Take a Wintertime Visit to Georges Island

For most of us, the Boston Harbor Islands are a summertime destination, a place to escape the heat of the sweltering city. Well, this Saturday you’ll get a special opportunity to check out the islands in winter.

Boston Best Cruises will be running a special boat trip to Georges Island this Saturday (Feb. 26). The boat departs from the Quincy Shipyard at 10:15 a.m. and from Long Wharf in Boston at 11:00 a.m. The boat returns to Boston at 2:00 p.m. and to Quincy at 2:30 p.m. Tickets are $14 and include a complimentary hot drink.

In addition to wandering around Fort Warren, visitors will get a chance to warm up and check out the island’s brand-new visitor center. I got a chance to see the visitor center right after it opened this past summer, and it’s fantastic. The museum’s exhibits focus not just on Fort Warren, but more broadly on the history of Boston’s coastal defenses from the birth of the Massachusetts Bay Colony through the Cold War. A number of the museum exhibits focus on a day in the life of the Union soldiers stationed at Fort Warren during the Civil War along with the Confederate prisoners who were held captive there. (Perhaps I missed it, but one subject I didn’t see covered was the fort’s infamous ghost—the Lady in Black.)

One of the most interesting items on display is a dinner table featuring six plates of food representing typical meals for the Confederate prisoners of war and the Union soldiers, varying by rank. Contrary to our modern-day concept of POWs, some of the Confederate prisoners dined much more sumptuously than their Union captors.

It appears that Friday’s storm will bring rain, which may deprive visitors of a unique chance to see the islands tucked under a white blanket of snow, but it may make for easier traversing around Georges Island. Click here to purchase tickets.

Redeveloping Peddocks Island’s Fort Andrews

At my lectures about Discovering the Boston Harbor Islands, the most common question I’m asked is: “What’s your favorite island?” It’s definitely tough to come up with a single favorite, but I think it has to be Peddocks Island because a trip to Peddocks is like visiting three different islands. Near the dock on the island’s east drumlin are the ruins of Fort Andrews, in the middle of the island is a quirky summer cottage colony that dates back to 1887 when Portuguese fishermen and lobstermen floated (yes, floated) their houses over the open harbor from Long Island, and the island’s west side is an undeveloped area teeming with bird rookeries and wildlife. You can visit other islands and see fortifications, wildlife, and ruins of old homes, but Peddocks is the only landscape that offers such variety.

Given my affinity for Peddocks, I was disappointed last year when the public ferry service was suspended because of fears for public safety due to the dilapidated structures at Fort Andrews. This past Sunday’s Boston Globe had an interesting front-page article about the plans to demolish and redevelop the crumbling buildings of Fort Andrews, which hopefully will lead to the resumption of public ferry service to the island.

The Globe article details plans to demolish 11 buildings on the island and redevelop the rest. The park management plans to convert some buildings into an eco-retreat and family camp featuring yurts with electricity and water—this would mark the return of camping to Peddocks Island. What I find particularly exciting are plans to restore the fort’s historic white chapel, which looks as if it was plucked it out of the rolling woods of Vermont. After restoration, the chapel could be used for weddings and other events. Pretty cool.

Numerous comments were generated by The Boston Globe article, which I think attests to the pull that these islands have on Bostonians. Some supported the redevelopment plan; others decried the demolition of any of the fort buildings. I suspect some also lament any change to what they see as their personal hidden oasis in the middle of the harbor.

If you’ve ever walked around Fort Andrews, it’s clear that some of these structures are in really tough shape and are beyond saving. (And if you’ve never been there, check out the accompanying video on Boston.com.) There are so many worthy restoration projects on the islands waiting for funds, that I think it’s a fair compromise to tear down the buildings in the worst shape and redevelop the others.

What other projects could use funds? Well, you don’t have to look far from Fort Andrews. The summer cottage colony wasn’t mentioned in The Globe article, but it’s the last piece of living history we have on the Boston Harbor Islands, the last place where people call the islands “home.” As many as 30 of these uninhabited summer cottages have fallen into the hands of the state, which doesn’t have money for upkeep. As a result, some of these formerly quaint cottages are now in shambles. Just as we should preserve the military history of Fort Andrews, we need to be working to preserve these homes that were used by generations of everyday Bostonians and could be used again for future generations to enjoy the history (from Revolutionary War raids to Italian POWs in World War II to the filming of “Shutter Island”) and beautiful surroundings of Peddocks Island.

