Neighborhood
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Halloween, JP Style
in NeighborhoodSunday evening was the annual Lantern Parade at Jamaica Pond, a community event which involves walking around the pond with lanterns lit. Kids come in their costumes, music is playing, a cider press provide fresh apple cider–it's a great scene.Tonight as I was riding home from work I passed more tricker-treaters in Brookline and JP…
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Memorial Day: Hope Cemetery, Boston
Last night I rode by Hope Cemetery for the first time and noticed the flags set up for the veterans. It seemed appropriate today to return for another look.
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Classical Music Graffiti, or the Promise of Placecasting
Earlier this week I noticed that a fellow patron of the JP Licks men's restroom felt inspired to jot "Gustav Holst 9 planets" on the baby-changing table with black marker. Perhaps it was playing on his iPod as he was taking care of business and he felt compelled to leave an inscription of this sublime…
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Jamaica Pond in Color
Sam Blackmon has a new site call The Jamaica Pond Project. Heres how he describes it: Life on a Smaller Scale We live in Jamaica Plain, a neighborhood on the south side of Boston. One of the best parts of JP is, undoubtedly, Jamaica Pond, a small, spring-fed, kettle pond. The pond covers about 60…
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Recipe for a Tasty Fall Evening in JP
Last night we had friends over to JP for the Lantern Parade around Jamaica Pond (a few pictures here), a community event featuring lanterns made by kids in the neighborhood to raise money for charity. It was blustery and cold, but it didn't keep the faithful away, and as usual there was no shortage of…
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Arson at Pondside Reality
in NeighborhoodEarlier this week as I was coming down Centre Street back to my apartment, I was shocked to see that Pondside Reality, where Yorgos helped us found our place on Rockview, had been reduced to a charred shell. I soon learned that this was the fourth incidence of arson involving JP businesses in little over…
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Views from the New Bike Route: Jamaica Pond
One of the best perks of living in JP is the ride from here to work each morning. The 20-25 minute journey takes me down the backroads of Brookline and Chestnut Hill on what feel like country roads. Along the way I pass three bodies of water, the first of which is Jamaica Pond, the…
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Home in Jamaica Plain, or Coming (Nearly) Full Circle
This morning I'm sitting in Emack and Bolios on Centre Street in Jamaica Plain, working on the introduction to my dissertation. I've been working on a section where I describe my experience of dislocation after moving from Chicago to Boston, and how my sense of place there was deepened by working with refugees. I'm quite…
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Consummation of a Potentiality
in NeighborhoodA few days ago, I found an Jamaica Plain apartment for September, and I’m looking forward to beginning a new phase in my Boston life before too long. Last week we were discouraged after finding the perfect apartment–a beautiful two-bedroom with huge living and dinning rooms, front porch, and–get this–a working fireplace. But it was…