Historical Commission 04/13/26

AI-generated summary. Written by gemini-3.8-flash from the transcript below, which is the record. It may be incomplete or wrong; it does not report votes. Every item links to the moment it began.

The Medford Historical Commission reviewed MassDOT's South Medford Connector Path project and site plans for the proposed Tufts Aquatic Center. The commission also addressed pending demolition review inquiries, the Medford High School Section 106 process, and ongoing archaeological and cemetery restoration projects.

0:17 South Medford Connector Path Section 106 Review — The commission agreed to submit a comment letter advising MassDOT to route the proposed bicycle connector along the Mystic River corridor rather than alongside Route 16.
10:10 161 Mystic Avenue Site Plan Review — The commission reviewed the site plan package for 161 Mystic Avenue and agreed to pass without submitting formal comments.
13:49 85 Main Street Site Plan Review — The commission confirmed it had no comments regarding the proposed retail building at the 85 Main Street gas station site.
15:03 Tufts Aquatic Center Site Plan Review — Commissioners reviewed plans for the proposed Tufts Aquatic Center on College Avenue and authorized Doug Carr to represent the commission's concerns to the Community Development Board regarding the building's facade and public street engagement.
30:18 Demolition Review Inquiries: 140 Grant Avenue and 9 Sturgis Street — Chair Jennifer Keenan referred potential demolition review requests for 140 Grant Avenue and 9 Sturgis Street to the subcommittee for evaluation.
31:18 Commission Membership and Vacant Seats — The commission welcomed new appointee Luke and discussed outreach efforts to recruit additional members.
32:31 Medford High School Section 106 Review — Ryan Hayward reported on attempts to obtain building documentation from the high school project consultants to complete a historic inventory form for the 1970 structure.
36:09 Demolition Delay Updates — The commission noted no new updates on 41 Mystic and confirmed 16 Manning Street remains under demolition delay.
36:34 Annual Report Draft — The commission reviewed the draft annual report and requested minor adjustments concerning legal advertising expenses before submitting it by the end of the week.
41:15 Historic and Archaeological Projects Updates — Updates were provided on the rescheduled Brooks Estate archaeological survey, volunteer artifact cleaning from Thomas Brooks Park, tree management work, restoration contracts for Cross Street Cemetery, and survey funding for Hastings Heights.
52:44 Approval of Minutes — The meeting minutes from the March 9 meeting were approved.

[Jennifer Keenan]: Okay, this is the Medford Historical Commission. Today is Monday, April 13th. It is 7.04 and we will get started with our agenda. Peter, are you good for minutes? Yes. Okay, awesome, thanks. Okay, starting off with some new business tonight. We have a section 106 review for the South Medford Connector Path. Ryan, do you want to give a little overview of this?

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: City of Medford was contacted by Mass Department of Transportation to let us know that they're interested in and are preparing construction docks for a bicycle connector to extend between the General Lawrence Bridge, that's the Mystic River Bridge over Route 16 by Wegmans, extending over to the Route 16 and Main Street interchange with some road work beyond that as far as the Winthrop Street at Route 16 interchange. The bicycle path is proposed to follow along the Route 16 corridor. I am deeply concerned that that is a mistake given the amount of traffic in that particular location. I have sent around a draft letter to the commissioners to express that. Perhaps they should explore an alternative course. I talked with Alicia about this project at length. It was her project initially. MassDOT took it over to try to expedite it, and this is sort of the low-cost option. But many of the problems that she was facing with her consultants, such as how to get the path from the Mystic River to connect with Main Street, will be alleviated as part of the road diet project planned as part of this work. So I think we should simply stress that the Mystic River is an important corridor. We should engage the river at this particular time rather than force people to move along the Route 16 corridor, which will be extremely busy, and it's loud, and it's just not going to be an attractive way. So it's probably going to be even seldom used, almost potentially dangerous, even with sort of road and grade separations there, to even put people in that location. So, good idea.

great concept to connect the missing link here on this side of the river just needs to be better executed and we're asking them to hopefully do that and take our advice and engage the river at this point.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Right now, if you've ever driven that stretch of road, it's a three lane superhighway that was planned for the circumvent road around route. around Boston, and it was never built, and so the road is oversized for its location, but also people speed along there excessively. The speed limit is only technically 30. I would say that people do on average between 40 and 65 miles an hour along that stretch of road. The road diet will certainly help with that, but there is no protection from the noise of 93 nor the Route 16 road, so it's just going to be a constant blast on ears. It's not pleasant.

[Jennifer Keenan]: I'm trying to even envision where this is. Is this where, like, the off-ramp for the highway connects?