My bottom line is this: the Boston Harbor Islands should be used and appreciated by as many people as possible, without destroying the history and nature that make them such a special place. From Gallops Island to Long Island, there are already sadly too many incredible places off limits to the public. Peddocks Island shouldn’t be added to that list. If the Fort Andrews redevelopment prevents that from happening and gets people back to Peddocks Island to appreciate all it has to offer, I’m all for it.

Boston Bites – Rosemary Gorgonzola Mushroom App

Have you ever noticed that sometimes the appetizers are just so good, you’d rather skip the main meal? The more we entertain, the more we opt for an array of appetizers as opposed to a massive meal. They’re fun to make, planning is easy, timing less important (hence you get more time to relax and enjoy yourself), and often they’re far less expensive, too. We’ve made everything from stuffed portobellos, to prosciutto wrapped melon and pears, to lox with crème fraiche and Dijon mustard. Of all of them, the recipe below is a definite crowd-pleaser—rich, creamy, and full of distinct flavors. Each bite-sized baguette piece dipped in the sauce is incredible!

Rosemary Gorgonzola Mushrooms in Boule

Original recipe: Cookstr.com.

Yield : 2½ cups

• Slice ½ pound white mushrooms and ½ pound baby portobello mushrooms about ¼ inch thick. Set aside.
• Put 4 tbsp (½ stick) unsalted butter and 2 tbsp olive oil into a large skillet and set over medium heat.
• Add ½ onion, diced or thinly sliced to the pan.
• Reduce the heat to low and cook the onions for 15 minutes until translucent.
• Add the mushrooms and 4 sprigs fresh rosemary, raise the heat to medium, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the mushrooms give up their liquid.
• Let the mixture simmer until the mushroom liquid has reduced by three quarters.
• Add ¼ cup dry white wine and reduce again until the pan is almost dry.
• Add 4 ounces of Gorgonzola and 1 cup heavy cream.
• Bring to a simmer and reduce by half, stirring occasionally.
• Stir in the salt and pepper and spoon into the hollowed-out boule.
• Sourdough boule, top sliced off and soft inner bread pulled out (the boule is solely for presentation purposes, the sauce is just as delicious without it).
• Mound sliced baguette (for dipping) around the boule and serve immediately.

N.B. Can make part of recipe ahead: the mushrooms can be cooked with the wine (before the cheese and cream are added) the day before. Reheat the mixture to continue.

N.B. II. For a rich, comforting treat, create a gourmet mac’n’cheese from the sauce. Cook orecchiette (“small ears”-shaped pasta, catches the sauce) al dente and drain. Make the sauce thicker by letting more liquid boil off than when making the dip. Add spinach, broccoli, pancetta, or anything else. Then mix orecchiette and sauce together, place in casserole dish, and top with layer of panko bread crumbs mixed with parmesan. Bake at 350º until golden on top.

Apps That Make Great Main Meals Around Town:

Publick House, Brookline – Moules Frites, mussels cooked in beer and served with Belgian fries.

Mini Bar, Huntington Ave –$2 Mini Kobe Beef Burgers, 5PM-7PM, Mon-Thurs. Oh, happy hour!

Deep Ellum, Allston—Cheese Plate or Charcuterie Plate. Or fries with Truffled Gorgonzola.

Elephant Walk, Boston/Cambridge/Waltham—Avocat Kanthor, Cambodian dish with raw tuna and avocado.

Brown Sugar Café, Fenway/Allston—Thai Ravioli or Brown Sugar Fresh Rolls

Share your thoughts on the best places with appetizers so we can check them out!

