Rose Kennedy Greenway

Are there any classes around here on how to use e-mail?

Because it sounds like the folks who run the Greenway could use one.

Love in Dewey Square

Dewey Square snow

Cheryl Stober looked out her office window today at the Greenway in Dewey Square.

State wants to build more parks in area where it already ignores the park it has

Pigsty ParkThey could rename it Pigsty Park.

The Globe today reports the state Department of Transportation has some ambitious plans for the land and air around the turnpike/93 interchange in Chinatown, which it hopes will eventually become a new gateway to the city, featuring new development and parks.

Parks, huh? The photo above is the latest on file with the city's Citizen Connect service from Mary Soo Hoo Park, the little plaza at the pedestrian gateway to Chinatown that is owned by the state Department of Transportation - or at least, that's what the city and the Greenway Conservancy keep telling residents in explaining why their crews can't pick up the trash that keeps getting left there. A couple of weeks ago, the city actually did dispatch a DPW crew to remove trash, but this latest complaint is marked "closed:"

Case Referred to External Agency. Mass dot jurisdiction. details forwarded.

Citizen complaint of the day: Why doesn't the Greenway do anything about trash-strewn park?

Mary Soo Hoo Mess.

Right, not Dewey Square but Mary Soo Hoo Park in Chinatown, where a fed-up citizen complains:

Trash is not being collected by Public Works nor Greenway in the new Mary Soo [Hoo] Park. Has not been collected since the park opened. Trash is spreading all over sidewalk and plantings. Might be a misunderstanding about the maintenance agreement btw different agencies. Either way, the neighborhood needs help here.

Citizen complaint of the day: What died on the Greenway?

An alert citizen holds his or her nose with one hand and types with the other near the old turnpike-authority building in the North End:

2 days going now, walkway across greenway smells like something died in there .. Real bad stench

The city replies:

It has been confirmed that there is nothing decaying in the area. The odor is from the organic holly-tone fertilizer recently spread and will dissipate in the next few days.

Who died and made them king of the Greenway?

Mike Ball considers the Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy's newfound reasons for wanting Occupy Boston off its land and finds them lacking:

The Greenway Conservancy folk apparently stifled their Brahmin impulse until they popped. They saw the courts refuse to clear Occupy's camp and the mayor deciding to hang back. At least Menino has the political savvy to understand the peril of smothering protest in the town that fomented the American Revolution.

In contrast, the Conservancy board has decided whom they will classify as public and what activities they will allow. Now they are stomping their feet.

Greenway now sick of Occupiers

The Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy now wants the city to broom Occupy Boston from Dewey Square.

After much thought and discussion, we have come to the conclusion that, as fiduciaries for public use of the Greenway, we must request that you enforce our regulations and remove the occupiers from the Greenway.

We believe that the current use by Occupy Boston is not compatible with our obligation to ensure that everyone may enjoy the Greenway, and with the spirit and letter of the rules governing use of the space.

The conservancy board actually told the mayor that back on Nov. 8, but, in an apparent nod to Maureen Feeney, didn't tell anybody else until yesterday, after a judge barred the city from evicting tent-city residents at least until a hearing on Dec. 1. Well, unless there's a public-health emergency or violence erupts.

You think it's easy lifting people lying on the ground?

A BPD official tries to explain to BU students why people should stop looking at police as the heavies in last week's mass arrests.

ACLU: Police have some explaining to do

The ACLU of Massachusetts says it's looking into how people were arrested and processed following the "heavy handed" Greenway crackdown on Tuesday.

Boston officials have so far given conflicting and inconsistent explanations for the crackdown on Occupy Boston at the Rose Kennedy Greenway on Oct. 11. They cited public safety issues, even though the demonstrators remained peaceful; rules and permitting technicalities, even though these appear not to be enforced for others; and concern for the welfare of the Greenway's lawn and shrubs, even though the Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy apparently did not ask for the police to remove demonstrators. In an interview with WBUR, Mayor Menino claimed that "civil disobedience doesn't work for Boston," ignoring the historical relevance of the practice to the City's "Freedom Trail."

In August, the ACLU sued Boston Police over its monitoring of local political groups.

Greenway food-truck festival postponed due to Dewey Square occupation

A mobile food festival originally planned for this Saturday has been postponed until at least this spring, the Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy announced today:

The decision is based on the fact the attendees we're anticipating for the Greenway Mobile Food Fest, when combined with the Occupy Boston encampment on Dewey Square, would simply be too crowded to be considered safe for the public.

The conservancy says it was expecting 12 vendors, many of them in "large trucks." It emphasized Occupy Boston participants had not gotten in the way of the setting up and taking down of a farmers' market at the square, but that "the scale of Saturday's event is much, much bigger."