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: Down to Main Street. So there's a whole section along the river that could accommodate some of the path, and I think you know, for short sections, sure, it's fine to be near the traffic, but this is bringing you up and over the highway along the bridge where there's currently cars. It's not pleasant. I'd rather see people dive down and be under the highway where there's lots of green space, there's the river itself, and then come back up and pop out where the where the relocated Sarah Bradley Fulton plaque for where her house was on Main Street ended up. So I think that would be a much better connection than trying to force people along where there's tons and tons of vehicles.

[Doug Carr]: It's more of a question. Ryan, maybe can I put something on screen here? Because I'm just seeing something completely different than you are. Maybe I'm just not seeing the right thing. Let me just try and share this.

[Doug Carr]: OK. Let's see. So is this the scope of work, this line here, this green line along the river? That's.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: That's the proposed. Is that part of the report that I sent? I think so. I think this is a 200 page. Yeah, that's the feasibility study. So that's the feasibility study that Alicia and her office, the PDF office did, and that's what they were proposing. What MassDOT ended up doing, and is at the 25% construction docks, is their goal is still the same endpoints. They're just going to put it right alongside the road on Route 16.

And I'm suggesting that they go back to what the feasibility study said, which was this option put it along.

[Doug Carr]: I couldn't agree more. I just, I think it's actually, I mean, why would they not do this? It's literally insane to not do if it wasn't possible. That's 1 thing, but it's clearly possible. Right?

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: Yeah, it's definitely possible. There were some cost hurdles. Half near where it says Riverbend Park on this rendering, there's a culvert. There was a major culvert crossing, but that can again be alleviated by just simply keeping towards the road and then diving down. And then before the road diet was planned, the connection up by the Kratik Bridge and Main Street was very a more expensive project because there's grade changes there. Now with the exit ramp being shrunk down to a single lane, all of that opens up the door for additional space for the path, and then they can just duck down to this green space where there was, you know, planned for a path on the south side of the Mystic River under 93 anyways. And it just makes sense to echo the Clipper Ship connector that got built on the north side.

[Doug Carr]: Couldn't agree more. I mean, this thing has sections. This looks like it's completely doable and it doesn't seem, it seems crazy. You're right. That off ramp is essentially an extension of 93. It's at least 50 miles an hour for every car on that ramp. And I wouldn't want to bike anywhere near that. That's just incredibly dangerous. I'll stop sharing.

[Kit Nichols]: And as, you know, as, as someone who until quite recently crossed over 16 at the footbridge. and walked that way. I mean, it's just amazing someone hasn't already been killed along that stretch. I mean, the idea of biking along that, no way ever. I would never do it. And by the way, Ryan, I thought the letter was great and exceptionally well written. Thanks.

[Kit Nichols]: You know, I was reading it and I was thinking clearly they've never actually been there.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: I did want to invite them to walk the entire corridor with me so that they could clearly see and hear that they're going to go deaf even just building that corridor. And that, you know, the right way is to get away from that location.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: I mean, they're like the 25% At this point. So basically we're gonna say you need to go back to the drawing board and reassess this This path, you know, that's not the not the good way

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: It's a section 106, so as soon as possible. So I would like to just have, you know, unless there's major changes to the letter, I'd like to send that out and make sure that, you know, the state knows that we're asking them to go back to the drawing board.

[Kit Nichols]: Well, I was I was actually thinking that, you know, in 50 years, the Medford Historic Commission, you know, it won't be us. But, you know, there's there's a piece of this, which is like responsibility for that we we are making the history that they're going to be voting on in 50 years. And it and like this just makes no sense, like spend the money to do it right.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: Yeah, and I know that part of this is coming out of the fact that they're using it as an excuse to road diet route 16. So they're going to change stuff around. Just simply abandon that plan and put it in the path. Make the path the primary focus and that the road diet is incidental to that versus the path is incidental to road diet. Right.

[Jennifer Keenan]: Okay, so if anyone has any more comments that we should put in the letter, send those to Ryan. If we can get that wrapped up before the end of the week, that would be great. So any comments, send them to him. And Ryan, thank you for drafting that letter.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: Yeah, great. I'm also going to send it, um, Dennis, maybe we can make sure that it goes to like the bicycle commission and some of, and Alicia and all of that too, just to let them know that. So they can echo their sentiments because all of these are publicly available for comment. They just don't always reach the right people.

[Denis MacDougall]: Yeah. Right. Just send it to me when, when it's ready and then just say who you want to send it to and I'll forward it. Great. Can do.