February School Vacation Week at the Spellman Museum

Cabin fever is always an unwelcome plague during New England winters. But this winter, it has proven to be a particularly virulent scourge. If you have kids at home during February school vacation week, getting out of the house is absolutely mandatory or else you’re guaranteed to find yourself in a re-enactment of “The Shining.” One local place to check out is the Spellman Museum of Stamps & Postal History in Weston. The museum will be open from 10 am to 5 pm on Feb. 23 and 25 and from noon to 5 pm on Feb. 24, 26, and 27. The museum is having its annual Happy Birthday Presidents Family Day on Thursday, Feb. 24 from noon to 4 pm. There are plenty of activities lined up for youngsters of all ages. What’s even better is that anyone under 16 is admitted to the museum free of charge.

For more about the museum and what it offers for kids, check out my article on Boston.com.

Greenway Plans Change (Again)

Oh dearie me! The YMCA of Greater Boston has announced that it will not build a a $70 million community center on the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway near the North End. In short, a nonexistent building will continue to not exist on the Greenway.  The YMCA’s center will now join the august company of the imaginary Massachusetts Horticultural Society Garden Under Glass, the unearthly New Center for Arts and Culture, and the vaporous Boston Museum.

If you can’t quite remember what all these projects looked like, the Boston Globe has a pretty slide show with drawings of them all. There’s a Bob-the-Builder style model view of the YMCA project at the CBT architects site as well.

The reason? Here’s a quote from Peter O’Connor, head of real estate for the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, via the Boston Globe:

“People don’t like to hear me say this, but it’s really hard to build over eight lanes of live traffic,’’ O’Connor said. “We need to stop acting like we can produce fancy architectural drawings and then just put up buildings. We have to look at other ways of solving this.’’

“Really hard” is another way of saying “very expensive.” Ah well; at least we have plenty of architectural drawings now.

So here we are in winter of 2011. The Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway isn’t architecturally stunning, like New York City’s multi-story High Line Park—also built on a former elevated highway site—or instantly popular like Chicago’s Millennium Park. The park is a giant green roof on top of a highway, and the soil is constantly interrupted by cables, electrical conduits, water pipes and a thousand other plant-hostile necessities. You can’t just plant a tree wherever you like on the Greenway; put your shovel in at the wrong place, and you could short out the entire North End—if you can find a place where the dirt is deep enough to plant a tree in the first place.

The Greenway’s green surface is also fragmented by enormous swaths of sidewalk (one writer in Landscape Architecture magazine called it “The Rose Kennedy Paveway”) and endless criss-crossing streets. Heck, even the instructions for the Massachusetts Horticultural Society’s “Green Spaces” Design Competition describe the Greenway as disconnected:

“Class 202 – “Rose Kennedy Greenway” is a roughly 1.5-mile-long series of public spaces created in downtown, it is the part of the massive Central Artery Project….A Synergistic Design of 3 or more units… The individual units/containers should not appear as completed designs in themselves, but when combined create an artistic whole. ”

I’d agree that the Greenway has three or more units. I’m not sure about it being “an artistic whole,” given that the different parcels were designed by different landscape architecture firms, and several of them were supposed to be covered by non-existent buildings.

When I think about the Greenway, I remember a quote from the movie Lilo and Stitch, where Stitch, the trouble-making alien, talks about coming to live with earthling orphans Lilo and Nani:

“This is my family…. Is little, and broken, but still good. Yeah, still good.”

The Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway isn’t what it could be yet. It’s broken into pieces, and it doesn’t have any grand and heroic buildings, or unforgettable vistas, or beer gardens. The trees are still saplings, and there aren’t many people to visit parts of it because nobody built any apartments next to the Central Artery for 50 years. But it’s green, and people do enjoy it. It is still good.

Meg Muckenhoupt: A Few Questions Answered

In anticipation of the Boston Flower & Garden Show we encourage you to get to know Meg Muckenhoupt a little better. Meg will be speaking about the creation and reinvention of Boston’s land and parks on March 17th at 4:30pm. We hope you’ll join us!

4.    With all the digging done downtown, what do you consider the city’s greatest achievement?
Simply removing the highway so that Bostonians can walk to the harbor has been a stunning achievement. We were cut off from the water—the very reason the city was settled!—for too long. The physical and mental geography of the city has completely changed—as have real estate values.

