'The problem,' you insisted, 'is perception, how people think. People see this area as a dumping ground, a no-man's land between jurisdictions and districts. Instead they need to see it as a corridor, a green passage between the end of the Emerald Necklace in Franklin Park and the Neponset River, completing the connection to the sea.'
You spoke passionately, Yorik, as always, as you lead us in the rain Sunday from place to place along what you call the American Legion Parkway Corridor (others call it 'highway') to look down at black, greasy, untended and overgrown Canterbury Brook doing its work of moving water toward Stony Brook, the Charles and the sea.
'Can you see a bike path here?' you asked of us. I tried to imagine away the tangle of trees and the steep muddy banks and see instead open paths, green slopes, people pedaling by, kids as well as adults, perhaps bikers coming all the way from the Common through the Fenway, along Muddy River, past Jamaica Pond and the Arboretum and Franklin Park, intending to circumnavigate the whole city.
'There are easements and restrictions but nobody has really watched out for this area because nobody has had a vision of what it could be. Instead, the various departments of the city want to use it as storage or staging areas,' you told us, pointing out different places on the maps you had copied for us.
We swung into the Audubon Wildlife Center for a look and took a loop through Mt Hope Cemetery but the big surprise was a series of rocky bluffs you'd discovered just beyond Stop and Shop overlooking Hyde Park Avenue (and owned by the city; you'd done the research.) 'Over there,' you said, pointing across at a wooded hill, 'is the Stony Brook Reservation. From there you can construct a path to Mother Brook and the Neponset and down to Boston Harbor. The necklace will get its clasp.'
You are not a big guy, nor a loud or fast talker, but you are insistent on the facts and the vision. Your neatly trimmed white beard and white hair belie the passionate activist in you. These community projects sort of fall into your lap (kudos for getting the sidewalks cleared last winter) or rather, out of a mixture of interest, outrage and civic duty, you add this one more to the list of things you want to see done to make the neighborhood better.
This time you've caught my imagination. I can see it: a full city encirclement. I think of bike tours, races, Cirque du Boston, etc. You, as always, talk more about neighborhood parks, and more respect for the little pieces of green space scattered around.
Nobody but you (and, of course, your equally active wife) would have put all the pieces together as you have, would have seen in sluggish, malodorous sloughs and trash packed ravines the makings of a green corridor? Who else would have wandered up and found that outcrop with the great view west and south? Who else would start tours to let dullards like me know not just what is there, but what could be there?
This is what activist democracy is all about: citizens identifying what the common good needs and agitating for it. This is worlds away from just deploring the choices offered in our elections or complaining about the decisions made.
I don't know whom to talk to (though of course you have some suggestions) or how to proceed, but I'm going to invest in this project. You've inspired me. Can I ask anything more from a friend?
You spoke passionately, Yorik, as always, as you lead us in the rain Sunday from place to place along what you call the American Legion Parkway Corridor (others call it 'highway') to look down at black, greasy, untended and overgrown Canterbury Brook doing its work of moving water toward Stony Brook, the Charles and the sea.
'Can you see a bike path here?' you asked of us. I tried to imagine away the tangle of trees and the steep muddy banks and see instead open paths, green slopes, people pedaling by, kids as well as adults, perhaps bikers coming all the way from the Common through the Fenway, along Muddy River, past Jamaica Pond and the Arboretum and Franklin Park, intending to circumnavigate the whole city.
'There are easements and restrictions but nobody has really watched out for this area because nobody has had a vision of what it could be. Instead, the various departments of the city want to use it as storage or staging areas,' you told us, pointing out different places on the maps you had copied for us.
We swung into the Audubon Wildlife Center for a look and took a loop through Mt Hope Cemetery but the big surprise was a series of rocky bluffs you'd discovered just beyond Stop and Shop overlooking Hyde Park Avenue (and owned by the city; you'd done the research.) 'Over there,' you said, pointing across at a wooded hill, 'is the Stony Brook Reservation. From there you can construct a path to Mother Brook and the Neponset and down to Boston Harbor. The necklace will get its clasp.'
You are not a big guy, nor a loud or fast talker, but you are insistent on the facts and the vision. Your neatly trimmed white beard and white hair belie the passionate activist in you. These community projects sort of fall into your lap (kudos for getting the sidewalks cleared last winter) or rather, out of a mixture of interest, outrage and civic duty, you add this one more to the list of things you want to see done to make the neighborhood better.
This time you've caught my imagination. I can see it: a full city encirclement. I think of bike tours, races, Cirque du Boston, etc. You, as always, talk more about neighborhood parks, and more respect for the little pieces of green space scattered around.
Nobody but you (and, of course, your equally active wife) would have put all the pieces together as you have, would have seen in sluggish, malodorous sloughs and trash packed ravines the makings of a green corridor? Who else would have wandered up and found that outcrop with the great view west and south? Who else would start tours to let dullards like me know not just what is there, but what could be there?
This is what activist democracy is all about: citizens identifying what the common good needs and agitating for it. This is worlds away from just deploring the choices offered in our elections or complaining about the decisions made.
I don't know whom to talk to (though of course you have some suggestions) or how to proceed, but I'm going to invest in this project. You've inspired me. Can I ask anything more from a friend?
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