[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: All right, I'll call the meeting to order at 7. 05 PM. I'm just going to read the governor's statement, and then we'll get going on our agenda on March 29 2023 governor Healy signed into law supplemental budget bill, which, among other things, extends the temporary provisions pertaining to the open meeting law on March 31st 2025. Specifically, this further extension allows public bodies to continue holding meetings remotely without a quorum for the public body physically present at a meeting location and to provide adequate alternative access to remote meetings. The language does not make any substantive changes to the open meeting law other than extending the expiration date to March 31st, 2025. Dennis, on that note, just at the end of the meeting, remind me to touch base about that date. All right, so we have a full packed agenda tonight. We will start with 140 Summer Street. So 140 Summer Street, just to let everybody know, did not meet the signage requirements. So we're gonna table it until next month. I need a motion on the table from the commissioners to table this item for 30 days pending the owner. placing the sign on the property and reposting the legal ad.
[MCM00001614_SPEAKER_01]: I move to table discussion of 140 Summer Street until the signage has been addressed.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Okay, and second? Was that you, Doug?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Okay, I'll go around the room as I see it. Peter?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: And Kit? Yes. And Doug?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: And Eleni? Yes. Approved 4-0. All right. I will revise the legal notice and I will have the owners put the sign up and we will try to hear it next month. All right, fourth. Next up on the agenda is 31 Wilson Street. Commissioners, I put in the Google Drive for you some photos of the property from our site visit from two weekends ago, I think. whenever the last time we had snow was before this, because it started snowing when we went there. I'm happy to provide some thoughts on that. And I did post the MHC inventory form online for the general public to see. For anybody that's following along, you can go to our website at www.MedfordHistoricalCommission.org. go to the news section and see that I posted all sorts of information earlier today. with the various attachments for this meeting, among which includes the MHC inventory form for 31 Wilson Street, and the determination of findings. So I'm going to go through and explain the demo delay process for the benefit of all the applications and processes that follow in this wake. So hopefully we'll get that all done all at once right now. The demo delay process is a two-step process that begins with the applicants filing at the commission's regular meetings. Usually those are the second Monday of every month. And once we receive an application, if we don't already have it, we have a consultant prepare an MHC inventory form that sort of describes the architecture and the history of the building. The first step that the commission does in reviewing the demo delay is to determine whether or not a building is significant. So we've already done that for this building, but for the sake of some of the other cases, a significant building is either a building that's listed on the National Register of Historic Places or pending that. has been listed on the State Register of Historic Places, or is 75 years older, determined by the Commission to be significant either because it is importantly associated with one or more historic persons or events, or with the broad architectural, cultural, political, economic, or social history of the city or the Commonwealth, or it is historically or architecturally important in terms of period style, method of building construction, or association with an important architect or builder, either by itself or in the context of group of buildings. So once we determined that this building is significant, we have to hold a public hearing within 30 days. So tonight we will be hearing that public hearing portion of the case. And the public is welcome to speak for or against the demolition of this building. And the commission is trying to determine whether or not the building is preferably preserved. Does it have enough integrity and Is that integrity enough to warrant a pause in the demolition process to mitigate the demolition, to come up with some sort of alternative, be it documentation or design review or moving the building, saving the building, and incorporating it into the new design, et cetera? Every building and case that comes before us is different and unique. So for those of you who are watching, you'll see the full spectrum of type of cases that we review on a regular basis. So I am going to start with the commissioners. If you guys have any comments, we'll start with a motion to put it on the table to start discussion. And then from there, we can open to public comment for and against, and then we'll close that. We'll have any final comments, and we'll take the next steps. Any questions from the commissioners? For the general public, when the time comes, if you could, please use the raise hand function if you can. If you're on the phone or have some sort of other device, just make yourself known. Just try not to interrupt anybody and I'll make sure you get called on. All right, commissioners, I'll entertain a motion, please.
[Doug Carr]: Um, a motion to find the building not carefully preserved.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Okay, and a 2nd. I'll 2nd. Okay, was that kid?
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Yep, it was. Yeah. All right, so that'll kickstart discussion. I'll start by providing a little bit of clarity for our site visit, because I'm sure you guys saw the photos, but if not, they're in the Google Drive. So we were able to tour both the lot and the interior of this building. The interior clearly demonstrates that it is a much older building than its 1930s construction date. All of the materials within date to two time periods, all the wooden sort of original features are 19th century construction. And then at some point, the building had or lost its plaster finish, I guess, and it's been replaced with 1970s paneling. you know, that's sort of not uncommon for this type of house. And so it confirmed that the building is much older as it was sort of verbally relayed to us by one of the previous people who was a relative of the owner of the house. And I can't say specifically that it was a school, but it certainly had a vibe that was not necessarily entirely residential. a weird layout, and it has some sort of late Victorian features. So that is definitely a nice confirmation that came out of the site visit, and the photos kind of confirm that. So, so Doug, you made the motion. I'll start with you now that I've made that clarification.
[Doug Carr]: Just I just want to appreciate that. Right? I did not go on the site is that I have reviewed the photos that were taken on the inside and the outside. Are you. Suggesting that the form that we have is inaccurate then because it doesn't date anything before. I don't believe before 1925, 6, right?
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Yeah, he says at the end of the form, if you look at it, that it was verbally relayed to us that the original owners dismantled a schoolhouse in the city of Boston somewhere, in one of the suburban communities. dismantled and brought it to this site. And this house shares the exact same footprint as the building next to it. So I suspect that they're related. But if you look at the pictures of the framing in the basement, it's not traditional. sort of late balloon or even early platform framing, it's actually heavy timber. And it is balloon up the sidewall, and that is highly irregular for 1920s. So all the beadboard and the interior doors are all 19th century. They all have all the same hallmarks as stuff that was built probably up to 40 years, but probably not more than that, so like 1880s, 1870s.
[Doug Carr]: So is there no record of this on the Medford maps? Medford schools are usually pretty well known when they were built and torn down historically. Does this somehow slip through the cracks?
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: I don't think it's a local school. I think it's a school outside of the city that was moved here and turned into a residence. Rosindale. Yeah, that's right.
[Doug Carr]: Okay.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Yeah. And I, I reached out to the, the. local historical groups and there are some photos of school buildings from that time period but you know I there's the building is this build the buildings that were there were two-story buildings much bigger than this building so it'd be kind of hard to sort of piece together unless we really dissected the framing and looked at how how they sort of changed it it's just you know You know, it's raising some need to know additional things here out of this building before, you know, before it gets let go.
[Doug Carr]: No, I understand. I just, you know, I'm trying to imagine a school building. Maybe it was just they added inserted a floor because you said it had seven foot ceilings, right?
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: No, that's that's 140 Summer Street.
[Doug Carr]: That's 140. OK, very good.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Yeah, no, this is this has pretty generous eight and a half foot ceilings. It's got a nice low, low roof line that was clearly uh... altered at some point you can see where they sort of sawed through and maybe cut pieces of it and it had some fire damage from you know it's occupancy i don't know what that came in but maybe that was the impetus for tearing down the school right
[Doug Carr]: Yeah, I mean, I just voted for this to be significant because I wanted to pause. And I think there was some good information that was gleaned over the last month with the site visits and with just what you've been able to get so far. But I still don't think that this building, to me, rises the level of perfectly preserved. I just don't see. a big value to really say that this building really should be back. The documentation I agree with. I think there's a story here that's worth telling and I can see some documentation on this, but I just don't see how this would rise to that level personally based on what I've read and what I've seen on the photos.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Great. We'll go to Kit next. Kit seconded the motion.
[MCM00001614_SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I seconded, so we'd have a second. But I have to say, I find this one really sort of difficult, because I do think that the history of it, while not verified, is really interesting. And it makes me wonder how many schoolhouse buildings there are from that era. You're saying 19th century. that are preserved in Massachusetts, especially that size. And that makes me think, I mean, historically significant for where? For Medford or for Roslindale? And if I was driving by it on Fulton Heights, I think I would think it looks a lot like a lot of other houses in Fulton Heights and so far. I'm waiting to hear from the rest of the architect colleagues on the commission.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: OK, great. Thank you. Peter, we'll go with you next, I guess. You're the logical next person, and then I'll go to Eleni, who was there.
[8Sqy8gyjolU_SPEAKER_08]: OK. Yeah, I find this one difficult as well. I find that it has potentially an interesting story, and yet I don't find the building itself all that compelling compared to some of the other ones that are great examples of something that would be a big detriment to the city to lose. So, and I think I, although I don't have your level of expertise on the framing, it does seem like at least that first floor framing is quite old. You can see the, some of the beams appear to be hand hewn almost. So, I'm kind of on the fence about this one, but I, As far as just a building, if I didn't know it was possibly a schoolhouse, then I think I wouldn't have as much cause to, if I didn't know it had been a potentially moved schoolhouse, then that's kind of like, I feel like the one thing going forward that would recommend it to be preferably preserved for me. But anyway, I mean, That house would have to be completely refinished on the inside and everything. Probably to be reused would have to be reinforced a lot, the floor framing and stuff. I'm not sure how much, even if it was preserved, I'm not sure how much would be discernible. of it, so I think I'm probably leaning towards no, but it's not a clear-cut one for me.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Great. Thanks, Peter. And Eleni?
