Category: Editorials

Jeff Bouvier’s dream

The owner of the Bouvier Building in Everett Square went before the Zoning Board of Appeals Tuesday night to test the waters for a boutique hotel with 23 rooms.

This is a universe away from the perpetual state of affairs for this key structure in the heart of the Everett Square which the Bouvier Family has owned for 65 years.

Built in 1877, the building for longer than a century housed offices and apartments upstairs, and featured the popular jewelry store by the same name, Bouvier’s, and Brighams on the street floor.

That was then. This is now.

The building has been an eyesore and from time to time, a danger to the well-being of everyone congregating in the square.

Now comes Jeff Bouvier proposing a boutique hotel, promising to retain the historic aspects of the building which was all about Victorian splendor when it was built, and wanting to remake the place in a very big way.

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Kathleen “Kate” Donnelly

Kathleen Donnelly grew up here, was educated here and never forgot where she came from during an adventurous life.

She died recently at 86 in New York City.

As part of her wishes, her estate donated $400,000 to the public library system to be used for charitable purposes.

How she came of age here, how she graduated from Everett High School and Fordham University, how she travelled the world as a flight attendant for American Airlines are all indelible parts of her personal life narrative.

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Asking the right questions

The city council has asked the mayor and or his city solicitor and his purchasing agent to provide the city government with some proof that he has in fact negotiated the sale of the former Pope John High School property for $10.5 million.

It is one thing to take the mayor at his word as the council did two weeks ago when it appropriated the money for the mayor to use without an agreement in hand.

It is another thing for the mayor to provide evidence that the deal really exists.

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Improving city hall Is the right thing to do

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The 2020 Everett City Government.

The mayor announced that city hall is about to receive a transformative makeover during his annual address to the city recently.

It is a makeover that has been long overdue.

The city hall structure itself is entirely out of tune with modern necessities regarding usage and light, meeting places and community accessibility.

Everett City Hall is ugly inside and outside.

For decades since being built, it has represented a bit of a time warp. It was built square and dull, without any sense of aesthetic, history, or of the future, the way kids used to build with Erector sets.

The announcement made last week and the drawings provided by city hall depicting the new and improved structure – at least outside – and what it is going to look like, are a vast improvement over what exists today.

What is that?

It is a city hall that looks like something out of the 1960’s, the rough equivalent of what a 1968 Chevy Impala would look like to all of us driving down Broadway today.

City hall’s look and feel, with the blue exterior and its undifferentiated dull and boring sameness, is almost hopelessly outdated.

What is the plan?

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About the Pats and Tom Brady

If we could pull the levers with cosmic-like certitude, Tom Brady would play one more season in New England. Come what may, he should end his career here and only here.

If it were only that simple.

The season ended Saturday, and the drama/speculation dial is turned to 10.  TB12 is a free agent, he’s 42, and his play this season was relatively pedestrian. Unfair as it sounds, there’s a harsh argument to be made for the Pats to file divorce papers. Brady might fancy being the first NFL player eligible for Social Security, but organizations are dutybound to balance short-, mid-, and long-term needs. Guys in their 40s gum up the works.

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