5.    You dedicated a whole chapter to green buildings—including green roofs in and around the city. Is this a trend that is catching on? How do green roofs benefit urban communities, and in particular Boston? There are more green roofs in the Boston area each year—not only at places like the World Trade Center and Mass General Hospital, but in the suburbs as well.
Green roofs have many benefits, but the primary reasons builders are choosing them is that they reduce stormwater runoff and energy costs. Boston, Cambridge, Chelsea, and Somerville all have combined sewer overflows. That means that stormwater and sewage are carried in the same pipes. Usually, all that water goes to the Deer Island treatment plant—but during heavy storms, the pipes get overloaded, and the combined sewage and stormwater gets dumped into local rivers and the Boston Harbor. Boston builders are under a pressure to reduce stormwater runoff for this reason. Green roofs act like a giant sponge, and keep stormwater on-site, nourishing plants, and keeping pollution out of our harbor.
Green roofs also reduce energy costs by insulating the building, acting as a buffer against daily temperature swings. In the summer, a green roof heats up more slowly than a standard roof—which can reach more than 160oF! In the winter, it cools more slowly.

6.    In your book you profile a variety of nonprofits that have worked hard to improve upon the city’s public parks and open spaces. What do you want your readers to know about these groups? I want readers to understand just how many people are working to keep Boston green! Great public spaces don’t just happen; they need advocates to bring them into being. My book gives the names of several umbrella organizations such as the Massachusetts Audubon Society and the Boston Natural Areas Fund. If you want to get involved, these larger groups are a good place to start; the volunteers and staff are generally involved with smaller, more local organizations as well.

Christopher Klein on Noontime Sports

Check out Chris Klein’s interview with Matt Noonan from Noontime Sports. There’s no doubt about it, these guys certainly have the 4-1-1 on Boston sports. You’ll hear them talk about what makes the Boston sports scene so unique; from the Beanpot and Truck Day to Fenway Park and the “Top Ten things All Boston Fans Must Do Before the Fat Lady Sings” these guys cover it all. Be sure to tune in to the Noontime Sports podcasts for your weekly dose of Boston sports. Also, don’t forget to check out The Die-Hard Sports Fan’s Guide to Boston if you’re itching to know more!

Longfellow House Celebrates Washington’s Birthday with New Name

“George Washington slept here.” It’s a pretty common refrain around New England, and there are several residences open to the public where Washington caught forty winks. The grandest of these is the Cambridge manse that is better known to the public as the residence of another colossus, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

At the height of the poet’s fame, strangers knocking on his door were much less interested in meeting the wordsmith than in getting a tour of the house that served as General Washington’s hallowed headquarters during the 1775-1776 siege of Boston. “The house was the first major headquarters of the American Revolution and Washington’s second-longest held headquarters,” says Site Manager Jim Shea. “During this critical first year of the American Revolution the house became a center for diplomacy and strategy.”

As the decades have gone by, however, Washington’s residency in the house has faded from the public consciousness. Now, the National Park Service is attempting to alter that by changing the Brattle Street mansion’s designation from the “Longfellow National Historic Site” to “Longfellow House-Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site.”

“The site’s connection to George Washington had become obscured over time,” says Superintendent Myra Harrison. “This redesignation will help restore our links with this important part of our past.”

The redesignation was signed into law by President Obama on Dec. 22, and to celebrate, the public is invited to an open house on Washington’s birthday, Feb. 22. National Park Service staff will lead free guided tours every half hour between 11:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. (There will also be free tours focusing on Washington’s time in the home on March 17, Evacuation Day, every hour between 1 and 4 p.m.)

The Longfellow House-Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site is at 105 Brattle Street in Cambridge. For more information, visit www.nps.gov/long.

Charles River SkatePark Still Hibernating

Are you tired of shoveling out your walkway? Do you think it’s been a while since you’ve seen the pavement under the snow? Spend a moment thinking of the less fortunate Bostonians who don’t have any pavement at all. I’m talking about the supporters of the Charles River Skatepark, a skateboarders’ paradise planned for the ramps under the Zakim Bridge in East Cambridge. Entering its second decade of planning and development, the Skatepark is one of the best ideas I’ve ever heard for using the space under a highway. After all, it’s not as though you’re going to grow a goldenrod meadow under Route 93—and most skateboarders don’t seem to go to parks for the view.