[Kit Collins]: Yeah, I think it was a tough one, too. I mean, I think I would think having visited it and seeing it in person kind of makes for a better argument to you know, argued for its significance and preferably preserved status. However, it does need a lot of work. There have been a lot of changes. And, you know, I understand, like, the plans of the owner and developer, they want to, you know, expand the site and really use a lot of the space, empty space of the lot. You know, I think maybe a thorough documentation and rewriting the Form B to maybe make it a little more accurate. So we have a more accurate sort of like historical record of the house is definitely in order. I don't know if there's a way that if, you know, the owners do decide to demolish it, to save some of like the old floorboards and, you know, some of the, building material that can be used elsewhere for preservation projects. I don't know. It just seems like such a waste to tear it down. I wonder if they would be open to maybe doing a little bit of architectural salvage and saving some of the doors or the original materials that can be reused elsewhere. I don't know if that's something this commission has ever discussed before.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: You know, we had one project that the owners hired a sort of a company on a Somerville to go in and salvage a bunch of materials. Never wholesale, like they've never completely dismantled the building or anything like that.
[Adam Hurtubise]: But, you know, there will be some thing to save off of the structure.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: So yeah, that might, yeah, might be might be neat. To be able to do. Okay, great. All right. Next up, we have the public comment portion of the meeting. So, what I will suggest is we hear those against demolition and then those for demolition. If anybody just wants to ask general questions, happy to take those 2 as well. And. If we could hold comments for about five minutes max per person, that would be great. If you have any comments, just please raise your hand. I'll acknowledge you. Starting with those for preservation.
[Adam Hurtubise]: And seeing none, we'll go those against.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: And seeing none, I'm going to say there's no public comment at this time. So we'll close comments. Commissioners, anything else to add to this conversation before we take a vote?
[Kit Collins]: I think I saw the Google Pixel 7 try, like, unmuted and then remuted. If that person's on their phone, they might not be able to raise their hand.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: There we go. Oh, yeah, there he goes. Yeah. I'll ask to unmute if we'll see if they can.
[ZQDZZh_VfdI_SPEAKER_09]: Can you hear me?
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: I can hear you, yes.
[ZQDZZh_VfdI_SPEAKER_09]: Oh, God, I was having flashbacks from the planning board meeting.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: I'm sorry. And your name and address for the record, please.
[ZQDZZh_VfdI_SPEAKER_09]: I'm going to raise my hand on this thing. So I'm Greg Maynard. I'm the builder. So I just wanted to kind of run down real quick on a few of the things that I have regarding the Form B. And so I'm just going to go at it. I'll try to get through it as quickly as I can. So according to the form B, it's a bungalow style house, which is found in many places at Fulton Heights, including Wilson Street. As you guys noted, the house next door is identical. There's also a house across the street that's similar to that. And if you look diagonally, there's a house that's the same footprint and looks like the roof was raised on it that looked very similar to it. So I don't think it's really a unique characteristic of a house for that area. I mean, I believe they've done it quite a few times whoever was building up there used the same floor print. So when we walked through the house, a lot of the originality was gone. My speculation that there was fire damage from the fire in the attic, smoke damage, and obviously water to put the fire out must have ruined a lot of the interior finishes. And the house has been gutted. And like you mentioned that there was paneling put back up to cover up, they didn't do any drywall or anything like that. So there aren't any, I disagree with the, there aren't any new or old doors that were there in the original house. I mean, the one exterior door that's leading up to the attic looked like it was repurposed. But going on with that, The, like Mr. Codd pointed out in the last meeting, it doesn't really make it practical for me to try and save this house, to try and bring it up to a livable dwelling. The roof would need to be removed and plenty of, updates would need to be done, including the floor system in the basement. Those timbers are spread pretty far apart and have to be structurally redone. So I'd be reframing the whole basement floor, going around those timbers that you guys pointed out. And we really don't know what the second floor system looks like. Also, the nature of the house, there hasn't been any historical people that lived there, no events that we can say. So the possibility of it being an old schoolhouse, I don't see any supported evidence that it is, other than the hearsay that somebody said it was possibly moved. The house was owned by Irish immigrants. He was a meatpacker and a laborer, and he had eight kids. I just don't see how he could afford to move a school at that time period. I mean, that would have been a huge feat. Also, You know, with eight kids, I think it would have went for more than three rooms on the first floor. I mean, the attic is just wide open and not a lot of finishes up there. There wasn't even any handrails on the attic staircase or anything. It was a pretty dangerous situation. With that said, I do disagree with the board's binding on the time frame for which the house was built. Because if you look at the plan, the form B, the site plan that was done in 1936 shows that the house was not even there at the time. There was a separate house on the adjacent lot that is no longer there. So it seems like the original owners may have lived there until at least 1936. And then the only other indication to me that this house that we're talking about is the 1950 plot plan that is on the form B. So, I mean, the actual timeframe of when the actual house was constructed is in question. Also the outbuilding, or the garage in the back in 1950, what they show on the plan is completely different than what's there now. I don't think that building was constructed at the same time as the house. It's got different materials that we used that are inconsistent with what was used in the house. So in going forward or trying to do a rehab or anything on the house, I mean, the cost would just be absorbing it with the square footage of the house. It wouldn't make sense. I mean, the house wouldn't be big enough for me to do a rehab, invest that kind of money, and I'd never get the return on it. I'd be upside down. Because I'd essentially be saving four walls and a field store violation. So in regards to the board, as far as, you know, the timbers, I mean, I think the biggest question is, is those four timbers are used as a girder in the basement, whether or not where they got them, who knows where they came from, but I'd be more than willing to save those and give them to whoever wanted them. I typically do save timbers like that to use for repurposing of like mantles or if somebody wanted to put a fox beam in their living room or something. We've done that before. But as far as my opinion, I don't think this demolition of the building would be detrimental to the historical, cultural, or architectural heritage of the city. I appreciate your time. Thanks.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Thank you, Mr. Maynard. Thank you. Mr. Maynard, can I just have your address for the record, just so Peter can put it in with his meeting minutes?
[8Sqy8gyjolU_SPEAKER_08]: Actually, I found it. It's on the application.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Oh, you got it on the demo application? Okay, great. Thank you.
[8Sqy8gyjolU_SPEAKER_08]: Yep, thanks.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: All right, commissioners, final thoughts? I will go back to the motion. So the motion on the table is that Doug made a motion to find to 31 Wilson Street, not preferably preserved with no nickels seconding. So a yes vote will mean that it's not preferably preserved. And a no vote means that it is preferably preserved. So it's opposite. That's why I hate doing that. But whatever, we'll do it that way. So I will go around as I see you on my zoom call. So Peter? Yes. and kit yes and eleni yes and doug yes okay four zero all right we are all set so i will get that letter out and uh greg you will be all set we'll release the demo permit when we file that paperwork
[Doug Carr]: Ryan, can we make sure we try to get the form be corrected to the best of our ability? I think to build on what Aline said, I think that would be good to make sure we don't let that fall through the cracks.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Yeah, I can see if I can send some stuff to John to see if he wants to take a look at it in person.
[Kit Collins]: And maybe it's like some appropriate documentation.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Yeah, I'll see if I can find somebody to do that, having a problem. finding somebody who wasn't.
[Doug Carr]: I'm trying to imagine this house making it from Roslindale to Medford.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Well, I mean, they would have dismantled it. It wouldn't have come whole. It definitely would not have come whole. It may have come piecemeal. It's 1930s or 40s on the back of a semi or possibly by rail, but unlikely.
[Doug Carr]: But you thought it potentially could have been earlier, right?
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Well, the building's definitely earlier. The framing is definitely way earlier than that. I mean, there's Victorian era, two Victorian era doors, weird floor plan that has some sort of like central entering vestibule, like a double back-to-back parlor, that sort of thing. So yeah, we'll see what we can do to capture that stuff. Okay, next up on the... list for public hearings is for Grove Street, preferably preserved hearing. So just to save ourselves some time, I reiterated the general process. So this is the public hearing section of the process for this property. Commissioners, I uploaded the MHC form B to the public hearing. to the Google Drive, so it's there, so I'll entertain a motion and then to get the discussion on the table, hear your thoughts, then we'll go to public comments, and then we'll come back and circle back. And just so you guys know, the owners and their architects representative are here. So a motion for or against preferential reserve status for Four Grove.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'd make a motion for preferably preserve for this building for 4 Grove Street.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Thank you, Peter and a 2nd. 2nd. Okay, Peter, you start comments.
[8Sqy8gyjolU_SPEAKER_08]: I feel like this is a. A prominent house, it commands a very important corner of the street, Grove Street and High Street. Similar houses, we have found preferably preserved just up the street. I forget the number, the gentleman's house, but very similar property. So I think it, although it's been denuded of some of its detail, there's still a lot in existence, too. I did have a question. What was the base of the porch originally? Do we know?
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Yeah, so there was a picture during reconstruction before this project. It was wood. There was no extant stone underneath that. Whatever was there was gone in a prior renovation that you can see on Google Street View.
[8Sqy8gyjolU_SPEAKER_08]: So we don't have any evidence that it was ever stone?
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: You can keep talking and bring up that, and I will see if I can find my historic images.
[8Sqy8gyjolU_SPEAKER_08]: It was just a point of curiosity. So, not exactly sure what happened with the demolition, but I think this, this housing is this very prominent porch would be worth looking at and hopefully restoring to its former beauty grace. So that's why I'm, I'm in favor of preferably preserved status. Thanks.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Thank you, Peter. And Eleni.