[Jennifer Keenan]: Okay, great. Okay, next up we have a site plan review for 161 Mystic. Is this the one that was passed or sorry, I'm like, no, this is a new one. We did not have this one last month. So do we know what's happening here?

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: I don't, I haven't had a chance to take a look at it.

[Doug Carr]: I believe it's an existing building. It's almost opposite the Great American Beer Hall. It's a little further south on the other side of the street. And they're changing an existing retail into what's shown. I could show the front of the drawing center if it would be helpful.

[Doug Carr]: Yeah. So you can see the locus map in the lower left-hand corner. The beer hall is where my cursor is roughly here. South is to the left, and it's this property here. This is the existing conditions. What's there now? On Mystic and, I guess, White Street is this cross street, I guess? It says quick auto body supply. And there's a whole package here.

[Jennifer Keenan]: Is there an age on the structure? Does this even, I mean, I know obviously we can comment it anyway, but do we, it seems very modern.

[Doug Carr]: Yeah, it doesn't look that old to me, but I don't, I don't see a date anywhere on this package. And they're doing some decent landscaping around it. Obviously reconfiguring a few things.

[Kit Nichols]: I think they built some housing over it. No. What was that? He said, I think the building I'm looking, I mean, this is the Internet. God only knows what if it's if it's accurate. But it says 19 year built. Nineteen twenty five. Twenty five.

[Doug Carr]: Yeah, I don't think this is going to have look at that. This is actually one of the better packages I've seen for this type of project.

[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_19]: I just looked them up and it looks like they're across the street next to core power now. Interestingly enough, or did they move there originally?

[Kit Nichols]: Well, they were on the corner of, like, it was on McGrath. It's McGrath and 3rd Street. McGrath and 3rd Street, right?

[Jennifer Keenan]: And that closed many years ago. I don't know. I don't think I realized that they moved over here. I thought they were just out of business entirely. That's great. Um, does anybody have any comments good or bad on this 1? we can write a letter or we can just say, we're going to pass or beyond, you know, go on with your project and.

[Doug Carr]: Godspeed, I would recommend we pass. It looks reasonable to me. Agreed.

[Jennifer Keenan]: I agree. Yeah. Okay. Okay, 85 Main Street was the next one, which technically the comments were already due, but I think we talked about this one briefly last month. But I think we just wanted to circle back and make sure that we didn't have any comments. And I'm trying to remember what this one was.

[Jennifer Keenan]: Oh, right. This is the one next to 7-Eleven? Yes. Yeah, I have no problem with a little retail outlet at the gas station.

[Kit Nichols]: Yeah, I don't think we have any comments here. Okay. Main Street needs more hot dogs.

[Jennifer Keenan]: I mean, I think the only people that might have a comment is 711 and they should just fight that out between the 2 of them. I don't think it has anything to do with us.

[Jennifer Keenan]: Yeah, right. As long as I can get my Doritos, I don't really care when I need a road snack. OK. And what was up next? The Tufts Aquatic Center.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: I also don't know if we have any comments. Peter sent around some comments, which I Sort of agreed with anything there is better than what's there.

[Peter Miller]: I think Alicia will. Ask them to put solar panels or something up there on the roof anyway.

[Doug Carr]: I, um. I don't have it at my fingertips, but Peter, you were talking about the aquatic center, right? Yeah. It's solar ready, but Tufts in their letters have said they have no intentions of putting panels now. They have to do it to comply with Medford's to be ready, but they're not doing it. They explicitly said that. But could you summarize your comments? I actually didn't have a chance to look at those, Peter.

[Peter Miller]: Well, that was a main comment. I didn't really, I think it's kind of a non, almost like a background building. There's nothing very sexy, architecturally sexy about it.

[Peter Miller]: You know where the baseball diamond is? The big new baseball diamond on College Avenue? Yes, and baseball stadium actually and then There's a huge parking lot along along College And then behind it are new tennis courts and the baseball diamond, baseball arena, whatever you want to call it. But so this building is going on the northerly, I guess, end of the parking lot. So it's taking up parking.

[Peter Miller]: Oh, somebody beat me to it. So we're not seeing the front here, but where are we? This is the side, these are the elevations.

[CAS00002523_SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, I am here. Thank you, Luke. I don't actually, no problem. Here's a key here. I don't actually know which orientation the front is. This way is north.

[Peter Miller]: The one where it says Tufts on there is facing the rest of the parking lot. That's the side.

[Doug Carr]: There should be a college site plan, I think, in the beginning, Luke. If you don't have that, I do.

[Doug Carr]: There is 2 buildings. It's the main aquatic center, which is obviously the big 1 and some bathrooms, which is the little blue rectangle between fields.

