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Current Listings
111 Spring Street #2, Medford
72 Lexington Avenue #2, Somerville
24 Belmont Street #24, Somerville
This bright, pet-friendly, 2-level condo offers lovely wood details, an updated kitchen, large shared yard/ patio, garage parking, and exclusive lo+ space in the garage. The first level has a contemporary open plan living/dining area, 1 bedroom, office/nursery, and full bath. The top floor has an open plan, built in bookcases, large walk-in closet, and a half bath. Walk to Wegman’s.
Across from the Davis Square bike path, this secondfloor, 2-bedroom, 1-bathroom condo is about equidistant to Davis and Porter Squares. In-unit washer/dryer, 2 porches, basement storage.
Spacious, 3-level townhouse with high ceilings, central air, private driveway, deck, and yard. On first level, open living/dining rooms separated by gas fireplace; kitchen with large dining area and sliders to deck; half bath; and door to large, unfinished basement. Two sizable bedrooms, full bath, and separate laundry room on second floor. Master bedroom with full bath en suite and Boston views occupies entire top floor.
42 Clyde Street #2, Somerville
42-44 Gordon Street, Somerville
17 Orchard Street, Medford
Sleek, contemporary townhouse offers architectural finishes and the amenities of newer (2009) construction with 3 bedrooms, 3.5 baths, central air, 2 side-by-side parking, fenced yard, and enviable 13’x 22’ private roof deck.
Well-maintained, classic West Somerville two-family that has been occupied and cherished by the same family for decades. First unit has 2 bedrooms and 1 bath; upper unit has the same layout with an extra study or small bedroom. Wide driveway and landscaped yard.
$479,000
$1,198,000
$649,000
$949,000
$1,100,000
$879,000
Charming two-family within 1.5 mile of Davis and Medford Squares with garage and driveway. First floor unit has 1 bedroom, 1 bath; upper unit has 4 bedrooms, 2 baths on 2 levels. Lovely back yard and porches.
Commercial 62 Bow Street Unit #60-b, Somerville
366 Somerville Avenue, Somerville
This highly visible, centrally located, street-level commercial condo is in the heart of Union Square with residential condos above it. Open room with exposed brick, picture windows onto the street, half bathroom, and separate area. Currently used by the owners as a small music lesson/performance space, previously used as a drop-off (no plant onsite) dry cleaner, it could be used for other retail or office purposes. (Buyers should review Somerville zoning code and condominium documents for any restrictions on use) Near restaurants, grocery stores, businesses, offices, residential neighborhoods, universities. Quick access to Boston and Cambridge by public transit, car, bike, or foot. On several bus lines, including the CT2, 85, 86, 87, 88, and 91. Steps from long-awaited Union Square Green Line Extension subway stop (now slated to open 2021). Close to several highways, including Routes 93, 38, 28, 90, 16, and 2. Excellent opportunity at an exciting time.
Class A office space in prime Union Sq. location with 2 dedicated parking spaces in the parking lot next to the building. The 3,918 sq.+. space is fully built out, consisting of most of the first (above ground) floor of an elevator building, including 3 large private offices, kitchene*e/breakroom, storage room, and 2 bathrooms. Shared use of front reception area with bathroom and partial use of 33’x21’ conference room. Space is built out as offices; if tenant wants additional buildout, it can be done at tenant’s expense. Asking $35 per sq.+. triple net. Initial lease term of 5 years with annual rent escalation of 2%. Option to renew for 3-year term. Available immediately. MBTA bus stop in Union Square include the CT2 (to Kendall, Ruggles, Sullivan); 85 (Kendall, MIT, Lechmere); 87 (Arlington Center); 91 (Sullivan, Inman, & Central Square); and 90 (Davis Square, Assembly Row, Wellington Station). Future Green Line stop nearby.
for sale at $299,000 or for lease at $2,800/month
$35 nnn
Coming Soon
Thalia Tringo
President, Realtor ® 617.513.1967 cell/text Thalia@ThaliaTringoRealEstate.com
Winchester $tbd –
3-bedroom, 2-bath second floor condo, built in 2007. Kitchen has stainless steel appliances and cherry cabinets. Many windows offering lots of light, generous size rooms, private outdoor space, and 2 parking spots.