[Kit Collins]: Yeah, I am. I agree with Peter. I think the house has similar characteristics to other houses around it. I think any demolition or major change would really alter the streetscape. And the fact that it's on such a prominent corner, I think, bolsters the argument for preferably preserved. And I don't really have much else to add on top of what Peter said. Is that I agree with him?
[Adam Hurtubise]: OK.
[MCM00001614_SPEAKER_01]: To me, it's sort of clearly preferably preserved. I don't really have much to add other than that. And it looks from earlier photos that the stairs were brick, but it's hard to tell what the base of the original porch was because it looks like it was sided.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Yeah, it's gone through a bunch of different incarnations over time. The one picture that I have of the delta there does not really show, it definitely is not Uh, definitely not stone, uh, but it's, um, you know, it could have been built and it's just gone through a bunch of different incarnations, but, uh, the wood is there now. And of course the, um, there was no, you know, at least the, whatever was there, if it was anything stone, it's went away a long time ago before, before this current incarnation.
[Doug Carr]: Okay.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Uh, Doug.
[Doug Carr]: Yeah, I agree with most of the comments, my commissioners, the, not just on the corner, but the commanding with the, With the park in front of it, this building has a unique setting that is as few in the city has. And I think, um. You know, there's a lot of really solid and great buildings on growth street and I think. I think until this 1 was was was stripped there. It was 1 of them, but I think I think that we should. Do our best to try to bring it back to the degree we can to the. What it was to before that's my general thought.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Great Jen, do you want to comment on this property? Before I move to public comment.
[Jennifer Keenan]: Hi, no, I don't have anything else to add other than what the commissioners have already said.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: So I will go to public comment now, get those speaking for demolition to speak first, those against demolition to speak second, and welcome at this time the homeowner and his architect to speak if you guys want to kick off the public comments. You don't have to, but you're welcome to.
[SPEAKER_02]: Appreciate it. Peter Lewandowski from LR designs were the architects on the project. Um, and I let you just to reinforce the board that, um, the little overzealous reaction to rebuilding the deck was a reaction to the building department asking to reframe the structure because of the rotting framing members. Um, and it was the process of restoring it was kind of went in the wrong direction, but we plan on going back and repairing everything to the original condition of the porch. The siding, the columns, the railings, basically all the details that you have seen in the Google Maps will be restored back to that condition. One thing that we do ask the board is on the side facing High Street to add a stair to get to the yard so you don't have to walk all the way around the front. And then there are stairs in the front that are brick that are not in great condition. We like to replace those with a traditional more wooden stair in the same baluster detail that's on the existing house. So our intent is to basically restore the front porch to its original condition.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Great, thank you. Other public comments?
[SPEAKER_02]: Sir, what was your address again? Mine? Yeah. 64 Alston Street, Suite 3, Cambridge. Thank you.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: All right. Seeing no hands raised, I'm going to go ahead and close public comments. Commissioners, do you have anything else to add to this conversation before we wrap it up?
[8Sqy8gyjolU_SPEAKER_08]: I would just say, um, one for the comments, uh, I'm really heartened to hear what you said. And, um, um, I look forward to getting you off of this demolition delay as soon as we can. Once we see that if you can provide us with the drawings of what it's going to look like, or some kind of, um, you know, this new stairway and stuff off the side, then we can try to get this moving quickly, I think, if we vote for it to be preferably preserved, that is.
[Doug Carr]: Absolutely. I guess one other question I had is our other, the porch was obviously the major, I think the major concern. And I think that's been addressed. What about the siding? Were there other issues that the members of the board have when we looked at it a month ago, when we looked at it? I don't recall the details of the conversation because we have so many before us each week. Were there other concerns beyond the porch?
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Stucco. And most of that work, I believe is, Peter, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe most of that work is either ongoing or done on the outside, other than the board.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, unfortunately, the budget, we would have liked to strip it. That was my vote. But unfortunately, the stucco was left. It was in pretty good shape. We patched areas that we could, and we painted it, basically, kind of keeping the same character of what it was.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Yeah, stucco is a, is there wood underneath there?
[SPEAKER_02]: I believe there's enough thicknesses. We didn't do too much investigation, but I believe there is collaborative siding underneath there. So I'm sure there's a lot of interesting things that are buried, unfortunately.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Yeah, Medford went through a period of stucco like the 1910s and 20s, so it's not surprising. But it itself is sort of historic now.
[Jennifer Keenan]: Ryan, one comment that I would like to make, since I practically drive by this house every day, going to and from wherever I'm going, the two dormers that were added, the siding does not match. Um, so they put some modern siding on there versus the stucco that's on the rest of the exterior. So that might be something that the subcommittee want, um, you know, if it goes. Under preferably reserved, and this goes to subcommittee for discussion on how to move forward on the delay might be something the group wants to discuss.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Okay.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: We'll take a look at pictures. Maybe it might be wise for the subcommittee to make a field visit, too, just to get a sense of the building. So, okay. Any other comments before I move to a vote? All right, moving to a vote. A motion was made by Peter to find for significance, seconded by Kit, right? No, it was Eleni, sorry.
[Jennifer Keenan]: Point of clarification, Ryan, it's preferably preserved. I am assuming not significance.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Oh, yeah, sorry. Yeah, that Peter made a motion to find for preferably preserved status. And Eleni seconded. So I'll go around as I see you. Peter?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: And Kit?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: And Eleni? Yes. And Doug?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: And Jen, yes, great. All right. Motion passes 5 to 0. so we will get you the documentation. I'll put you in touch with the. The subcommittee and if you guys want to meet with them, usually it's over zoom just to review plans where you guys were at with the design and then see if there's any changes necessary. And then we'll bring it back to the board next month. I think you guys can get it done in 30 days.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, great. And then will they contact me Mr. Hayward or should I contact?
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Yes, I will. If you send us the plans, I'll forward them to you and I'll loop you in on that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Fantastic. Okay. Great. Thank you so much.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Thank you all.
[SPEAKER_02]: Appreciate your time.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Okay, next up, the commission will resume its regular meeting with new business 26 Rockwell, the determination of significance. Commissioners, I sent around the MHC form B on the Google Drive. I'll entertain a motion for, again, significance for this property. Yeah, John.
[Jennifer Keenan]: Ryan, I'll make a motion to fine for significance on 26 Rockwell Avenue.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Okay, thank you. And a second? I'll second. Oh, I saw Doug, but I'll give it to Doug. I saw it.
[Kit Collins]: That's fine. I got the last one.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Okay. All right, Jen, if you want to kickstart the conversation.
[Jennifer Keenan]: Sure. I found the Form B extremely interesting. I think at first glance, you see this tiny little bungalow and you're like, oh, this isn't anything overly interesting. And then when you read about the concrete block construction, I found that kind of fascinating. And I think in the time I've been on the commission, I have not seen anything like this come before us. I think that coupled with the recommendation by the consultant that it could contribute to a historic district, or excuse me, a listing in the National Register, to me, certainly warrants to be found at least significant for tonight's discussion. And I will leave it at that.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Thanks, Doug.
[Doug Carr]: I agree with a lot of what Jen said. I'm not quite as strong on this. The block is unique. You're not wrong about that, Jen, but I didn't think it was enough. But I'm willing to kind of, I think, pause this process and do a little bit more digging. I would like to see the inside. I would like to visit the house and look at it personally. You know, the photos are obviously taken during the dead winter. And just to look at it a little closer, because I agree with Jen. I don't think there is many like this. And bungalows are kind of disappearing slowly but surely in the city. I think we've seen that a lot. So I'm not quite as gung ho as Jen, but I certainly think it's worth a pause here.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Thanks. Eleni, we'll go to you next.
[Kit Collins]: So I think I agree with Jen. I just think this house is incredibly unique. Like, yes, it's a bungalow, but the types of materials used and like it's just state of preservation, at least from the photographs, looks quite good. It would be nice to do like a site visit and look at the interior as well to see if that holds up as well as the exterior. But I'm, you know, leaning towards significance.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: And Ken?
[MCM00001614_SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'm with Jen. I found this in a very interesting building. And the idea that it was somewhere in the Form B that it perhaps was an example of the building materials and construction of the owners as sort of an advertisement, really interesting. I don't know of another building like this one in Medford or anywhere, actually.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Great. And Peter?
[8Sqy8gyjolU_SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, I found the, well, let me rephrase that. While I found the story of the house and the materials and everything compelling, I find the architecture of the house itself less compelling. And so I think the story is more interesting than the product, but I guess that's where I'm coming down on it. Thanks.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Okay. So I'll add two things to this story, because I think this is a good teachable moment for the commissioners. So concrete block houses are extremely rare in this community. So out of this one, there is an identical house next door, I believe. So it's not just this one by itself. There's two, I think, side by side. There's probably 10 of these in the entire city. There's a handful of them that have reached full two stories. There's a couple in South Medford near Magoon Square. But, you know, it's kind of interesting to see these products. And, you know, John Clemson is completely right that they had these sort of machines that would churn out these blocks but for all of the concrete block garages that are out there that are like a lesser quality material you've probably heard the expression a cinder block and so cinder blocks are literally the product of the railroad industry and a way for railroads to figure out a creative and sort of economical way to dispose of railroad waste ash from their steam engines. This is the 1930s, so it's still the golden era of steam. So that's why uh they're produced and called cinder blocks because they are literally made from the ash of trains and mixed with concrete and they're usually cheap and sometimes frail which is why now after 70 years of being outside a lot of these concrete block garages are failing um but you know usually the higher quality materials those that are actually used to build houses um are made by a higher quality Portland cement product that then can stand the test of time. It seems like this building certainly has weathered well for its age. With that said, we have a motion on the table for significance made by Jen, Doug seconded, so I'll go around as I see you, starting with Peter.