[Doug Carr]: But I think Peter's right. You called it nondescript. I called it a boring box. There's really no articulation, or it's very little windows.

[Peter Miller]: Go down a little bit more, Luke. Yeah, there's a section there. Too far, too far.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: Not a very nice civic looking building. We could encourage them to get a little bit more engagement with the front facade facing the street.

[Peter Miller]: I think, yeah, the 1 with those windows to go all the way from grade up to the roof line there.

[Peter Miller]: That's a public facing. I mean, the 1 with the giant tough sign on it. You will see coming down college have a lot because. You know, you're basically looking across the parking lot.

[Jennifer Keenan]: Coming from, like, Main Street heading towards the Somerville.

[Peter Miller]: No, coming from the hill coming from Somerville down the hill. Okay. So interesting. So.

[Kit Nichols]: What's the big building on the caddy corner that you see the outline of? Yeah, where you have your cursor.

[Kit Nichols]: Yeah, that's the athletic center. Okay, so it's behind the... And then... It's across. I know exactly where that is. It actually is going to be pretty visible.

[Peter Miller]: Yeah, so if you scroll down a little more there, Lou, to the first one.

[Peter Miller]: Yeah, stop. Yep. So the warrior says Tufts. That's so that's what you'll see coming down College Ave, you know up from Boston Ave. Once you hit the bottom of the hill, you'll see that. That's what faces the parking lot. So it's a big logo, I guess. It's a billboard, essentially. I wonder how they do that in bricks.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: I don't know if they'll be able to do that without a sign permit from the city. You think it needs a variance with letters that are 30 feet tall? I think that it will probably be, yeah, I think they'll probably have to come to you if it's not on the paperwork for this.

[Jennifer Keenan]: I mean, I feel like there's no cohesiveness to anything that they're building.

[Peter Miller]: I was thinking this wall would be cool if it had some green growies on it or something.

[Jennifer Keenan]: Even if you had like a Go Jumbos or something. I mean, I think, Kit, you hit the nail on the head, like MCI Tufts. I mean, because that tall building they built next to the T stop is lovely, right? And I mean, I feel like what they do, they have the opportunity to do something nice.

[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_19]: The recent ones they've built on Boston, though, are the same kind of very nondescript, do not interact at all with the sidewalk, almost look like manufacturing or industrial buildings. I don't know. You're right. It is very different.

[Doug Carr]: I did ask Alicia because there are apparently renderings out there somewhere they were not included in this package. And I want to see those because I think they'll tell us a story a little bit. But this is the backdrop for the ball fields, right? The stands that Peter was referring to are literally, I think, between the U and the T in Tufts, if you go back to there, or maybe it's just the F and the T. So this is a giant backdrop to be the field. I think they don't want to have windows there because of foul walls, but there are ways around that. That's no reason to have a blank wall that is visible from 1,000 feet away on the other side of college.

[Jennifer Keenan]: Do you think they're concerned about shadows and stuff? Is that why it's not a tall building?

[Doug Carr]: No, the building doesn't need to be any taller for the aquatic center. And they do have, obviously, if you look at just right above them, there are residential buildings not 50, 60 feet away.

[Jennifer Keenan]: I was thinking more for the ball fields, like cash to shadows.

[Doug Carr]: No, this is all south. This building would never cast a shadow on the ball field. I don't think ever from like 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. because of the sun angle. This is basically, it's north and east above this field. There's never going to be an issue with the shadows. The massing is fine. It's just there is no design to this building. It's a utilitarian box.

[Kit Nichols]: So, so it's right across the street from the, from the fitness center, right?

[Kit Nichols]: So, I mean, that's, that's a pretty main thoroughfare. I mean, I guess they do have some green around it, but I mean, it's because it's going to be where that parking lot is now.

[Peter Miller]: Yes, certainly be better than the parking lot, but I'm not so sure.

[Doug Carr]: I mean, look, it's they're going to be on the CD board on Wednesday night. If you want to have a come and speak, I'm going to speak the sentiments I'm hearing tonight are pretty consistent with my initial take on. This is there's no there. They're here. It's it's it's. There's no idea, there's no giving to the public realm. It's just a giant utilitarian functional box with a few slot windows and a giant logo that's two and a half stories tall.

[Peter Miller]: Yeah, I mean, I don't think it needs necessarily needs to be a sexy architectural muscle flexing building, you know, honestly, but I think it maybe could use with a little Embellishment.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: Even just putting a nice cornice and some nice decoration around the stuff.

[Peter Miller]: A nice cornice, an overhang, or a sense of entry. There's no sense of entry.

