that the Boston Braves played games out on Peddocks, but I have never come across any records of those games in my research.)

Click here for more information about this weekend’s vintage baseball on Georges Island. While you’re there, check out the great new visitor center and Summer Shack restaurant.

UPP Boston Harbor Islands Twitter Contest

Ready for one last summer hurrah? Venture out to the Boston Harbor Islands, home of Boston Light, Fort Warren, centuries-old pirate shipwrecks, woodland campsites, fishing havens, and more. And better yet: ferry tickets and the ultimate harbor guide—Discovering the Boston Harbor Islands—are on us!

Enter to win:  Four Boston Harbor Islands Ferry tickets and a signed copy of Discovering the Boston Harbor Islands: A Guide to the City’s Hidden Shores by local author, Christopher Klein. Hailed by Dennis Lehane as “A wonderful companion piece to the hidden island treasures off Boston’s coast” this fabulous guide will bring the incredible history of Boston’s thirty-four islands to life.

Simply follow @unionparkpress on Twitter and Retweet the text below:

@UnionParkPress: RT and follow for a chance to WIN the book “Discovering the Boston Harbor Islands” & 4 Ferry Tix! http://ht.ly/2vaSk

The winners will be announced Thursday, September 2—just in time for the long holiday weekend!

Ahoy!

Parks, Sparks, and a Big Hammock on Greenway

First of all, the really big news: the Big Hammock on the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway opened at the Fort Point Channel park at Atlantic Avenue and Oliver Street on Friday, August 20… and was closed two days later due to rain. You might wonder how a hammock can close–I’d think it would roll up, really–but no matter; it is due to re-open again as soon as it’s dry. After all, it’s a hammock, not an umbrella.

The hammock is a 33-foot-long temporary art/furniture installation by Hansy Better Barraza, a Roslindale architect and professor at Rhode Island School of Design. Barraza’s hammock proposal got the first $1,000 grant ever made by the Awesome Foundation for, well, being awesome. Rumor has it that Barraza originally planned the hammock for the Boston Common, but I haven’t been able to confirm that. In the end, Barraza got 4,278 feet of polypropylene rope, four permits, a spot on the Greenway, and a story in the Boston Globe.

In the spirit of shared intergenerational lounging, the Hammock will host children’s story times August 26-29 at 3 pm; the readings on Thursday, August 26 and Friday, August 27 will be in Mandarin and Cantonese.

In other park news, I am delighted to report that the Park Spark project was due to open on Wednesday, August 25 at Pacific Street Park, Cambridge (Sidney St. between Pacific and Tudor). As was reported in this space in April, Park Spark is “a scientific-art intervention that transforms dog waste into energy,” as the City of Cambridge puts it. Throw your bagged dog poop into an on-site methane digester, and–surprise!–methane gas comes out. Why hasn’t someone designed a chocolate digester? On second thought, perhaps that’s not the wisest use of this material.

Right now, the gas is being burned in a street lamp– but I’m sure all of you have better ideas about what to do with a gas flame in a public park (apart from lighting all the, er, “cigarettes” at the Boston Common Freedom Rally). Bring your brilliant concepts to the first Park Spark design meeting Wednesday, September 1, at 7 pm at the Livable Streets Alliance, 100 Sidney Street, Cambridge. After all, Hansy Better Barraza doesn’t have *all* the awesome ideas around here.

Ethan Daniels on Sea Change Radio

Ethan Daniels, author/photographer of Under Cape Cod Waters is on this week’s Sea Change Radio episode, available through Podcast, iTunes, as well as over thirty affiliate stations, including Provincetown’s WOMR 92.1 FM.

Sea Change selected Ethan for its weekly segment, in which he shared his extensive knowledge on the role of social and environmental sustainability Cape waters. The audio for the segment is now available on the Sea Change Radio website (Ethan’s interview is 12mins into the segment).

Spread the word! Encourage locals and visitors alike to learn more about the preservation and well-being of our beloved peninsula, from this season to the next—and show them a copy of Under Cape Cod Waters while you’re at it!

For those in Provincetown and Chatham in the next two weeks, check out our August Promotion with the local independent bookstores in town! And for those interested in purchasing Ethan’s prints, take a look here and on his website. Read Local!

Indo-West Pacific & Cape Cod Waters: The Price we Pay

If you are a coral living in the Indo-West Pacific, the summer of 2010 has been a stressful time of the year. Over the past few months, water temperatures have been several degrees above average throughout much of the tropical western Pacific. The sea surface temperature rise is associated with El Nino conditions, which are strong right now and are expected to last into 2011. Though bleached reefs in the Indo-West Pacific may not seem that important to what is happening on the east coast of the U.S., the effects on important fisheries may be far reaching. Despite the fact that devastating coral bleaching events have occurred before, most recently in 1998, mother nature has been able to repair herself given time.