28 Newberne St. Unit 6, Somerville Stunning Davis Square townhouse-style unit – (Built 2011) with 3 bedrooms, 2 1/2
baths. Large deck facing the bike path, gas fireplace, central air, 2 garage parking spaces, private garden plot.
Free Classes: Plan now for the Fall
Niké Damaskos
Residential Sales and Commercial Sales and Leasing 617.875.5276 Nike@ThaliaTringoRealEstate.com
Jennifer Rose
Residential Sales Specialist, Realtor ® 617.943.9581 cell/text Jennifer@ThaliaTringoRealEstate.com
First Time Home Buyers:
an overview of the buying process Wednesday, September 12TH
6:30 – 7:45 pm
If you’re considering buying your first home and want to understand what’s in store, this is a quick and helpful overview. Led by our agents and a loan officer from a local bank, it includes a 45-min presentation and 1/2 hour Q&A session. Handouts and refreshments provided.
Lynn C. Graham
Residential Sales Specialist, Realtor ® 617.216.5244 cell/text Lynn@ThaliaTringoRealEstate.com
How to Buy and Sell at the Same Time: for homeowners contemplating a move
Tuesday, August 21ST OR Tuesday, September 18TH 6:30 – 7:45 pm If trying to figure out the logistics of selling your home and buying a new one makes your head spin, this workshop will help make the process & your choices understandable. This workshop, led by our agents and a loan officer from a local bank, includes a 45-min presentation and 1/2 hour Q&A session. Handouts and refreshments provided.
Eco-Friendly/Green Homes Tuesday, September 25TH
Mitigating Water Issues on Your Property
Adaria Brooks
Executive Assistant to the President, Realtor ® 617.308.0064 cell/text Adaria@ThaliaTringoRealEstate.com
6:30 – 7:45 pm
Every year, homeowners struggle with the consequences of water infiltration through foundation, roof, siding, flashing, or elsewhere. Repairing the damage can be costly and time-consuming and can result in more serious issues, including mold. Join us to learn ways to diagnosis and prevent water issues before they occur, whether from street flooding, ice dams, poor drainage, roof damage, and other causes. Lead by our team and a local home inspector.
How Individuals Can Buy Property Together as a Group: a primer for non-traditional homebuyers September Date TBA
Residential Sales Specialist, Realtor ® 617.895.6267 cell/text Brendon@ThaliaTringoRealEstate.com
6:30 – 8:00 pm
If you’re dreaming of a home that’s the ultimate in energy efficiency, join us for a presentation about passive homes. We’ll discuss the lingo associated with this technology, show various examples of homes that use the passive home design/standards, and the various programs currently available to retrofit your home. Presented by a local Architect/Designer, Tagore Hernandez with Group Design Build. One hour presentation and 20 minutes Q&A. Handouts and refreshments provided.
September Date TBA
Brendon Edwards
6:30 – 8:30 pm
When two or more people, whether or not they are related, buy property together, what are their options for taking title? How do you determine each one’s financial contributions, percentage legal interest in the property, and expense allocation? What kind of arrangements can be made in the event one or more parties want to move on but others want to keep the property? What type of financing is available? We will address these and other questions, followed by a Q&A session. Lead by our team and a local real estate a*orney. If you are a first time homebuyer, please a*end the First Time Home Buyers Workshop (March 20th) or make an appointment with one of our agents so you’ll have your prerequisites for this class. To reserve space in any class, please email Adaria@ThaliaTringoRealEstate.com. Admission is free, but we appreciate donations of canned goods for the Somerville Homeless Coalition.
About our company... We are dedicated to representing our buyer and seller clients with integrity and professionalism. We are also commi!ed to giving back to our community. Our agents donate $250 to a non-profit in honor of each transaction and Thalia Tringo & Associates Real Estate Inc. also gives $250 to a pre-selected group of local charities for each transaction. Visit our office, 128 Willow Avenue, on the bike path in Davis Square, Somerville.