[Jennifer Keenan]: And maybe this exists somewhere else, but how about some nice signage? There's nothing on here to indicate, what does the signage look like?

[Jennifer Keenan]: This is a donor building. I know that. Is it really? It is. Maybe they're still working on it.

[Peter Miller]: Yeah. I mean, you can't even, maybe the entrance is somewhere else, but.

[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_19]: Yeah, if you look at the street view, there's like a little pathway that they've built across, to get across from the athletic center, and I think you do enter, there's like a brick patio, and I think you do enter on that. Oh, it's that little thing.

[Peter Miller]: A little tiny re-entrant corner. But I'm saying they're, you know.

[Jennifer Keenan]: I mean, an elevated walkway would be more interesting. It'd be hard to know how to get into that. College Ave isn't that busy, but, you know.

[Doug Carr]: There's no sense of entry or canopy or arrival. It's just a pair of glass doors at a recess three feet. It's about, it's kind of pathetic, honestly. Yeah, I think, I agree with you. Well, I don't think it's going to be approved in one night. But with the Dover Amendment, we actually have no leverage here. We can try to influence. But basically, they can basically give us the back of their hand if they want to, like they did with the dorm building on Boston Ave.

[Doug Carr]: Anything in Tufts is technically associated with educational in every single building. So there's no way around it. But I think we should make a case for a better building. I'm fine with the massing and scale. I have no issue with that. I think it's actually perfectly fine.

[Kit Nichols]: I mean, it does impact. I mean, yes, it's, it's right smack dab in the middle of Tufts, but anybody who commutes using that green line station walks by that you're coming from the side of the city.

[Jennifer Keenan]: Well, okay. And then, but why give us a site plan review if they're just going to say, they do not have to take anything we say, right?

[Doug Carr]: They, like, you know, we can, the city board can can. influence a lot with massing scale. We've added windows. We've cut back floors to reduce the shadow impact. We've said this building needs to be articulated more. We have standards, but we just don't have the ability to enforce them here because of the Dover.

[Kit Nichols]: I mean, and it's backed right up against a residential neighborhood, I think.

[Doug Carr]: Yeah, it's about 15 something feet behind. It doesn't need any relief on zoning, but even if it did, I don't think we could grant that.

[Peter Miller]: There's a nice little landscape path along there now that it looks like they're preserving most of it, but yeah. What do you think about the fact that it can't to the street? Doug?

[Doug Carr]: I'm OK with that. I don't think it needs to be perpendicular. Obviously, it's trying to fit on the site without taking away their path and touching the ball field. They didn't really have a choice. I don't mind the angle, actually. I think it actually can be quite nice because it narrows down College Ave as you go from Boston Ave. I think, actually, that funnel could be nice because it becomes a more dense neighborhood the further up the page you go. So I think that's OK.

[Jennifer Keenan]: Yeah, I think it's going to make some greenery there where the parking lot is now, like, to fill in some of that might be nice too.

[Doug Carr]: Yeah, I kind of like the way it leads you into the ball field, you know, yeah, it'd be a more pleasant pedestrian experience in the landscaping along college at for sure.

[Jennifer Keenan]: Peter, do you have bandwidth to maybe draft a short letter just saying, like, do better with some architectural stuff, or do we not want to bother?

[Doug Carr]: I think so. And look, I don't need a letter. You could just send me ballpoints, and I could speak on behalf of the commission on Wednesday night. It doesn't have to be a big event. And I can do it from what I've heard tonight. I may quote you, Kit, on the episode.

[Jennifer Keenan]: Even more so. Make it better, or you're going to lose a donor.

[Doug Carr]: I think I have enough to go on. I get this. I'm getting a sense of the commission here. Do better, no prison.

[Jennifer Keenan]: Yes. Okay. I'm just taking notes. Okay. That is the majority of what we have for new stuff tonight. We didn't have any new cases come in for this month. We have upcoming potential demo review for 140 Grant Avenue. Doug and Peter actually emailed you these plans. I don't know, Ryan, I was on the fence. So I sent them out to the subcommittee to see if it was worthy of asking them for a review or if we should pass on it.

[Jennifer Keenan]: You don't have to give us the answer now. I mean, you have to decide right now.

[Jennifer Keenan]: I sent another one out for Sturgis. It was nine Sturgis, I think, that they're just it's a little house. They're putting a second story on it. And I don't even think it's a full second story, but it wasn't obvious in the plan. So I bounced it out to the subcommittee. Yep. Okay, does anybody have any new business, additional new business before we move on to old business? No, okay. Okay, vacant seats. Yay, we have Luke. I know you haven't been sworn in yet, but we're not voting on anything tonight. Yeah, it's okay.