[Adam Hurtubise]: No.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: No. And Kit? Yes. And Eleni?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: And Jen? Yes. And Doug?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Okay. Uh, motion passes 4 to 1. So I will get that paperwork out to the homeowner with the letter of significance and will do the legal ad. And then there's a signage requirement that we have to, uh, that they have to post in order to have the public hearing, which will be next month on March 10. Okay, next up we have 76 Court Street determination of significance commissioners again. I posted the MHC form B in the Google Drive. I will entertain a motion.
[Jennifer Keenan]: I will make a motion to find for significance at 76 Court Street.
[Adam Hurtubise]: And a second. I'll second. All right, Jen, you want to start?
[Jennifer Keenan]: Sure, I thoroughly read the Form B here, and I think a couple of things stood out to me. One was the age itself. Certainly, it's one of pushing towards that pre-1875 age. I think that alone is enough to warrant significance. But also, I found the story of the architecture very interesting, especially the comment from our consultant that said that, you know, the L's and some of the things that I think at the surface would appear to be add-ons of a later time are actually not and that they're part of the original structure of the home. So I just thought that kind of detail and certainly, you know, the beautiful columns on the front and, you know, the significance that it plays on the street is enough to warrant for significance in my opinion.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Thanks and Lenny.
[Kit Collins]: Yeah, I think after reading the form be, you know, again, the age really stood out to me. And Yeah, although it does look like there have been additions, I still think the original essence of the building is there. It's hard to tell from that one photograph. But I think between the historical research and the age of the building, that's enough to me to determine significance.
[Adam Hurtubise]: And I'll go to Kit.
[MCM00001614_SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think it's significant as well. age and the architecture.
[Adam Hurtubise]: And Doug?
[Doug Carr]: Yeah, I concur. The columns in the front, the presence and the age, I really think it would be a loss for this building to be toward the auto demo for sure. Great.
[8Sqy8gyjolU_SPEAKER_08]: And Peter? Nothing to add.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: All right, motion's been made and seconded to find for significance. I'll go around as I see you, Peter?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: And Kit?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: And Eleni?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: And Jen? Yes. And Doug?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Okay, motion passes 5-0. So we will have a public hearing next month, just like we did today for the other two properties. And there'll be a signage requirement and a legal notice posted. And we will be in touch with the owner and get them, get them out and get them to the table. Okay, next up we have 115 Emerald Street, a determination of significance. So commissioners, we don't have enough information to make a determination tonight. So I wondered if we could pass on review. I know we sent over this information, but the consultants were completely swamped with everything else we gave them. So I'm hoping to just pass on review on this one.
[Jennifer Keenan]: Yeah, I don't think we have a choice except to pass on review because we're coming up on the time deadline to give them their hearing. So yeah, I think it's just a pass on review and that's that.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Any further discussion? I'll entertain a motion.
[Jennifer Keenan]: I'll make a motion to pass on review for 115 Emerald Street.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: OK, and a second.
[Jennifer Keenan]: Second.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Thank you, Lenny. Okay, go around, Peter. Yes. And Kit. Yes. And Lenny. Yes. And Jen. Yes. And Doug. Yes.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Motion passes 5-0, so we'll get that paperwork out to the owners. Next up, we have 19 Curtis Street. We're gonna receive the demolition application. Commissioners, it's on the Google Drive, I sent it out. I'll entertain a motion to approve this.
[8Sqy8gyjolU_SPEAKER_08]: Motion to receive the application demolition, demolition application, excuse me. What does Ed say as to form?
[Unidentified]: Yes, yes.
[Jennifer Keenan]: I'll second that. I'll second the motion to receive the application for 19 Carter Street.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Great. All right. I'll go around as I see you, Peter.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: And Lenny. Yes. And Jen. Yes. And Doug.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Okay, 5-0 approved. I already have an MHC inventory form in the works for this building, so next month. So that's all set. 122-124 Woodruff Avenue. We need to receive the demolition application.
[Jennifer Keenan]: Ryan, I'm going to recuse myself from this one since the applicant is an agent in my office. So I'm just going to mute myself and turn off my camera until this is done.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: This is a reminder. OK. 122-124. Commissioner, I'll entertain a motion to receive the application.
[MCM00001614_SPEAKER_01]: I'll move to receive the application.
[Adam Hurtubise]: And a second?
[Unidentified]: Second.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: OK. All right, going around. Peter?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: And Ken?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: And Lenny? Yes. And Doug?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: All right, 4-0 passed. We need to, I will allocate funding for an MHC Form B. Usually there's a standing order, so unless you guys feel the need to approve it, I'll just go ahead and order a form for this for next month. Last up is 53 Winford Way. We did receive the application for demo for this one. It straddles the line. This is one of those rare cases where the house, you can actually live in one town and sleep in the other.
[Jennifer Keenan]: I'd also like to point out that this is a 1950 construction, so it is literally on the line of being reviewable or not. I actually would like to make a motion that we pass on review on this one.
[Adam Hurtubise]: All right, motion to pass on review. And a second? I'll second.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: I think 2nd discussion. I need to discuss do we want to review? Do we not want to review?
[Jennifer Keenan]: I mean, I'll chime in on my reasoning again. I think because it was built in 1950, it's right on the line and it looks like a very traditional standard Cape that doesn't appear to be anything. Interesting or spectacular on the surface. And. Yeah, I'll just leave it at that.
[Doug Carr]: And there's quite a large building being proposed to take its place.
[Jennifer Keenan]: I mean, it just seems like a better use of the lot, frankly.
[Doug Carr]: Yeah, I can't imagine them be finding that building significant, personally.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Yeah, there's there's other there's wetlands in the back. So whatever, whatever is being proposed will need to be reviewed by the whoever's conservation commission. It technically is in Medford. So I think Medford's cons comm will probably get it but it could be Winchester. So or maybe Ryan. Yeah.
[Denis MacDougall]: Yeah, I can. Oh, yeah. Good time to chime in. So they've already come before the calm calm and gotten approval. Oh, okay, great. For that footprint. What was that? For that house, as proposed. For that house, yeah. For the new proposed house, yeah.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Okay, cool. So, yeah, any other discussion on whether or not, or pass on review? If not, I'll go to the vote. All right, seeing none, I'll call it as I see it. So, Peter?
[8Sqy8gyjolU_SPEAKER_08]: Yes for passing on review.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Yeah. And Kit?
[8Sqy8gyjolU_SPEAKER_08]: Yes.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: And Lenny? Yes. And Doug? Yes. Great. And Jen?
[Jennifer Keenan]: Yes.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: All right, 5-0 approved. Great, so we will get that letter out saying that we passed on review. All right, next up section 106 reviews commissioners I sent around I'll just take these both real quickly. 121 Riverside have the. AT&T sent a notice that they're just making very, very minor changes to the cell towers on the roof. I don't think we have any comments, so I'd like to just send back that we have no comment, because the building's being rehabbed by the housing authority, so there's nothing really historic about it at this point. Unless any of you disagree, I think that we should just send back comments saying we have no comments.
[Doug Carr]: We should pass?
[Jennifer Keenan]: Yeah, I'm totally fine with that.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: For 20 Harvard Ave, the Massachusetts Historical Commission came back because that building is a little bit more historic. It's actually, MHC believes it's National Register eligible. So they came back and asked the cell tower providers why they can't provide their new towers in all of the existing fake chimneys that are on that roof. There's something like, something absurd number like 15 or something like that now. So I think we can let MHC duke it out, and I think we should just continue to have no comment on that particular project as well. So unless anybody opposes, we'll have that, and they'll just say no comment at this point. Hearing none, we'll be good to go. All right, so for cross street cemetery monument restoration, so we're on to the pilot programs. So. I would like to propose that the commission and the cemetery trustees work together again to start to execute the plan to restore headstones across street cemetery. We had a consultant, as, you know. Pulled together a list of work that was needed to be done for headstones. I went back to the freedoms way National Heritage area that gave us one of the grants to ask if they would be willing to fund the restoration work. The answer out of that was yes. Yes, we would. So I've already actually secured money from them. I'm going to the CPC board tomorrow at 6.30 to request a small grant match. That leaves $2,500 on the table for funding. We have enough money in our budget. Even if we spend wildly on inventory forms, we wouldn't come close to spending it all. So I'd love to ask the commission to fund the remaining $2,500. so that we can focus on the restoration of up to 15 headstones. Specifically, these are headstones of the veterans in the cemetery. I think that's the priority. It'll help the consultants become familiar with the type of work necessary on the headstones themselves. And then it sets the stage for the cemetery trustees to apply for the big funding from CPC in the fall, coupled with potentially a state, there's like a state records board grant that funds more information and more restoration grants on things related specifically to veterans. So if there's other stones related to them, then we can continue to use their money too as well. So I'm asking the commissioners to approve a $2,500 allocation towards this project.