JULY 9 - SEPTEMBER 9, 2018 ::: VOLUME 52 ::: SCOUTSOMERVILLE.COM
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contents 6 // EDITOR’S NOTE 8 // WINNERS & LOSERS A new art program is heading our way … but so are ticks. 10 // WHAT’S NEW? The Office of Housing Stability is getting on its feet and naming its first director, plus construction has begun on the new high school. In other news, ONCE was robbed, and Eat at Jumbo’s has transformed into vegetarian spot Sassafras. 14 // NEWS: THE CITY-WIDE WAITING GAME FOR WEED What the path forward looks like for hopeful recreational marijuana dispensaries. 40 // CALENDAR
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DO-GOODERS, KEY PLAYERS, & GAME CHANGERS
Somerville is filled with people who are changing the world, whether through kindness, innovation, legislation, food, music, or the written word. Here you can read their stories and learn about how they’re making your city a better, more dynamic place to live.
41 // SCOUT’S HONORED VOTING Get your ballot in—voting ends July 22! 46 // PHOTO CONTESTS Photos, from left: Ellie Tiglao by Chris McIntosh, Kyle Kornack by Jon Beckley, Afruza Akther by Angela Cook, Tim Hall by Sasha Pedro. On the cover: Jackie Wang. Photo by Sasha Pedro.
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2017 WINNER
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THANK YOU FOR YOUR N O M I N AT I O N , S O M E R V I L L E ! • FAMILY AND COSMETIC DENTISTRY • TEETH WHITENING • CROWN AND BRIDGE WORK • RESTORATION OF DENTAL IMPLANTS • VENEERS • CLEAR ORTHODONTIC ALIGNERS
DR . KAT IE TALMO , D .M. D . • 6 1 7 . 8 6 4 . 6 1 1 1 • 1 8 0 HI G HL A ND AVE N U E
EDITOR’S NOTE
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omerville is filled with people who are changing the world, whether through kindness, innovation, legislation, food, music, or the written word. As we worked to put this issue together, those people seemed to come out of the woodworks. Everywhere I turned, there were more people and organizations that I wanted to include in the pages of this issue. This theme, I think, gets at the heart of what Scout hopes to do in Somerville: to highlight Photo by Megan Souza. the people who make this city what it is, and to show how they’re impacting their neighborhood, their city, and maybe even the world. We had the pleasure meeting some of those people for this issue, and we can’t wait to introduce you to them. There’s Lily Xie, who co-launched a zine to promote artwork by Asian Pacific Islander American, femme creators. “Moon Eaters”—using the historically subversive zine format—constructs both a platform for voices that rarely make their way into mainstream media and a community for the artists that make it. There are the wonderful women of SheBoom, who welcomed me into their weeknight rehearsal-turned-birthday party and told me about their music, their activism, and the sisterhood that they found in their 60s. There’s Lee Erica Palmer, a school committee member who faced the challenges of running for office as a single parent. Now, she’s helped to inspire state legislation that could make it easier for future candidates to secure childcare. There’s Afruza Akther, who’s fighting on behalf of the residents of Union Square as big changes come to the neighborhood. There’s Ellie Tiglao, who’s telling her story of being Filipino-American through food. There are the creators of Green Gas, who have figured out a way to save the planet at the gas pump. And there are so many others. We hope you enjoy this chance to meet some of your neighbors.