And just so you guys know, I did post, I put some posts out today, just first, you know, to kind of keep the coffers full to get some additional new people too, because I know, Doug, you would like to back off at some point. I know you're on a lot of boards and Kit has been trying to quit us for a year and I haven't let her. But if we can get a couple more people, then we can have some rotation here. So Sarah or Luke, feel free to spread the word if you have other friends or neighbors that might want to consider joining us, you know, have them come visit a meeting. They can, you know, reach out to me or Ryan. We'll happily, like, grab a coffee with them and chat.

And anybody that's watching, you know, we'd love to have you. So, yeah. Always trying to keep the pipeline full. Okay. Section 106 for the high school.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: Um, yeah, I got to reach out to their committee because they're, uh, they never got back to me about information about the existing high school, which I know I have a feeling that they have and they just don't want to give us yet. So plus they're trying to decide whether or not to reuse the high school. Um, they're the ones that. asked the question on whether or not it was going to be subject to section 106. And I would like an inventory form because if they were to submit tomorrow, there's no information on it. And sort of like if they're withholding information, you know, we can't do an inventory form and MHC can't make a decision. So, you know, which at which point they'll say, well, if it's not an inventory, it's not, you know, nobody cares. So.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: 1970. Okay. I mean, we should have an inventory form done just for the sake of being... It's Medford's only brutalist building.

[Jennifer Keenan]: Yeah. I mean, you know, I don't know what's going to end up happening, but, you know, if it gets torn down or significantly renovated, I think, you know, a pause in time of this is what it was in 2026, that record should exist.

[Jennifer Keenan]: Okay. All right. So we'll just keep that one on the agenda till we can finish that.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: Yeah. I think, I think maybe if I don't hear back from the consultant, maybe the next step will be to go to Jenny Graham, who's leading that committee and say, your consultant's not giving us the information we need. We need this.

[Jennifer Keenan]: Okay. Yeah, and I think I would obviously say it doesn't officially meet the age criteria.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: No, it's not covered under demo. It's covered under section 106. Oh, OK. They're going to use state and federal funding.

[Jennifer Keenan]: OK. Yeah, well, and all the more reason, let's just get the inventory form done so that it's there for everybody.

[Doug Carr]: Right, 100%. And be part of the record. What does the planning stand for that?

[Peter Miller]: do you know for the school yeah as far as i understand it they whittled down the designs from 29 to 6 i heard so there's i can confirm that because my wife's uh the teacher one of the teachers on she's not a voting member but she's an advisory okay on the on the board excellent so we have a mole

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: Yeah, and then, you know, my understanding is that they're exploring all their options. A new construction, you know, of those options, there's a couple that are new construction, a couple that are renovation, a couple that are renovation and addition, and a couple that are just simply renovation. So, yep, and there's a very robust website, and I'm quite certain if we reach out to Jenny that she will be very responsive to our requests. I'm interested in learning more, but you know.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: Yeah, so we just got to do our job and hopefully we'll be able to get the information. Yeah. If not from them, we'll just keep going up the chain. I'll go to the facilities directors and City Hall. Somebody will have the information we need.

[Jennifer Keenan]: And yeah, in 16, manning is the only other thing under demo delay. So there, and we know that Sid's waiting that one out, so. Yeah. Okay, Ryan sent around the draft for the annual report.

[Jennifer Keenan]: I haven't had a chance to read it in full yet, Ryan, but I'll go through and I usually proof it and stuff for you. I did have one comment, though. In the beginning, when you were talking about our budget, there was a note in there about it was the $1,500 for our administrative stuff. And you had in there legal ads. And we're not doing legal ads ourselves anymore. Hold on. So I just thought it was just a different differentiator that we should change for this year because we were having the applicants pay for the legal ads.

[Peter Miller]: I think it's just a number that needs to be filled in about how many properties

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: Yep, it does say legal ads. I can get rid of legal ads, even though there's budget money in there for it.

[Doug Carr]: All right, that's fine. I think the metrics at the end are very strong as usual, Brian. Thank you for that. It's great to see it all tallied up and how selective we are.