The Skatepark is a popular idea, too. Since 2001 more than 400 local youth and other presumed skateboarders contributed to the design, the Charles River Conservancy has raised over $2.5 million to build a fun, squiggly, concrete pave-o-rama since 2004.  So why doesn’t it exist?

Alas, the typical dull reasons are keeping skateboarders home at night (although at least one Brookline skater has an amazing basement to keep himself occupied). According to a WHDH report in June, 2010, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (DOT), which owns the site, had not yet transferred the land to the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, which is supposed to create and maintain the site. Given that this park had been planned since 2001, I’m beginning to wonder how much advance notice the Mass DOT needs for land transfers. Is there an Olde Meadowe somewhere in Charlestown being reserved for cattle drives? But I digress.

The other inevitable problem in our historic industrial city is soil contamination. That WHDH report states there’s asbestos in the adjoining site, and all the trucks that parked on the land during Big Dig construction dripped motor oil and heaven knows what chemical monstrosities into the soil. All that soil needs to be cleaned up at great expense, alas—which seems odd, given that it’s going to be covered with pavement… if it ever gets built.

By now, all the youth who consulted on the park’s design are shaving and/or looking for jobs, or perhaps lobbying for a skate park in Brookline. The latest press release from june, 2010 says that the DCR and  the Charles River Conservancy are still discussing “how best to establish a long-term operation and maintenance plan,” which sounds suspiciously like “arguing over who is going to pay for upkeep.”

The lesson?  Be grateful for the pavement you have—and make sure you own the land before you plan to put in any more. Getting access to the site could take a long, long, long time.

The 2011 Beanpot

Bragging rights in office buildings and classrooms all around Boston will be on the line today when the men of Boston College, Boston University, Harvard, and Northeastern take to the ice for the 2011 edition of the Beanpot. The four schools and their fans prove the old adage that familiarity breeds contempt. With no campus more than four miles from another, these schools are like kissing cousins.

Terriers fans have dubbed the Beanpot the “BU Invitational,” since their team has captured twenty-nine pots of beans since the tournament’s inception—more than the other three schools combined. Boston College has captured fourteen Beanpot trophies, Harvard has won ten, and Northeastern, the perennial underdog, has only four.

As hard as it is to believe today, the Beanpot certainly wasn’t an overnight sensation. The tournament was originally born as a way to fill open dates at the Boston Arena (Matthews Arena today). The first New England Invitational Hockey Tournament, as it was known then, was won by Harvard and played on the two nights after Christmas in 1952. For the next edition of the Beanpot, the event moved to Boston Garden, but only 711 fans turned out for the first game.

It wasn’t until the sixth year of the tournament that the current schedule of the first two Mondays in February was adopted. The first sellout wouldn’t occur until 1961, but they quickly became a common occurrence. In fact, the Beanpot was such a draw that even during the great blizzard of 1978, more than eleven thousand fans showed up at the Boston Garden. Many stayed to the end, by which point they were trapped inside and condemned to spend the night eating lukewarm hot dogs on stale buns.

This year’s schedule calls for Northeastern to take on Harvard at 5pm and Boston College to battle BU at 8pm in the opening round tonight. The winners will skate off against each other on Monday, February 14th. Tickets can be found on the secondary market, and you may want to keep checking with the participating schools and TD Garden box office to see if any tickets have been released. It will be easier to get tickets to the finals as fans of the two schools in the consolation game will likely be amenable to unloading tickets.

The women also skate in their own Beanpot. The women’s Beanpot, one of the longest-running women’s collegiate tournaments in all of sports, is rotated among the campus rinks of the four teams and will be held this year at BC. The women skate the first Tuesdays in February. The 2011 schedule calls for Harvard to play Northeastern and BC to take on BU on February 8 with the winners battling on February 15. Tickets are $8, click here to purchase.

*adapted from original post, February 2010