Reena Karasin Reena Karasin, Editor-in-Chief rkarasin@scoutmagazines.com
PUBLISHER Holli Banks Allien | hbanks@scoutmagazines.com EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Reena Karasin | rkarasin@scoutmagazines.com ART DIRECTOR Nicolle Renick | design@scoutmagazines.com renickdesign.com PHOTOGRAPHY DIRECTOR Adrianne Mathiowetz | photo@scoutmagazines.com adriannemathiowetz.com CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Jerry Allien | jallien@scoutmagazines.com STAFF WRITER AND SOCIAL MEDIA COORDINATOR Tim Gagnon | tgagnon@scoutmagazines.com CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Abigail Feldman, Adam Sennott, Alex Schroeder, Dana Forsythe, Emily Frost, Eric Francis, Janaka Stucky CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Angela Cook, Chris McIntosh, Claire Vial, Dana Forsythe, Derek Kouyoumjian, Irina M. / IM Creative Photography, Jon Beckley, Randi Freundlich, Sasha Pedro COPY EDITOR Joe Palandrani MARKETING INTERN Kyra Guzzo BANKS PUBLICATIONS 519 Somerville Ave., #314, Somerville, MA 02143 FIND US ONLINE scoutsomerville.com somervillescout
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Office Phone: 617-996-2283 Advertising inquiries? Please contact hbanks@scoutmagazines.com. GET A COPY Scout Somerville is available for free at more than 220 drop spots throughout the city (and just beyond its borders). Additionally, thousands of Somerville homes receive a copy in their mailbox each edition, hitting every neighborhood in the city throughout the year ... sometimes twice! You can find sign up for home delivery by visiting scoutsomerville.com/shop.
ArtBeat by Day: 11-6 Throughout Davis Square 2 stages of music with over 15 bands, a parade, a dance showcase, 80 craft vendors, food, kids activities, Esh Circus Arts and much more flipped out content.
ArtBeat by Night: 6-10 7 Hills Park (behind Som. Theatre) Salsa instruction, Jesus Pagan y su Orquestra, the Perceptionists, and Hayley Thompson-King Full schedule: www.somervilleartscouncil.org Untitled-1.indd 1
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• Tues Aug 28, 7:30pm – Song of the Heart singing meaning into the High Holiday words and melodies • Sat Sept 1, 10:30pm – S’lichot study session on the theme of forgiveness followed by midnight service • Sun Sept 16, 7pm – Awesome Chanting capturing the mood of introspection and holiness between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur • Wed Sept 26, 7:30pm – Learning in the Sukkah & Brown Bag Supper looking at Ecclesiastes, the text customarily studied on Sukkot • Fri Sept 28, 6pm – Potluck in the Sukkah (vegetarian) right after Kabbalat Shabbat Services
ROSH HASHANAH SEPTEMBER 9, 10, 11 • YOM KIPPUR SEPTEMBER 18, 19 Ticket information and a complete High Holiday schedule at www.templebnaibrith.org FREE FAMILY AND TOT HIGH HOLIDAY SERVICES RSVP at templebnaibrith.org/hhfamily Rosh Hashanah: Monday Sept. 10, | Yom Kippur: Wednesday Sept. 19 Family Service 9:30 - 10:45 am, Tot Service 10-10:45am (ages 2-5) 201 Central Street 02145 | 617-625-0333 | www.templebnaibrith.org | tbb@templebnaibrith.org
scoutsomerville.com | Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers
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W&L
WINNERS
LOSERS
COURTYARD CANVASSES With its bite-sized shops and focus on locally owned businesses, the newly opened Bow Market complex in Union Square has already earned our attention—and it looks like it’s hoping to keep it by setting up an arts program in the space. Pitching the idea of its “courtyard as a canvas” to potential crowdfunding donors, Bow Market reached its $50,000 goal to help set up several murals, an ongoing program for artists, and a stage for performances with lighting and seating.
CAREFREE CHILDHOODS “This should not be hanging in my soon-to-bekindergartener’s classroom,” Somerville parent Georgy Cohen tweeted alongside an image she took of a nursery rhyme teaching kids lockdown instructions. The rhyme, which is meant to be sung to the tune of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” tells kids to “shut the lights off, say no more, go behind the desk to hide, wait until it’s safe inside.” After Cohen’s tweet went viral, garnering over 80,000 likes, Mayor Joseph Curtatone and Superintendent Mary Skipper co-released a statement that soberingly justified the poster’s place in schools. “Unfortunately this is the world we live in,” the statement said. “It is jarring—it’s jarring for students, for educators, and for families.”