[Jennifer Keenan]: And just I'll give you guys a quick update that Ryan and I have been saying on top of the permits that get assigned to us for the building committee. And one of the things I asked the commissioner to add in last week. So when we look at permits, there's an approval kind of selection. There's a selection of some things in demo delay, just so that the other departments kind of know what's going on and whatnot. And we get copied on zoning things and whatnot. And so there was, I asked them to add a category that said reviewed without comment. Because I do look at everything and sometimes it either just doesn't apply to us or we just simply have no comment. You know, again, Godspeed, go on with your project. So, because there was reviewed with comment, and so I asked them to add reviewed without comment and they happily obliged. So, you know, again, we just have this nice working relationship with the billing department now where. You know, because again, I like to make a point that I stopped what I was doing. I reviewed it. It doesn't apply to us. And we have moved it on, as opposed to just saying denied or released. There weren't really good options. So anyway, a little inside baseball for you tonight on the permitting system.

Ryan and I, we always have a mission to have a clear dashboard so that we don't have things sitting around and people yell at us for, you're holding it up. It's like, no, we're actually not. We sent it on its merry way. So the more things we can clear off, the happier we are. We get those random ones for zoning that just sit there for six months on end. OK. Ryan, when do you want comment? When are we getting the annual report?

[Jennifer Keenan]: OK. I'll print it out this week. I can proof it and send you my comments. Great.

[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_19]: I think the last thing we need is just to sign whomever's name we want to on the bottom, too. I was just reviewing that. There's just a comma, and then it says.

[Jennifer Keenan]: Oh, I think it's usually my name. It doesn't matter. Ryan has my electronic signature. So you can just drop it in.

[Jennifer Keenan]: Fine. You can rob me blind, it's all good. Yeah. Okay, so we'll finish that off this week. So any other comments, guys? Just get them to Ryan or Sarah this week. Okay, the Brooks Estate archaeological survey.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: We had to deviate our site meeting because of an issue with the architect, yeah, architect, archaeologist being pulled away on another project. So we're going to circle back and get them back out there. Now I'll be interested to see what we see under the understory now that the, I don't know how big the forest fire was that was out there, but I'm very interested to know where that was. see what we can see underneath there.

[Jennifer Keenan]: Yeah, I think it was it was definitely on the lower part. I haven't walked over there since Friday. I don't think it was between like the cemetery and the green gate. It was in there somewhere. Yeah. They didn't seem too excited about it in the sense of they weren't really worried that they couldn't put it out.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: It's good practice for them because if there was ever anything in the Middlesex Fells, this thing would absolutely need to attack it.

[Jennifer Keenan]: Yeah, I need to send an email because it was a solid 15 minutes where there were like all kinds of emergency vehicles that didn't even know how to get in there. So I'm going to send an email and I don't think information has been passed on to our new ambulance company. They were just sitting at the back gate of the cemetery, which was locked. And they had no idea how to drive around to go into the open side of the cemetery to get into the Berks estate.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: Yeah, perhaps for some city buildings, we actually need to go back to the days of having a fire drill.

[Jennifer Keenan]: Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, Doug, you'll be getting my email on that. You and Carly. Very good. Thomas Brooks Park, we had our cleaning day at the library to clean all the artifacts that came up. We had, what, close to 20 volunteers, Ryan? Yeah. It was a great day. We washed and cleaned all of the artifacts. A good chunk of them. We didn't quite get through everything.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: No, no. We got through everything. We didn't catalog everything. We got through everything.

[Jennifer Keenan]: Oh, OK. Yeah. Yes. And then remind me where they took everything back to the lab with them. Yes.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: Yeah. They're going to catalog everything. And then they'll do select photography, that sort of thing. And they'll pick out the most diagnostic artifacts. There's a lot of diagnostic stuff in there.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: Yes, just so you guys know, the last major excavation point that we dug contained more artifacts in that one hole than all of the other holes that we have ever dug on this site combined.

[Jennifer Keenan]: So that includes the... Of course, it was the last. We have a jackpot on the last one.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: Yeah, and I made them go all the way down to the bottom. They were basically up to their head in that hole. Yeah, we could go back if we really needed to do another archaeological dig because we still have not definitively sourced the entire house site. What we were in was their trash mitten that was definitely right outside the kitchen door. So we're very close to the house and we know approximately where the house was. But again, we still have not hit a definitive feature of their foundation or anything like that.

[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_19]: Not yet. And what do you mean by diagnostic artifacts?

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: So when we pull them out, they'll have a very specific age. So some of the actual patterns, some of the stuff was relatively short-windowed, so like say 1790 to 1810, and if it's in the ground based on some of the bones and things that were evidently eaten at the same time period as those artifacts, it's the same time period, so you're looking at a encapsulate rather than a refill or, you know, dug up later. There are some really, really cool pieces of pottery shards. This stuff was like middle of the century, 18th, late, you know, like 18th and early 19th century.