[Jennifer Keenan]: I have one question.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Yep, go for it.
[Jennifer Keenan]: Do we have any worry that, and I don't even know if this would matter because I don't know that we can carry anything over, that our budget would be reduced at all our next fiscal year and we might need this money for forms for next fiscal year.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: So funding doesn't carry over, so that's a great question. So Freedom's Way grant is contingent that we spend their money and give them their final report by September 1st. The consultants that did the assessment also do restoration. They're pretty confident that they can do it actually before the end of the fiscal year, provided the weather is good. So, and there's usually some overlap in budget, like, you know, we try to end the fiscal year on, you know, June 30 for July 1 rollover, but then there's some leeway. There's usually like a 30-day lapse. So, for like processing invoices that, you know, for people who work up until the 11th hour, the end of the month. You know, we can't carry our budget over, so the more we allocate now, the more it will fall into that sort of grace period. And again, even if we were spending money on our budget for forms a month between now and June, we would basically break even, you know. So we can, you know, every month that we don't have inventory forms to prepare, we can just, you know, allocate it towards another project.
[Doug Carr]: Ryan, I don't disagree with your approach, although I think if you went before the CPC tomorrow night, the board that I sit on, and you asked for $5,000, they would probably give it to you if I had to guess, given the context of the situation and what you're asking for. But we also, I mean, just earlier this meeting, we didn't have a forum B that would have been great to have because this timing didn't work, but maybe we could spend that money in other ways. I'm okay with spending it, but I don't think I want to spend it just to spend it. I think the CPC will probably give you the 5K. If there's other things we could do with that money, I'm okay with that too.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Yeah. Yeah, so the CPC funding will match the Freedom's Way grant, which is a two-to-one match, so that's not a problem. This will help us get to be able to do all of the veterans' headstones as part of the pilot project, rather than just leave a few of them off. And there'll be some trade-offs, like one of them doesn't have a, the top of it has disappeared. So I'm gonna talk with the consultants about recreating the headstone, but that may be cost prohibitive. So we'll save that for the bigger project. So I'm just, you know, and they said that they'd be willing to work on like the stone of a spouse related to the veterans, because they're usually side by side, you know, so there's a little bit of flexibility there. And I am trying to keep it under $10,000 to go along with the CPC small grant.
[Jennifer Keenan]: Is there a reason you can't just ask for $5,000 from CPC and then if they don't give it to you, we back up?
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Oh, I'm going to ask for $5,000 from CPC, but this is in addition to that so that we have a nice even $10,000 project.
[Jennifer Keenan]: Oh, sorry, OK.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Yeah.
[Jennifer Keenan]: OK, so it's not $25,000, $25,000, $25,000.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: No, it's CPC is getting 50% Freedoms Way has 25 and I'm asking for the other 25 to come from. So there's a nice distribution there. And then I am working with Stacey Clayton to approach the mayor about asking in the there, meaning the cemetery trustees budget. For funding, whether it comes out of city funding or their own endowment allocated specifically towards the restoration of monuments from year to year because they will always have problems with monuments weathering. So it might as well just establish a small fund year to year that they might be able to tackle five or 10 or however many so And so that they have funding to help themselves, you know, more than just we're sort of contributing now with the expectation that they'll maintain the cemetery in the future. Further discussion?
[Jennifer Keenan]: Do we need a motion?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yep.
[Jennifer Keenan]: I'll make a motion to allocate $2,500 to the Cross Street Cemetery Monument restoration.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Great, and a second.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: 7. Thank you, Doug. All right, I'll go around as I see you. Peter?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: And Kit?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: And Eleni?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: And Doug?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes. And Jen? Yes. Great, 5-0 approved.
[MCM00001614_SPEAKER_01]: Can I ask a related, but unrelated question. Which is the Salem, I'm just thinking about monument restoration, the Salem Street burying ground, whose purview is that under?
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: It's under the cemetery trustees and we, meaning the commission, I think maybe Doug might have been on the commission and I was on there, but Nino Susi and a man named Bob Spry worked with the mayor's office to get a mass preservation project funding grant for the restoration planning for that cemetery and then the actual execution of the restoration of, I don't know, 150 headstones or something like that, and took them the better part of two or three years to actually undertake and complete all that work, but we spent a boatload of money on that cemetery, so we're just kind of I use that to acquire grants by saying that we've already undertaken one project in the past and then that's one of the reasons why freedoms way gave us the grant because we already have one under our belt, so to speak, so that and this. project, this little tiny cemetery, sort of sets the precedent for what the cemetery trustees would do in the older portion of Oak Grove, because there's a lot of stones in there that are toppled over and just need some work and need some dressing up over many, many, many years, including the landscaping itself.
[MCM00001614_SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: You're welcome. Anything else? Okay, I have 1 thing to add for new business before we go into old business and I think. I think it wasn't on the agenda, but we had talked about this a while back and I sort of have a loose idea on how to do it. We had talked about doing. renewal of our overarching directives for demolition delay. For example, the last time we set a directive for concrete block garages was actually 2018. I think it's time we actually renew that at some point. Then I had talked about creating an overarching way to expedite pre-1900 buildings from rather than waiting for significance to just find them all significant. So I have some thoughts written out. I would like to establish a three or four person subcommittee to sort of hash them out and bring it to the commission for approval next month if some people want to. join me on that or support those ideas just so we sort of go back and look at those and then set directives. And this is just a pure way to sort of expedite some of these reviews that are coming up so that they can basically, you know, move forward in the process quicker if you have a certain type of building.
[Kit Collins]: I mean, I'd help you with that.
[Doug Carr]: Okay.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Anybody else?
[Jennifer Keenan]: I will volunteer to edit the first draft of what you write up.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: I will do that. I'm going to rope, Ed's not here, but I'm going to rope Ed into it. So yes, and then you can have it after Ed's at it. How's that? Yeah, that's fine. We'll go from like, like legalese, solid legalese to like making sure that it sounds public friendly. Oh, OK. All right. Good. All right. So we'll we'll do that and we'll we'll circle back. We'll try to group everybody together so that we can try to do as many things as once as we can at once. OK, thank you. Jen, was there something else that I seem to recall? I had you remind me of. I totally.
[Jennifer Keenan]: You texted me something to remind you and hold on. Uh, it was the cemetery project.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: OK, alright, good, that's it. OK, great, I did that good. Yeah, OK, we'll move forward into old business unless anybody else has anything new. I'd seen none. preservation ordinance discussion. Along those lines, Jen Doherty, I think I said, sent me a whole bunch of ordinances. I've been reading them. Some of them are buried way deep in so much legal jargon, but I'm sort of pulling extracts for you guys to sort of show the highlights and I'll try to bring that to the, maybe we'll have like a, Sort of a separate meeting outside of the regular meetings list to sort of go over that and the hash out the demo delay directives. Maybe on a night that there isn't anything active on the table might be a might be a good time. Okay. For demo properties under demo delay, I think we agreed to refer 27 almost 3 to the HTC. So I'm going to try to sit down with the historic district commission on possibly Thursday. If they're meeting on Thursday, luckily for us. Teresa is their staff person now, so, and she regularly meets with the chair, which is great to have, like, a standing. Monthly phone call before the meeting so that they know what's going on and I think that that will be. useful to let them know that we'll be coming to the table, and they can take advantage of the time that I'm there just to, if they have any questions on procedure and stuff like that. And we'll see if we can try to get them to meet on a monthly basis. And they have a full board now. So there's seven people on that board. So it'll be great to see them move forward. I am having difficulty, though, finding somebody to do documentation. So part of the issue, I did, Doug, circling back to your comment about spending money, and the issue with the consultants is that the current people that we use are just so incredibly busy that they were not able to do all of the forms at once that we gave them, and I actually put some of the other ones that we didn't need off until this month. I did shop around. I did asks. Some of the consultants that normally work in this field, if they were willing to or able to do a forms for a certain set price and a certain time, and they were not willing to buy into the process, so we were out of luck there. But I do think it's important that we start to establish a relationship with other consultants in this field, because the current consultants love doing what they're doing, but they're not going to be doing it forever.
[Doug Carr]: Was it the time, the money, or both?
[Adam Hurtubise]: I think it's the time. It's the time.
[Jennifer Keenan]: But also, I think since I've been on the commission, the price hasn't changed. So I wonder if we need to raise the price a little bit of what we're offering.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: No, because we're offering, I would say, that's more than the fair rate of what the grant paid work pays. So really, I wouldn't say it's easier to research a single-off building. It's nicer when you have a group of them, but we are paying probably three times the rate that Mass Historical pays for their grants. Their work is not very well-funded. The benefit is that you're doing a bunch of buildings with a common history, whereas the trade-off with us is we're doing a one-off building that may or may not be in an area that the consultants are familiar with or have researched previously. So I wouldn't say that the price is an issue. I mean, jacking up the price is only going to attract, say, a firm with more overhead, but you're not going to get a better quality product for that time frame.
[Doug Carr]: Ryan, we're talking about $500 for each Form B, right?
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Yep.