HOUSING CHOICES May was a banner month for housing development in Somerville. Governor Charlie Baker and Lt. Governor Karyn Polito named Somerville a “Housing Choice Community” as part of the administration’s Housing Choice Initiative, which, according to the Somerville Patch, aims to add 135,000 housing units across the state by 2025. In order to qualify as a “Housing Choice Community,” Somerville and the other 66 communities that were selected had to have developed almost 60,000 units of housing since 2013 and demonstrated “proven track records of pursuing substantial housing production,” the Patch reports. The delineation came as the Board of Aldermen unanimously voted in favor of a Real Estate Transfer Fee, which aims to allocate funding for affordable housing. TRIUMVIRATE ENVIRONMENTAL Local environmental services company Triumvirate Environmental is hoping to pair up with a select group of environmental studies students before they even attend their first college class. The new “employer-funded pathway” will start at UMass Boston this fall, according to a press release, starting with “a base of in-classroom courses, followed with online major and general education courses, and full-time employment at Triumvirate” with options to continue post-graduation. Triumvirate will cover tuition and additional fees for students who stay with the pathway, with the hope that it will “help jumpstart students’ interests in pursuing careers that deal with our environment.”
TICKS (OR, RATHER, US) Ticks are never in the winning column for us—they’re an enemy of summers spent outdoors, they suck your blood while putting you at risk of getting Lyme’s Disease, and, according to a recent CDC report, the number of diseases transmitted by them and their flea/mosquito buddies have tripled across the country, with over 640,000 cases reported between 2004 and 2016. But we have an even more justifiable reason to list them as a loser this month: Massachusetts had the third-highest number of recorded tick-related diseases in the country, behind New York and Pennsylvania, according to the Somerville Patch. Now you’re going to check yourself every time you come back inside for bloodsuckers, right? CROOKED DETECTIVES A Somerville police detective was let go this May for allegedly assisting a drug dealer find a rival in 2015, which led to a break-in and near-fatal assault. Following a disciplinary hearing by the police department, Detective Dante DiFronzo was found to have supplied information that led to the home invasion of a man who, according to the Somerville Times, “allegedly stole marijuana from the dealer,” resulting in a “near fatal stabbing.” Curtatone told residents in a statement that the decision to let DiFronzo go was rooted in “holding accountable officers who violate the Department’s standards of conduct.”
Someone rustle your jimmies or tickle your fancy?
Let us know at scoutsomerville.com/contact-us, and we just might crown them a winner or loser. 8 Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers | scoutsomerville.com
SCOUT TO THE SOUTH Here’s just some of what you’ll find in the Do-Gooders, Key Players, & Game Changers Issue of our sibling publication, Scout Cambridge.
THE BLACK STUDENT UNION CALLS OUT RACISM AT CRLS
CRIMSONBIKES ROLLS OUT GROUNDBREAKING APPROACH TO BIKING ACCESSIBILITY
THE LOOP LAB CREATES BRIDGES FOR PORT YOUTH Want to help shape what our next issue looks like? We need you to VOTE in our 2018 Scout’s Honored polls! Support your favorite businesses at scoutsomerville.com/vote or by filling out the paper ballot on page 41.
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WHAT’S NEW
UNDER CONSTRUCTION make way for the Green Line extension. Broadway Bridge, which connects Ball Square to Magoun, will be completely closed for a year starting this fall, the Somerville Patch reports. Other proposed closures include bridges on Washington Street, Cedar Street, School Street, Medford Street, Lowell Street, and College Avenue.
COMMUNITY PRESERVATION ACT FUNDS 10 HISTORIC AND AFFORDABLE HOUSING PROJECTS
CONSTRUCTION BEGINS AT SOMERVILLE HIGH SCHOOL AND THE CENTRAL HILL CAMPUS
C
onstruction began at the high school in early June after some classes were relocated to temporary rooms back in April to prepare for partial demolition and renovations. The construction focuses on the C Wing, or the East 1929 wing, of the school. The city estimates that construction will conclude in fall 2021, but the school’s renovations are part of a bigger plan to integrate and modernize the Central Hill campus as a whole. The plan, according to the city, is to further integrate Somerville High, the library, and “other civic buildings on the site,” which includes City Hall. Detailed plans haven’t been announced, but the city’s website lists environmental sustainability, resident accessibility, and the mitigation of stormwater impact as goals for the redesign.