The same idea is applicable to what is happening on the Cape, as featured in a recent The New York Times article. With high nitrogen levels recorded in many bays and ponds due to human-induced input. Like it or not, the only answer for such an issue is to build state of the art waste-water systems throughout the Cape, paid for through taxes. It’s not a popular idea since no one wants to see higher taxes, but it is the price we pay for living in such a unique area so interconnected with the sea. Just because the effects of high nitrogen levels, which can dramatically change alter marine communities for the worse, may be out of sight underwater does not mean they should be out of mind. Enhanced sewage systems, time to let mother nature do her thing, and restriction of further coastal development are the answers to a better future for the Cape’s shallow water marine habitats.

Mayor Menino’s 2010 Garden Contest: Winning Gardens

The winners of Mayor Menino’s 2010 Garden Contest have been announced! Unsurprisingly, a Fenway Victory Gardens spot won top prize in the community gardens category, and Trinity Church was recognized as a superior “Storefront, Business, or Organization Garden.” But have you ever been to the third-place garden at “Presentation Nursing and Rehabilitation Home, 10 Bellamy Street, Brighton“? Or visited the Granada Park community garden hosted by the Chilcott-Granada Association, Jamaica Plain (third place, community garden)?

Seeking out these gardens–which must have involved hours or irrigation this droughty summer–is a way to acknowledge all the plant artists out there making Boston beautiful. Go take a look.

Neponset River Trail: The Biggest New Park You’ll Never Hear About

Thank goodness there are still some local newspapers in this hemisphere. Otherwise, how would you ever find out that the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) is planning to add 4.5 MILES to the 2.5-mile Neponset River Trail? Here’s what the Quincy’s Patriot Ledger newspaper had to say about it, and two walking tours of the side the DCR ran for residents in late July:

“The state Department of Conservation and Recreation is considering five options for linking the Neponset River Trail and the Neponset Esplanade. The existing 2.5-mile Neponset River Trail now runs between Pope John Paul II Park in Dorchester and Central Avenue in Milton. The planned extension to Blue Hill Avenue will open about 7 miles of trail along the Neponset River, connecting Pope John Paul II Park to the Neponset Valley Parkway in Hyde Park.”

Really, the DCR wouldn’t add 4.5 miles of new trail; it would just add in a one-mile link that would connect the trails–or “linear parks,” if you think about their function–making them one giant superpark. And there’s still plenty of debate about exactly where the connecting trail would go, according to the Dorchester Reporter, whether it would need to cross over live MBTA Mattapan-Ashmont trolley tracks, and whether it would run mostly in low-income Mattapan or middle-income Milton. Fans of geographical conundrums can download the DCR presentation with *five* different path options laid out. Decisions need to be made–but the DCR seems serious about helping the community decide and building the path.

The Boston Globe continues to print endless articles about the state of the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway while burying proposals for major park construction less than six miles from South Station in the “Milton” section. That’s one reason nobody knows about these places; that’s why I wrote my book.

Off-Limits Islands of Boston Harbor

In recent weeks, The Boston Globe has run a number of interesting stories about the Boston Harbor Islands national park area. Two articles, in particular, caught my attention: an editorial in Sunday’s paper on Gallops Island and a Brian McGrory column on Long Island that ran last week.

In addition to being neighbors out on the harbor, Gallops and Long Islands have much in common. They were both used to train Union soldiers during the Civil War; they both played vital roles in World War II; and they both abound with wonderful history and fascinating relics.

Unfortunately, they share something else in common: Gallops and Long Islands are both off-limits to the general public.

Gallops was once one of the primary destinations for visitors to the Harbor Islands. It was one of the few isles with public ferry transportation and visitor services. But since 2000, it has been closed to the public after asbestos was detected on the island. According to the Globe, it would cost $4 million to clean up the island. The money hasn’t come forth, and the island just sits there languishing.

Long Island is closed to the public for a different reason. The former city hospital complex on the island is home to more than a dozen social service programs, including a homeless shelter, a clinic for people with drug and alcohol addictions, and shelters for abused spouses and children. Due to the sensitive nature of these programs, the island is off-limits to the public.