Nothing very earlier like we were finding on the fringes. On the fringes you can find early 17th century material that was imported and sort of used for the first of the early years. And there was some in the house site itself. There was some fill from like the 1860s. So like we're all sorts of time periods right around this particular building, which is really cool.

[Jennifer Keenan]: The variety in the pieces of China is amazing. And the colors, it's just really cool.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: It's really striking to be, you know, it's the one thing to say the Brooks family were wealthy, but it's another thing to see it in the material culture that things that they possess, many of which, you know, are uh, they're expensive items back in the day, but you can still find them today. They're readily accessible. Um, so we can get actual pieces that demonstrate what those look like, which is cool.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: I would like to do some sort of virtual exhibit that later turns into an actual exhibit, actual artifacts. So, like, I have a dedicated page for most of these projects. So we can do, like, here's Redware. We were finding... The redware, now that it's been cleaned, has fingerprint marks in it, and most likely, if they can relate to the... There's a study going on of the redware manufacturers in Charlestown, because some of them were owned by or run by an African-American residence and if they can definitively prove some of the stuff you know it's local Medford and Charlestown are nearly side by side so possible that they were buying and you know having things but also it could have just been made locally.

[Jennifer Keenan]: Yeah. The redware, we had a button, some really interesting pieces of glass, obviously like nails and construction material. So it's really, it's a really cool, we were so lucky to have that spot and hopefully we'll be able to do more there. And just so the commissioners know, the tree work in the park is going to likely start next week. So thank you to Ryan for spearheading that. Finally, a lot of the brush and some of the invasives will be taken down there and we'll be able to highlight the historic trees that are there. So that is the next big focus for that park that will take us through probably the middle of the summer. And it'll be looking real good there hopefully by July, August.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: There's 160 historic trees on that over 12 inches in diameter.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: So people know. There's 818 trees in the park. Thank you to the tree survey. 818 trees over one and a half inch in diameter. Many of those are Norway maples. Many of those are invasive.

[Jennifer Keenan]: But hopefully some of the tree removal and the heavy pruning that's going to get done will highlight the beautiful historic black walnut trees now. So there'll be a little bit more focus there. OK, Ryan, any update on the Cross Street Cemetery?

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: Yeah, I have a consultant for that project. It's Daedalus Red Conservation out of Watertown. They did the World War I monument facing Sorry, I'm blanking. Winthrop Street. Winthrop Street and Playstead Road. It's the big monument up at the top. So he's doing that. I also have a cost from him to do the gate. There's a missing wrought iron gate. So we'll have the gate done. And then more than likely, I'm waiting for a bid from him on the wall. work. So very possibly that we'll also get the wall done so the wall will be completely clean of vegetation and we'll get selectively repointed and should be good to go there. So good chance that the entire cemetery is going to be restored by the end of the year.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: They're going. We're talking with Mass Historical about spending the rest of our budget on this project, because I won't have any demo delay forms to do. So I offered them an additional $6,500 to do more inventory forms. MHC is sort of working on it, but they're slow. I've got to reach out to them and see if they'll expedite here, because we've got to get it spent by the end of the year. By the way, I don't know if anybody's around, but I'm doing a, it's part of the restoration, sorry to circle back. We got SAR markers, the Sons of the American Revolution, because there's three American Revolutionary War vets. The SAR, myself dressed in colonial garb, Teresa with CPC, the rest of the CPC committee will get invited to do a photo op. for the restoration of the cemetery. So you guys are welcome to come. It'll be Wednesday at 2 p.m. If you want to see me in my other colonial, my colonial garb rather than my 19th century garb, that would be the one and only time that you'll get to see me up close and personal in it.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: If you wanna come at 4.15 in the morning, sure, yeah. If you're that dedicated to see me in colonial garb, I will absolutely, I will absolutely welcome you to walk the 11 miles.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: Wednesday too, yes. There'll be a couple of us there. I've also invited veteran services.

[Vice Chair Ryan Hayward]: So because they were instrumental, they're also helping me with, um, there's a missing, one of the veterans stones is missing. So having Daedalus price out what the cost is to redo that stone so that all the veterans will have completed markers because they deserve it.

[Jennifer Keenan]: Great. Okay. Does anybody have anything else for tonight? No, okay. Peter sent around the meeting minutes.

[Jennifer Keenan]: All right, great. I have a motion on the table to approve the meeting minutes from the March, whatever date that was, March 9th. meeting that has been made and seconded. I'll go around for roll call vote. Peter.

[Jennifer Keenan]: OK. All right. Thanks. I'll do a vote, but I was going to say goodbye. Thank you. And Doug, it's 7.58.