SOME OF BEACON STREET’S TREES ARE GETTING SAVED AFTER ALL
Late last year, Beacon Street denizens and travelers alike received a shock when many trees along the busy street connecting Inman Square to Porter Square were removed without warning due to a miscommunication
between MassDOT and the removal company, Newport Construction. But there appears to be a silver lining in the kerfuffle: After members of the community hung signs on the remaining trees demanding their protection, city officials marked four of the six trees for preservation, according to the Somerville Journal. EAST SOMERVILLE
OFFICIALS EYE OLD SHOPPING CENTER FOR NEW POLICE HEADQUARTERS City officials are looking at the former Cobble Hill Shopping Center site, which has been closed since 2014, as a spot
10 Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers | scoutsomerville.com
to relocate both the police headquarters and the Engine 3 fire department’s base, according to the Somerville Patch. The current headquarters building on Washington Street, the Patch reports, was never actually designed to be a public safety building, and previously served as “a car barn for the MBTA” before local authorities took it over in 1985. BALL SQUARE
BROADWAY BRIDGE TO CLOSE FOR GLX CONSTRUCTION
Seven bridges around Somerville are expected to be closed between 2018 and 2020 to
Over $8.3 million from the Community Preservation Act will go to support 10 projects related to historical preservation and affordable housing, the Somerville Patch reports. Several historic properties throughout the city will see yet-to-be-announced improvements, including the Elizabeth Peabody House and Prospect Hill Park. A chunk of the funding for affordable housing will focus on the city’s 100 Homes Initiative, which seeks to purchase multi-family houses, keep them off the speculative market, and make them “perpetually affordable” for lower income families, according to the Patch.
SOMERVILLE COMMUNITY PATH PARTIALLY CLOSED
A renovation project set to fix a drainage system, repair a retaining wall, and repave a part of the Community Path for safety will take approximately three months, according to city officials, with additional paving in November, the Somerville Patch reports. The project will run from Buena Vista Road to the city line, according to the Patch. The city confirmed detours along the route for bicyclists and pedestrians on its website.
Photo, top left, courtesy of the Somerville Public Schools. Photo, bottom left, by Adrianne Mathiowetz. Photo, bottom right, courtesy of Ellen Shachter. Photo, top right, courtesy of Encore Boston Harbor.
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ENCORE BOSTON HARBOR DITCHES WYNN, GETS BOATS After recently disgraced estate/ casino magnate Steve Wynn was removed from his eponymous casino project along the Mystic River amid sexual assault allegations earlier this year, the team behind Wynn Resorts announced the casino would be rebranded as Encore Boston Harbor. The casino/resort, which borders Somerville, is still expected to open in June 2019, but Curbed Boston reports that gaming officials are investigating whether Wynn Resorts will still be granted a gambling license in Massachusetts “given the history of its founder.” Nevertheless, Wynn Resorts announced a yearround water taxi in late May that will take patrons from Boston’s Seaport and Financial Districts on a 20-minute cruise to the casino.
ELLEN SHACHTER AND THE NEW OFFICE OF HOUSING STABILITY
Fulfilling a promise made by Mayor Joseph Curtatone in his January reelection speech, the new Office of Housing Stability kickstarted in June by naming Ellen Shachter as its first director. Shachter previously served as a senior attorney for Cambridge and Somerville Legal Services, focusing on housing and tenant associations and lower-income families for 25 years, according to a press release. Shachter said in a statement that she hopes to expand affordable
housing and improve education for tenants seeking housing and homelessness-prevention resources. Meanwhile, the Office of Housing Stability is already working through a 10-point agenda, which includes establishing a Housing Land Trust for the city, re-launching a lead paint removal program, and creating an Emergency Rental Stabilization program, according to the city.