[Doug Carr]: I mean, I don't know what hourly rate you think these people are billing at, but Even at $100 an hour, each one, five hours, there's a lot of work in these forms. It seems like some of them are five, six, seven pages. I haven't done them, obviously. I think you probably have in the past, but does that seem reasonable? Because it seems a little low to me.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: I think some of the higher paid firms are probably charging $100, $125 an hour or something like that for that work. But some of the regular forms, I mean, six hours or five hours is probably a norm to create one of these forms. you know realistically like mhc their forms space like hundred and forty bucks a form or something like that for the number of forms that and you know there's government paperwork that goes along with those so you know i i would say where you know pretty well can we give a bonus to our consultants if we want to pay them more yes we could yeah i don't do i think that will help though i i don't know But also, I think it behooves us to, you know, if anything were to happen to the consultants, you know, it would be nice to have some other people to lean on. For documentation, Myron is too busy to be able to undertake this work. And it's very few people that do this type of documentation that he has done. So we may end up paying more for that. And the nominal numbers that we were giving him, like the $2,000 or $3,000 or something like that that we were paying for the report, in no way cover the amount of time that was necessary to really undertake those reports. report with any substance is easily a $5,000 to $10,000 proposition.
[Jennifer Keenan]: I definitely think we need to get more people. And I don't know how to go about doing that. Can we get some college students? Yeah, Eleni.
[Kit Collins]: Yeah, I was going to say, I can reach out to some of my faculty and maybe recent graduates. I don't know, college students sometimes Yeah, I think it's professionals just because like, you know, some of the faculty that I have that do this type of work for a living, they automatically know which places to go to to do the, you know, permit research, find historical photographs, things like that. So kind of once you get into the groove of it, it can go quite quickly unless it's like a really complex site or a Form A or something that's much more than just one building. But I can ask around to some of my faculty and see if They know someone or some recent graduates who are still in the area who might be interested in doing this type of work.
[Jennifer Keenan]: Yeah. And I think just to have like a deeper list of people to ask. Right. And then I also I wouldn't be opposed to. You know if there's something that is we need it like kind of quickly or there is something that kind of came up at the last minute and we're trying to like just get it on the agenda so that we can move forward like offering some sort of like rush fee. You know I mean at the risk of like. doge coming after us for like government waste. You know, I mean, honestly, I mean, obviously, we're I think we're very cautious with our budget. And certainly our budget is very nominal. But at the same time, I want to be respectful of the work that we're asking people to do. And recognize that if we are asking for something, and it needs to be turned around quickly, that we understand that there is you know, some sort of surcharge or bonus in that because we need it.
[Doug Carr]: I agree, Janet. A premium for a week turnaround was something we really need. We should be willing to pay that. I 100% agree with that.
[Jennifer Keenan]: Yeah, and knowing that, I mean, I think in the whole time I've been on the commission, I think besides Emerald Street tonight, I think we've only had one other instance where we didn't have a form to make a determination. Either it was an error or I think there was that one time that like John went away and he didn't have access to his computer. It was just like a mishap, but it's rare, right? So I think that having a few more people in our coffers to ask will obviously hopefully help avoid that situation. And then if we do have something and we can put it out there to people to say, hey, we have this kind of urgent need and we're willing to pay for it, that might also incent somebody to take it.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Yeah, and I mean, there's always oversight. It's good experience. They don't have experience. I'm happy to review, provide comments, that sort of thing. I would like to maybe be able to try to find a way to maybe connect the existing consultants with the potential new ones type of thing to try to find a way to work together. You know, just to see how that is, and that might work for documentation too as well. I don't know how deep we can go into it, but I'm also happy to use it as sort of a quasi learning experience. There are plenty of people, I'm sure Doug and Peter can appreciate this, that I can drill bad habits out of people drawing buildings. know, because there's plenty of bad drawers out there, unfortunately.
[Jennifer Keenan]: So, you know, Ryan, there's a comment in the chat from one of our participants here tonight saying that, is it you know, can we invite retired folks to do some of this work, but I don't know what the I think these people have to be credentialed.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: For this particular type of work. Yes, but it doesn't mean that we can't set people to a task of say researching a neighborhood or something like that. If we had an area of interest that was just research based. I think that certainly might be a fun project to do.
[Kit Collins]: Yeah, I mean, I might have retired folks that Maybe did work as historians or architectural historians or architects and you know I have a faculty member who's retiring and I have a call with her tomorrow, you know she could definitely do something like this.
[Jennifer Keenan]: I mean, I think, for you know us. I mean, certainly district, the Brooks Estate. I mean, if there are folks out there that are willing to volunteer their time, you know, obviously this is something different because we pay for these forms. But if somebody is wanting to do researching or help with archiving or file sorting in any sort of volunteer basis, or perhaps some sort of nominal stipend, I think any one of us would love to hear from them. And please raise your hand, reach out. And I feel like if you will come to us, we will find you a project.
[Kit Collins]: Yeah. I think for the Form Bs, definitely, we should still pay. But yeah, I mean, that's not to say we can't use volunteer for other things. I agree with that.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: All right. So we'll keep working on that. So for form Bs for preemptive projects, I think the only one that we're waiting on, I ordered Curtis. We have one on Spring Street. We have the two that we took tonight, 122 Woodruff, but we didn't take Winford Way, so that's out, so that's good. And yeah, that's it. Is there any other properties that people have seen out on the market? Anything that we want to target? All right, so we'll, you know, if you see something, just send us an email because like I said, there's a standing order to just prepare form. So, if stuff seems like it's being targeted for a demo or for any sort of redevelopment opportunity, it's common terminology that we'll be able to figure that out.
[Jennifer Keenan]: Can we. Do we need to talk about anything with regards to the zoning project on Salem Street that a lot of folks are talking about in terms of our purview as historical and the density that might be coming there and anything in that, since we're talking about demo and forthcoming stuff?
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Yeah, I think it's fair to maybe ask There's a meeting going on tonight just for the full disclosure that where the city is talking with the residents about this pending change. I think it's important that the city take that information and review it with the consultants. And I think maybe we should ask to hear their clarifications as part of that and understand the. understand the potential zoning change there so that we can chime in on the existing density, existing historic resources in that neighborhood, because if folks are not aware, we went through two rounds of survey in East Medford, which contains the highest concentration of pre-1900 buildings anywhere, the highest concentration of pre-1875 and 1855 buildings anywhere in the city. So, and, you know, Salem Street, the corridor itself and Haines Square is pretty rich. both commercial and residential architecture. So it would be good to just chime in on that project. After perhaps some of the back and forth with the, you know, the city is going to be focused on dealing with and discussing this whole change with the residents. But I think it's important that we sort of chime in to provide our expertise, which is using the documentation that we've prepared for some of these projects and let it influence, you know, the directive there.
[Jennifer Keenan]: So yeah, I mean certainly there's a lot of properties over there have big lots. I mean, certainly enough from go from, you know, to go from single family to two units.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: And maybe Dennis, maybe we can connect to try to get some basic information for what's being proposed there. And we want to sort of loop in on what the city's already discussing with the residents. We don't necessarily, you know, we're not trying to add to their burden at this point. We're just trying to hop in and provide some comment that will help them. You know, do what's best for this, understand the neighborhood and do what's best for the neighborhood.
[Jennifer Keenan]: Right, I think the other thing is like, how do we comment. Constructively when nobody knows what's going to happen there yet. I mean, they're just saying these things are going to be changed to allow it to happen. But, you know.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Right, and perhaps this goes back to like establishing some.
[Jennifer Keenan]: It's not like we're looking at three blocks of like a site plan review, right? Like.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Right, and it goes back to like establishing directives, right? Because if they change the zoning and all of a sudden some of these major projects come on, we may see demolition after demolition proposed and you know. If we're standing in the way of something that the city has changed and set as a path for progress, we don't necessarily look very good. So we'd like to be a part of the process so that we can make a decision now on whether or not it's beneficial or whether or not it's going to cause problems down the road. Yeah.
[Doug Carr]: Ryan, what I would recommend is we might even put this to a subcommittee, although that might be difficult timing-wise because I feel like To Jen's point, we want to be engaged in a little bit, but we're really talking about about principles, right? When there's properties that are, we think, worth preserving or respecting, we need to come say that, and that needs to be part of the zoning discussion. It shouldn't be a blank slate, like they can just wipe out everything on Salem Street, which I know is the worst case scenario and the fear. We don't think that's likely, but there are clearly buildings and experiences along that street that are character defining and I think we can put together with a little thought and understanding at least where they're heading. how we could react to that and get in the game here, because obviously it's a pretty hot topic, and there's a lot of people who are nervous and afraid, and there's probably some misinformation out there, and there's a lot of unknowns, because as Jen said, we're not talking about a plan that we can react to, it's broader than that, and for better or worse, we need to kind of I think we should guide that plan a little bit and at least get our thumbs on the scale for what we feel is important.
