Roslindale Square

Interesting story and video on the impact of the national economy on the businesses of Roslindale Square (the Globe does know where Boston neighborhoods are!). I didn't know how many people had been laid off or that Bob's Pita Bakery no longer makes its own pita.

Art Jam sale and jazz concert on Friday, May 2 to raise money to get a "kinetic sculpture" installed on that weird traffic island at Corinth and Belgrade in Rozzie Square. Starts at 6:15 p.m. at the Roslindale Congregational Church, 25 Cummins Highway.

More on the proposed sculpture by George Greenamyer.

For a store that's been "liquidating to the bare walls" since September, Jax on Corinth Street in Roslindale Square sure is awfully full of merchandise. In fact, they keep changing their "CLOSING FOREVER" signs to showcase the new stuff they have on sale.

Speaking of being a bit past its expiration date, there's this house on Washington Street by Albano Street where it's always Christmas (at least they no longer turn on the plastic Halloween pumpkins that still hang from the porch):

Sadly, it means Roslindale is losing one. Pazzo Books is moving this May from Rozzie Square to 1898 Centre St. (where the old dancewear place used to be, near Park Street). Alas, the bookstore's skeeball machine won't be making the trip.

... For all of you Rozzites who do errands in West Roxbury, we’re working on an online errand optimizer - just plug in your errands and it will show you when the optimum time to stop at Pazzo is. ...

Not even in the summer, let alone in March.

Speaking of ice cream: In an otherwise depressing story about how Centre Street in West Roxbury now has more vacant storefronts than funeral homes, the Bulletin reports the old L'Essence art gallery (burned out in last year's Tai Ho fire), will be replaced by an ice-cream joint. Centre hasn't had an ice-cream place since Yoo Hoo's and Friendly's closed back in 2005.

Here comes the mini-Staples: They finally tore down the entire old Ashmont store on Washington Street this week, leaving only several piles of rubble. And the sign. Why are the signs always the last to go?

Everybody seemed to hail the rise of funky little restaurants in Roslindale Square. Now, however, two of those eateries are at loggerheads.

The Roslindale Bulletin reports Sophia's Grotto is opposing the Birch Street Bistro's proposal to offer live music in the courtyard they share. Seems Grotto customers are looking for a romantic - and quiet - meal, not music so loud they can't hear people across the table from them.

Meanwhile, one of Rozzie's original new-wave restaurants, NuVo, on Washington Street, is back open (so no Ethiopian food for Rozzie Square, at least not there), with the same sort of Italianish/Americanish menu it had before it closed last summer.

And while the Square Corner Cafe on Washington Street, next to Robyn's, still looks a ways away from opening, it at least now has an awning with a phone number on it:

Finally, if you pine for the days when Chinese restaurants around here gave your fluffy rolls with your food, Dragon Chef is the place for you (normally, we don't veer from Golden House, near Metropolitan, but I was there and figured I'd give it a try - update: We'll be sticking to Golden House).

Boston Police report on an incident around 5:40 p.m. Tuesday, on South Street near the commuter-rail station:

Four males approached him and asked him if he had a cell phone. When the victim stated "no", they asked him if he had an IPOD. He told them he had no valuables or money with him. At this time, the suspect asking the questions, a black male 6'2", muscular build, wearing a black hooded sweatshirt, jeans with red monkey's as a design and timberland work boots started punching & kicking him along with the other three suspects. The suspects fled after the assault.

The Roslindale Transcript reports a woman shopping at the Village Market in Rozzie Square on Feb. 9 discovered her wallet missing from her pocketbook after a man wearing a suit and a gold watch asked her to help him find a loaf of bread.

The paper also has police denying race was the reason they busted up a party on Aldrich Street on Feb. 10. They say it was the loud music at 2 a.m. that attracted their attention.

As I walked into the Village Market at lunchtime today, I heard In-A-Gadda Da-Vida over all the loudspeakers. And not some wussy 1000 Strings-ish faux-music nonsense; it was the real thing.

Meanwhile, next door, Jax just keeps looking more and more like that guy who's not quite dead yet in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." When are they finally closing?

The Transcript reports the Bustoff variety store on Florence Street was held up last Thursday afternoon, by two guys who punched the clerk and put a knife to his throat before they tied him up and pushed him to the floor. On Saturday, a Roxbury man was arrested outside Delfino's on South Street for pulling a switchblade on a man who refused to give him a cigarette.

Meanwhile, news out of the Irving Middle School includes a 12-year-old charged with throwing an open pair of scissors at a teacher and some graffiti threatening death to a specific teacher.

Tom Nealon of Pazzo Books remembers Whitey McLaughlin, who died Monday after spending more than 60 years repairing shoes in Roslindale Square:

[I]t won't be the same without him, not at Pazzo, not in the Square, and a little bit of Boston has gone out of the world.

But I'm sure he's back at work, cobbler to angels, and if they don't wear shoes in heaven, I'm sure a few words from Whitey will set them straight on that point. ...

Small sign announcing a replacement for the long closed El Rancho Restaurant on Washington Street in Roslindale Square, a couple doors down from Robyn's.

Tom Nealon notices construction-type work at the old Sandpiper store on Birch Street. Good news for the former boutique capital of Greater Roslindale?

Tom Nealon reports the street outside his Rozzie Square store is under attack by starlings:

Every afternoon they descend on Washington Street, chattering noisily, eating locust seeds (or whatever they are - the worst choice for a sidewalk tree imaginable; they bloom for three days then litter the area with tiny yellow flowers only to months later grow sticky seed pods that then drop everywhere and attract the Starlings), and befouling the sidewalk and any cars in the vicinity with their strange red/brown droppings. ...