That’s a shame since Long Island may have the most fascinating sights of any of the Boston Harbor Islands. There’s an abandoned Nike missile silo, a cemetery for Civil War veterans with an impressive monument, a quaint lighthouse, the ruins of Fort Strong, and some abandoned structures in the old hospital complex, such as a chapel and a theater that beg to be restored. (Check out the Dropkick Murphys’ video for The State of Massachusetts. It features the theater and a grotto on Long Island.)

It’s going to take some creativity and the involvement of the private sector to get Gallops and Long Islands open to the public. If we simply wait for the federal government to hand out some money, we might be waiting another 10 years to see Gallops open up again.

There’s one site on Long Island that might offer some hope for the fate of these off-limits islands: Camp Harbor View. This summer camp for Boston youth opened in 2007 and was built in just four months. In an area where it takes years just to install a simple shade shelter, that’s an incredible, breakneck pace. And it all happened because Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and retired advertising executive Jack Connors spearheaded the project, which was built with private funds. It serves as an example of how a civic project can happen if it receives community and governmental backing. We need more of these types of projects out on the islands.

By the way, here’s an insider tip if you’re interested in seeing a little piece of Gallops Island in an unexpected corner of Boston. Tucked away in the North End’s Langone Park is a gray stone pedestal topped by a sinking ship and a band of Morse code. The monument honors the graduates of the Gallops Island Radio Training Station, who gave their lives aboard merchant ships supplying American forces during World War II.

deCordova Family SculptureFest – Sept 19th

Union Park Press is proud to be a partner of the deCordova Sculpture Park & Museum’s first Family SculptureFest! On Sunday, September 19th, the beautiful museum and grounds–only 20mins from Boston–will be filled with an array of family-friendly activities in celebration of contemporary art.

The event–both indoors and out–includes Sculpture Park tours, scavenger hunts, art-making, art sale, performances, and community-related activities. Plus, Union Park Press will be there to represent our collection of local books; Meg Muckenhoupt will be there to sign Boston’s Gardens & Green Spaces, and Chris Klein will be there to sign Discovering the Boston Harbor Islands and The Die-Hard Sports Fan’s Guide to Boston; and all families that stop by our booth will be entered into our raffle for the day. What better place to support all things local, than on this special day-long event?!

More details from deCordova:

o Join professional sand sculptor Greg Grady in making your own sculptures
o Conduct interviews with WBUR’s arts and culture reporter Andrea Shea
o Make your own mini sculptures inspired by artwork in the Park
o Interact with Park artists
o Enjoy live musical and dance performances and puppet shows
o Collaborate with other visitors to create a community mural
o Shop the juried art sale, featuring work from 42 New England-based artists
o Tour the Park, Museum, and exhibitions

Admission:
o $15 for adults 18+
o $12 for youths (5-7), students, and seniors
o Free for Lincoln residents, Members, Corporate Members, and Active Military Duty Personnel
o Includes entry to the new fall exhibitions
o Advance tickets available

Parking: All parking is free at Reservoir Place, 1601 Trapelo Road, Waltham (Rte. 128 and Trapelo Road in Waltham – exit 28). Shuttle bus service will be provided to deCordova’s campus 9:30am-5:30pm.

For ticketing and more information please visit: www.decordova.org/fest

Hope to see you there!

Boston’s Sapphire Necklace

Oy, it’s dry out there, the August 5 temporary tempest notwithstanding. It’s a good time of year to head for the ocean. While the Ipswich River may run dry from suburban lawn-watering, we have yet to find a way to deplete the Boston Harbor. Harborwalk, Boston’s Sapphire Necklace of parks, walkways, historical markers and observation points, has plenty of water views and occasional child-moistening devices.

My favorite view is Piers Park in East Boston, a long promenade improbably located on top of a 600-foot-long pier. I enjoy the intriguing public art reflecting East Boston’s many cultures and Donald Kay’s ship-building; my children enjoy getting wet at the spray fountain on the playground. Christopher Columbus Park also produces soggy children alongside a view of harbor boats.

My favorite Harborwalk site isn’t quite on the Harbor: Pope John Paul II park in Dorchester. When the Metropolitan District Commission (now part of the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation! How fast bureacracies fly.) bought the site in the 1970’s, it was a landfill, a drive-in movie theater, and a lumber yard. Today, the site is capped with new soil, and the ugly oozing shores have been transformed into a salt marsh. Great blue herons drift through the air and land in the shoreline grasses to hunt. If you’re not a salt marsh fish, the place can be brutal on hot days– there are few trees, for fear that the roots would pull something nasty out from under the cap– but if you *are* a mummichog or spined stickleback, it is paradise.