[Jennifer Keenan]: I also think this could be an opportunity where we, and I don't know how easy it is to do this in what I feel like is not a lot of time, but like, what are the vulnerable houses in that grid? And I think we need to, at the very least, like put a list in front of them and say, these are the ones that, you know, are the most vulnerable. And also that, you know, we would prefer not to have a three-unit building built onto it or behind it or whatever. Can these be exempted from, and I don't know the legality of that, if it's a private homeowner or whatever, how can we say we don't want this to change? So I don't know about that, but this, I think that, You know, for the time I've been on this commission, we have lost a lot of houses that could have easily been single house historic districts. I don't know that district is working off of a list to try to tackle and protect some of these properties before it's too late. I think there's massive missed opportunity for things like that. And I don't know, I don't, and without them kind of steering the ship here, I feel like we need to, or maybe we come together as joint commissions and saying, hey, like, you know, we need to protect our historic resources in this neighborhood. And that has to be a massive part of the discussion of this that I don't know that anybody is considering right now.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Yeah, I think it would be beneficial to have them come to our meeting, especially for perhaps some of their for their new chair and their their new members to see how, first of all, to see how we run a meeting and see how we digest historically. resources and then to work with them on using the documentation that we've prepared and maybe come up with some priorities like, you know, saying, you know, we started Forest Street we'll go back to Forest Street or, you know, we started some of these other areas and we, you know, there's some support there, so maybe we go look at those. And I guess most importantly, if Salem Street is a good instance of that, perhaps we just start by asking the community what they would like to see preserved, and if there's any volunteers, because volunteer historic districts are the easiest to create, especially in a time where we have sort of a semi-unanimous city council.
[MCM00001614_SPEAKER_01]: I also think, I mean, I haven't heard that there's been very much discussion about the history of Salem Street or Haines Square at all. in sort of the larger zoning discussions about this. And it may be just if you, I mean, what you were starting to say at the beginning, Ryan, about, you know, an interesting historical inventory of residential and commercial houses. I mean, if we could provide, we've done surveys of other neighborhoods. Do we have anything on Salem Street that we could say, hey, look, you know, this is what you should know about the history of this area.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: yeah there's uh... there's lots of information on both the development history and hain square and some individual buildings up and down salem street i'd just you know there's a lot of density there are ready you know the slide three deckers is a lot of to family ask looking buildings that are actually threes uh... you know and you know there are some good development opportunities i don't disagree with that finding you know there's that stupid hole opposite the potter building that has been sitting for a while waiting for some new zoning but uh... you know and i'm i'm not opposed to some up zoning in in core locations uh... historically we've seen you know these one-page one-story taxpayer blocks were always meant is like a temporary hold and then they would build on top of them in and add buildings and there's some of that in haines square uh... and the stupid commercial strip malls that are there uh... you know can certainly be put away for some more high-rise density you know so there's opportunity i don't know uh... i don't know how much development will happen or what will happen to the existing buildings if say you have a large three-story residential house that's already occupied why would you tear it down to upzone unless you assemble a series of lots and pull them together.
[MCM00001614_SPEAKER_01]: But I think to Doug's point, it's the principle of the thing, right? I mean, it's we want to be part of these conversations before they get to the stage that they're at with Salem Street.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Yeah. And also, you know, too, it looks like some of the zoning is like fanning out into the adjacent lots on the neighborhood. So there's like a step down that's that's expected. But, you know, do we want to change those neighborhoods because that's going to clash against some of the lower density residential? Okay. Yeah.
[Jennifer Keenan]: And I, so what do we do? Because I feel like, well, I think we have already discussing this.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Yeah. They're discussing it. I think maybe we ask Alicia to bring us to the table. I write and ask them what their, I, I would ask them what their plan is for this. Cause I mean, if they're, If they're going to move forward with it, I, you know, I think that the bottom line is that I think they we should ask to come to the table.
[Jennifer Keenan]: You know, I feel like we should write a letter and maybe jointly with the District Commission and and outline our concerns. And perhaps, you know, throw some. addresses on there of like, you know, these are significant or refer them to the forms or whatever. I think we need to get something in writing and documented of our stance on this. And that, yes, we want to be invited to these conversations. And thus far, we haven't been, except obviously, we commented on the, excuse me, the comprehensive plan. That was a couple of years ago at this point. And any stakeholder conversations that are taking place within the city, we should all be involved in.
[Doug Carr]: We can write that letter in a couple of days, right? I don't know if we should do a joint with the other commission because that would, there'd be some coordination there. I think we can just get out. They can sign on to our letter if they want to, but I don't want to group write it because that group has, we've been around for a long, a cohesive commission for a fairly long time. It sounds like it's a whole, it's basically a new commission almost from ground up. But if we write that letter and talk about just broad concepts that we want to make sure they're part of a plan. and ask to be a stakeholder, ask to be engaged, try to bring our expertise to the table. I think that's enough to crack the door open before things get passed that perhaps we don't want. I think there's a good chance it will be heard. While we're doing that, we need to look at All our form these, you know, we need to kind of see what we've got and make it an assessment of the quarter from, you know, from pretty quickly. So we can, we can have some thoughts when we, if we're invited to the team.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Right. And I think the bottom line is, like any good engaging project, is that the goal is to get a product that's better than what we're currently seeing. And that's what we'll end up with, I think. No matter what happens with community involvement, with our involvement, with whoever's involvement, it'll be better than what it started with, because collective minds pull it together. OK. If I, I'm going to send out some macros data, you know, so that we can sort of pull together, like, here's the buildings that have been inventoried in this neighborhood type of thing. So you guys can see it. Doug, I know this is my neighborhood, but can you draft some sort of letter to get us started?
[Doug Carr]: I'll get us started and then I'll put it out to the crowd and the fabulous editors on this board will take it and make it better.
[Jennifer Keenan]: Yeah, and why don't we each look at the MACRS and say, OK, here's I think very quickly would probably come to a consensus on these are the ones. And I think we need to overlay that with the streets and the side streets and the depth of the side streets of how deep they're planning to go. Because I don't know if it's a full block back off of Salem. I think it's like three or four parcels.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah, it's a couple of lots.
[Jennifer Keenan]: So I think if we could mirror that with here are the properties that we feel are vulnerable within these areas, I think that would have a big impact.
[Doug Carr]: Is there a map? Is there anything we can reference point?
[Jennifer Keenan]: I think there is some, there's some sort of, I've seen some very loose.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Yeah, there's a map and there's their various presentations. There's no, the biggest problem I think most people are concerned about is there's no formal study of the corridor. So that may need to take place.
[Jennifer Keenan]: Well, our information is the start of a study for sure.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Our stop is the literal foundation for that study, yes.
[Jennifer Keenan]: Dennis Dennis, are you? Are you listening? Do you have the boundaries of this corridor? Is that written anywhere that we can look at?
[Adam Hurtubise]: I'm pretty certain it's on the I mean, I don't.
[Denis MacDougall]: I just have not worked on that in the slightest, but I can ask around if you actually better idea. Send me like an actual list of kind of what you're looking for and then I can make sure it gets the right person.
[Jennifer Keenan]: OK.
[Denis MacDougall]: I think that's probably the best way to make sure that I phrase it correctly instead of just trying to paraphrase.
[Jennifer Keenan]: OK, we'll do that.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: All right, great permit subcommittee. We have a bunch of stuff that we're working through. Jen's sort of holding down the fort on permits, asking for lots of information.
[Jennifer Keenan]: I'm going to refrain from commenting this month.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: There'll be some discussion with the building department on how that's proceeding, but Jen's handling it. Am I? Yeah, you will. I'm quite confident that you will. So. So, yeah, if you need any backup, let us let us know, but I don't think you will. CPA projects, I don't have anything to report on Thomas Brooks Park other than we hired the archaeologist. We're just sort of waiting for them to get started for better for better weather. I did start a conversation with tree work, but a. heard through the grapevine that there was a little bit of hesitancy on the city's part to help out with any sort of bid documents or anything like that. So I'm sort of researching what the best way to go about bidding out the tree work because that's sort of the largest component of this So I've, I've taken to not reinventing the wheel though and pulling a couple of communities that have done projects like this so as soon as they report back to me on how they've sort of handled things, then we'll go from there. for survey and planning projects. The consultants are underway with Sagamore Vale. They pulled together their phase one and two products, which they're going to focus on the area right behind City Hall. That is the neighborhood, Oakland, Water Street, Chestnut Street, that sort of thing. It's a lot of pre-1875 buildings. That'll be the focus of their project. And now the next phase is to determine which buildings they're going to actually inventory. We did get our grant in for Hastings Heights. So if all goes according to plan, we we will be able to hopefully get that MHC grant. We were asked to provide a little bit more funding so that the state could spend a little bit more of their match because they don't have a lot of applicants this year. So that was beneficial. So we're getting a little bit more for every dollar that we put into it. There was an inquiry that came in concerning a house on, was it Mystic Street? That was the home of Reverend John Pierpont. I'm wondering if the commissioners think it might be a good idea. It would be inventoried as part of this project and there was an inventory form done for it in the 70s. I wondered if it might be a good idea just to update the inventory form now rather than wait.
[Jennifer Keenan]: I'm fine with that.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Okay. All right, I'll order that.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Okay, so that project's ongoing. I don't have anything else for old business. Is there anything I missed?
[Jennifer Keenan]: No Ryan, can you since I was late and apologies to the rest of the board? Did we table 140 Summer Street for the sign? OK, and what happened with Wilson?
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Was not not preferably preserved.
[Jennifer Keenan]: OK.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Thanks, just taking notes great meeting minutes. Peter sent out meeting minutes.
[Jennifer Keenan]: Yes, there's a typo in my name, Peter, in the beginning. My last name. I'm offended.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Nice try, Peter. You can't get fired from this job. Oh, he's muted. I'll take a motion to approve. Peter, you're muted.
[8Sqy8gyjolU_SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, I lost my screen there for a minute. I heard though.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Okay, um. Pending that correction, I'll take a motion to approve.