Tom Nealon at Pazzo Books relays the news that that fancy-shmancy Newbury-Streetish shoe store on Corinth Street is being replaced by a (drum roll) cell-phone store:

... Looks pretty nice, I guess, though I've long had a theory that the desirability of a neighborhood is inversely proportional to the number of cell phone joints. ...

Could that be what's happening to the soon-to-shut Jax? Tom Nealon over at Pazzo Books hears it from somebody who heard it from somebody, so yeah, it could be as likely as his idea of turning Jax into a bowling alley, but still, would sure save us from ever having to step anywhere near the Atrium ever again (although would it also signal the end of the locally owned Square we all know and love, what with the Staples moving into the old Ashmont and all?).

Earlier:
Jax closing down.
Why not a bowling alley in Rozzie Square?

With Jax on the way out, Lane, on the Real Whirled, laments the state of Roslindale Square:

... Add that to the list of empty storefronts in our little village. It's almost a joke with people now. Some neighbors say things like; 'What would the village look like with actual stores in those empty spaces? Oh well, we will never know. Will we?'...

You'd think if the residents noticed and cared, that the owners might notice too. They may want to do what they could to fill the vacancy and start making money off of their real estate. But it doesn't seem so.

Ed. Rozzie question: Lane's post also bemoans the loss of Jax just because it's Jax. What does Jax have that that other discount place, across from the park, doesn't? Is it the anti-Jax, repelling all Jax shoppers or something? Obviously, I haven't spent much time in either place; I don't tend to be in need of duvet covers or cheap luggage, I guess.

Soon all those cheap suitcases chained together that nobody ever seemed to buy will only be a memory: Jax on Corinth Street is closing up shop, which will leave the Square with only one discount shop and which gets Tom Nealon to thinking the joint might make a good new place for his Pazzo Books:

... It's huge and pretty busted up, but a nice location and plenty of room. ...

Rozzie types remember when Birch Street was the hot place and even the Big Boston Dailies kept writing about the boutiques there and how Roslindale was the New Hotness.

Now, of course, the boutiques are just a memory, and Pazzo reports that Dandelions the florist is moving around the corner, leaving pretty much just the cheese shop between Corinth Street and the Birch Street Bistro (although let's not forget Joanne Rossman on the other side of the bistro):

... We should have a Balsamic/Extra Virgin chug contest (I was picturing alternating shots, though half and half in a short glass would look lovely for the brochure) over there in support - who's in?

If you wander around Roslindale Square (say, while waiting for your chicken-teriyaki takeout at Village Sushi), you might run into these fine ladies - Gala (on the left) and Martha. But don't say hello unless you have a few minutes for a chat - they're very sociable.

Who's clogging up the Taft Hill municipal parking lot? Rachele Rosi-Kessel says at least seven Boston Medical Center employees park there and then take the shuttle bus that runs between the Greater Roslindale Medical and Dental Center (which, you may recall, helped contribute to the square's parking issues by building part of its new facility on what used to be a municipal parking lot) and BMC. Solution? The city needs to enforce the two-hour parking limit in the lot, she writes.

Earlier:
Roslindale merchants blame outsiders for their own parking problems.

Pazzo ponders that as he tallies up all the vacant storefronts and buildings in the square and things such as the decision of Pet Cabaret to move from the square to Washington and Metropolitan:

... In time this should sort itself out in Roslindale, but you have to wonder what interesting shops have passed us by while we're waiting for Adam Smith's invisible hand to fix this up for us. ...

Earlier:
Too many empty storefronts in Rozzie Square.

Roslindale Rambler grumbles:

... [E]very day on my way to and from the commuter rail station, I feel a little pinch in my chest as I pass by all the empty store fronts. There are far too many of them for my taste, and many with the same "For Lease" signs in the windows. I have hopeful moments of anticipation when I see properties being renovated, because I assume this means they've been rented. Alas, this not the case with the most recent renovations. But why? Is it that the economy is bad, and there aren't enough people with the entrepreneurial spirit to go around? Or is there something that prohibits people from renting these particular properties?

These long-empty storefronts make me worry about the health of our beloved Roslindale. Will people want to move into the neighborhood if it looks like the business district isn't healthy? And what will make the more lasting impression, the wonderful thriving businesses that are, or the empty spaces of business that could be? ...

A lot of those empty storefronts are in buildings owned by Stavros Frantzis, who helped revitalize the Square in the 1990s (think Birch Street and that little courtyard), but who now seems increasingly reluctant to rent his properties, whether because of exacting standards or because his attention lies elsewhere now.

See this article (scroll past the gibberish at the top) and this blog post by a merchant just outside the square which mentions "one of the only properties not owned by he who shall not be named."

The Rosalindale Transcript reports on a meeting at which Rozzie Square merchants complained about the lack of parking and blamed the problem on "too many people coming from outside of the area to park in Roslindale so they can take the commuter rail."

Excuse me? I'm having trouble imagining these vast hordes of displaced commuters driving in from West Roxbury, Mattapan and Dedham to park in the Taft Hill lot. And it's kind of funny to see people from the medical center complaining about parking given that their old facility had none and given that their new facility meant the elimination of another municipal parking lot. In any case, as Rachele Rosi-Kessel, who actually lives near the parking lot (I'm way the hell over on the other side of the neighborhood, so what do I know?), writes, the merchants could be part of the solution by taking public transit themselves (it's not like the Square isn't served by both commuter rail and about 7 million bus lines):

... People in Roslindale need to get real about parking. We live in the city, folks, not the suburbs. Good city living means accessible public transportation and pedestrian friendly neighborhoods. Cars need to take a back seat to people in Roslindale Village if we are ever to realize the revitalization that so many of us hope for. ...