[Jennifer Keenan]: Motion to approve meeting minutes from January. 1 2nd.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Okay, going around the room as I see it. Peter.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: And Kit?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: And Lenny?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: And Jen? Yes. And Doug?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Okay, 5-0 approved. Any other business?
[Jennifer Keenan]: Ryan, we've gotten a couple of comments here in the chat. Linda, would you like to unmute yourself and speak? It seems like you'd have something to say about 31 Wilson Street. Can you hear me? Yep. Go right. Can we get your name and address for the record, please?
[SPEAKER_09]: Oh, my address is the West Mall in Toronto, Canada. And I am a grandchild of the Granfields who lived at Wilson Street. And it was very interesting. I totally am glad a new family is going to have a new start on that plot. But I think I'll just read off what I wrote in my email to Ryan. I'd like to correct some of the material I heard during the discussion just now. It's hard to believe, but yes, 11 people lived in that small house. My grandparents, my great aunt, all Irish immigrants, my father and his seven siblings. When the family moved from Charleston to Charlestown rather to Fulton Heights in the 1920s, it was to what we would now call a tar paper shack. Not much to live on, but hard workers, some of the youngest children were born in that building. In the 1930s, 39, number 39 in the house next door, yes, were dismantled schoolhouses that Boston was selling off. You had to move it in pieces and reconstruct on a basement you built. The team helped build the stone cellar. They used what they had to build that home. A wood stove provided the heat in the center of the house. I would be interested in seeing or reading the fire information referred to tonight. Thank you. No one has mentioned the fact that there is a historic sign in front of the house, put up in a city ceremony in front of the house in 2015. Two of the veteran brothers were there. All six brothers served in World War II, and a seventh served in Korea. What I'll add is the Archdiocese of Boston, there was a ward hand-drawn calligraphy award that was in my grandparents' living room, signed by Richard Cardinal Cushing. They had the most sons in the archdiocese serving in World War II. We cherish that. The Granfield family, well, we hope the sign will not be removed when the new home is constructed. The Granfield family rose from the poverty through honest hard work. The sons became teachers, lawyers, plumbers, electricians, and my Aunt Mary, always single Aunt Mary, became the assistant city clerk of Medford for decades until her retirement. They were also instrumental in the building of St. Francis of Assisi Church. I will gladly help correct information errors that were in the report I saw online. Good luck to the builder and to the new family. Our family was on that property for over 100 years. And it's good to see the change. They carved that shack. I have pictures of that shack actually that I didn't even know existed. It was in the side what's now the side yard. After both my parents died in 1995, I came across a bag of negatives. And when I printed the negatives, all that history was revealed. The last uncle died age 96 in April of 2024. And I interviewed him for two years, periodic calls, and learned a lot of things I hadn't learned. He was supposed to be interviewed by Dean Morris. He believed that no one paid attention in North Medford. We're always forgotten, he said. So Dee was all set up to interview him, but then he was sick, and then they couldn't get their schedule together, and then he died. And he knew all those family names in that whole area. So I just want to thank you. one set of grandparents to Canada, here I am back here. I am a historian with 32 books. That's why I'm interested in what you do. And I very much appreciate, I know you can't save every single building in Bedford, but it's been pleasant listening to you discuss how much you love it, I can tell. I love to go in there every Saturday morning, sitting with those uncles on that little back stoop. They used to be apple orchard when they tore down the shack. They put some apple trees in and we used to have our annual Easter picture was taken in amongst the apple blossoms in the side yard at Nana's. So again, Yep. The house is historic for our family. It's not historic for Medford. But a lot of good came out of it. And yes, it was like an army barracks in that attic. They just had a bunch of cots. And the boys slept up there. And the dining room became Mary's bedroom. And my grandparents had another bedroom. The bathroom was horrible. Horrible. It was a front door on the stairs up to the attic. That little piece of step, you could barely get your butt on it as a kid, but that's where kids had to sit. And you went to visit. There was a porcelain table. We all took a pencil and we drew pictures on that table. First time I saw people not, having a silverware drawer. There was so little space. There was a bucket of spoons and knives and forks in the middle of the table and everyone helped themselves. And the best thing was to get to go there. I left my wedding flowers with my great aunt when I got married. And then I moved to Canada 51 years ago, and I've been visiting every time. The last visit to that house on Wilson Street was in 2022, and I had lunch with my uncle. And I knew that was the last time I was going to leave that house. So again, all the best to those wonderful, the wonderful family that's going to have that place that brought up such a great generation of people. And I thank you very much.
[Doug Carr]: That was fabulous, Linda. Thank you. You've got to write all that down.
[SPEAKER_09]: Linda, thank you. That was amazing. Get into the form. I got my camera moved, so thank you very much. It's just nice to meet you all.
[Doug Carr]: Great stuff that you're doing.
[Kit Collins]: That was a lot of great information, especially about the relocated school houses. It was two of them. Yeah.
[SPEAKER_09]: There were two houses. The one next door, I think it's a pinkish color, I can't remember. The one next door, my grandfather's cousin Patrick, he ran over and bought the other schoolhouse that was for sale. I was told Roslindale by my uncle, but they said that they actually got carts and horses and they dismantled them. When they brought the houses back to Wilson Street up on top of that rock, There was some fellow in the neighborhood who had done riveting for the Navy. And he came over, because they were all teens, trying to put this back together. And he showed them how to rivet. Yeah. That's the only way poor people would have had a home. I wonder if there was a series- Two nights, nobody wanted to live there. Pardon?
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: I was going to say there was a series of metal flashing on the roof where it looked like they joined sections of roof where they had cut them off to move the sections of building. So I wonder if that's where they learned how to rivet into the side of the roof with all the metal that was there.
[Kit Collins]: It could have been. Yeah, there were some interesting cuts in there.
[SPEAKER_09]: October 22, when I was last there, the roofers had come to put in a new roof. And he was just like beside himself, like, look at all the noise they're making. To him, that house was heaven. Heaven. Like, he always thought, oh, you know, this would be so great. Like, someone, when I go, someone could come and move in here and he'd be sitting there going, no, it's not going to happen. But it's just what it represented, because he was born in the shack. And when I say shack, I mean shack. They, like, took out trees and just bits and pieces. It looks like a junkyard in the photographs because they were just saving what they could find. And Chicken Run and the whole thing was all in that small area that you see is the side yard. I don't know when the garages went in, but one of the uncles had a Model A junkie car that is now, someone shipped it to Ireland to some of their relatives. They must be loving it. But scrappy people, honest, loyal, religious, Kennedy lovers. Oh my Lord, the Kennedy stuff in the house. And yeah, an assistant city clerk, I have a copy of my birth certificate that my aunt got for me when she, Mary Granfield, a lot of people come in and say, oh, she signed our wedding certificate, oh, she signed this. So history loving family, learned to drive up in the quarry with the illegal car, the boys all went driving in the woods to get their license. I mean, this, A million stories from Fulton Heights. So now it's time for someone else to make new stories on that property. And the gravestone there is just a junk piece of stone. I don't want anyone thinking someone's buried under that piece of granite out in the side yard. So if anyone at the builder asked, I would love to talk to the builder. Because when he talked about the beans, I have no clue what he's talking about. We weren't allowed in the basement. even when we were like four. It was like typical Irish, I will say. Anything you ask, they didn't want to answer you. What do you need to know that for? Oh, I guess I don't. Okay, that discussion's over. So I found out what I could from this last uncle and bits, pieces from the rest of them. And I just want to see that sign, the Granville Brothers Corner, which isn't even a corner. The mayor was there, all representatives of the armed forces, the whole neighborhood in 2015. There should be pictures around. You know what's funny? The newspaper never came and covered it. I mean, seven sons in one family.
[Doug Carr]: Is the sign on the property or is it on the street?
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: It's on the street. It's there.
[SPEAKER_09]: It's on the street. Yeah, it's on the street right in front of the house, one of those black and white, like the street signs. There's another one around a couple of blocks away too, I think on Fulton Street. But yeah, my dad delivered papers in that whole area. Saved enough money for his first balloon bike, $25. carry all those big, big papers up there. They all had paper routes. The stained glass building was a grocery store, and when he delivered papers in the winter, his coat would be like almost frozen, and he'd go in the store, and there was a potbelly stove, and the fellow would let him get the coat from solid, he said it actually stood up, the jacket stood up. And the fellow, and he also, there was a fellow named Chet, and I don't know if you know the story about Chet, who lived on Fulton Street. I think his son is still there. But he ran that grocery store, and I think it was an original First National. And he gave the poor people up in Fulton Heights free cabbage whenever they came in his store. Like, if you were starving, he gave you food. So Fulton Heights was very generous to very poor people. But I don't think you'll be poor to buy a house on Wilson Street when they build it. I think it will take a fair amount of money to buy what goes in place of that house. Anyway, thank you very much.
[8Sqy8gyjolU_SPEAKER_08]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_09]: Thank you. Bye bye from Toronto.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: You later. All right, I don't that was a great way, I think, to end the evening. If there's nothing else, take a motion to adjourn. And a 2nd.
[Kit Collins]: 2nd.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Okay, so around the room, Peter.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Yes, and kit. Yes, and Lenny.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: And Jen? Yes. And Doug? Yes. All right, 5-0 approved. We are adjourned at 9-0-4. Not bad, given all that we had.
|
total time: 4.7 minutes total words: 454 |
|||