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ANT BICYCLE GETS INTO A BIKE RENTING “WAR”
It might seem a little overblown to call a dispute over bike-share companies a full-on “border war,” but the Globe’s recent headline about the blowout between Blue Bikes and Ant Bicycle is no joke. Blue Bikes is a docked bike-share company coowned by the municipalities of Somerville, Cambridge, Boston, and Brookline, while Ant Bicycle is a much smaller, locally based venture into dockless bikesharing—which essentially means a bike can be activated anywhere using the company’s app. Both Somerville and Cambridge officials have warned Ant to “stay off its streets,” according to Curbed Boston, and the Globe reports that Boston officials have gone as far as to impound the bikes. If the company’s Instagram is any indication, though, Ant’s next move appears to be spreading across Massachusetts by setting up in Lynn and at UMass Dartmouth.
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11
WHAT’S NEW
PARTNERING UP AND REBRANDING
BREAKTIME CAFE PARTNERS WITH UNION SQUARE DONUTS COMING SOON
MOVED
T
wo Harvard students plan to launch Breaktime Cafe in the fall, where they’ll address employment difficulties facing housing-insecure young adults across the city by serving up vocational training along with coffee and breakfast treats, Eater Boston reports. And to the delight of us Somervillians, Union Square Donuts is partnering with the cafe to spread its infectiously good donuts to Harvard Square. Union Square Donuts responded “most emphatically” out of all the local businesses Breaktime contacted for partnerships, co-creator Tony Shu tells Eater.
UNION SQUARE
FIELD & VINE PLANS BREAKFAST DATES WITH PLUM DELICIOUS
Field & Vine’s been practicing its elegantly simple, mindfully sourced dishes for a little under a year in the former Journeyman space, but the dinner spot’s already looking to shake things up with pop-up pastry makers Plum Delicious. Plum Delicious will be slinging treats including miso cruffins (no, that’s not a typo, it’s a croissant-muffin hybrid) and pretzeled croissants on Saturdays until 1 p.m. all summer long to coincide with the Union Square Farmers Market. BALL SQUARE
SASSAFRAS
It was a jumbo-sized heartbreak to hear pizzeria/ sub shop Eat at Jumbo’s would COMING MOVED be retired for a new restaurant SOON under the same management, but Sassafras, its vegetarian/ vegan reboot, is teasing a menu that’s doing a number on any initial skepticism we might’ve had. Running the gamut of styles
and cuisines, Sassafras’s menu includes “whitefish” sushi with a vegan substitute, seitan steak chimichurri, and a “Big Macinspired burger” with the muchdiscussed Impossible Burger, Eater Boston reports. Sassafras will open at 5 p.m. on weekdays for dinner and at 10 a.m. on weekends for brunch. UNION SQUARE
REBEL REBEL
COMING SOON
With a cheeky, profanity-sprinkled edge to the statement taped to its door (sample line: “there will be no bulls**t, in the wine or in the vibe”), upcoming Bow Market wine bar Rebel Rebel might seem like it’ll become a den for Bowieworshipping rabble-rousers (which we’d love, by the way). But mastermind Lauren Friel seems to be crafting a friendly space to be inquisitive about natural wines. Friel, a former Eater Boston freelancer and “venerable vino pro,” according to Boston Magazine, will use her circular bar starting this summer to serve up classes, meet-andgreets with winemakers, and “all
12 Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers | scoutsomerville.com
of the nerdiest, most fun, exciting things I want to be drinking” that would normally be too expensive to serve by the glass. UNION SQUARE
GODAVARI MINI
COMING SOON
Classic Union Square restaurant India Palace might be gone, but a worthy Indian cuisine replacement is thankfully taking its place. Godavari Mini is the MOVED latest addition to the Godavari
restaurant group, which has other locations in Woburn and Framingham, according to Boston Restaurant Talk. Godavari’s specialty is its dosa dishes, but the restaurant offers MOVED up a buffet of classic curry favorites and blended fruit drinks. Godavari Mini will have its grand opening in late July after a kitchen renovation wraps up, the restaurant told Scout.
Photo, top left, courtesy of Breaktime. Photo, bottom left, courtesy of Godavari Mini. Photo, top right, courtesy of Bull McCabe’s.
FACEBOOK DRAMA AND SOCIAL MEDIA STORIES and Yelp lists the pizzeria as permanently closed, apparently signaling the end of the Davis Square pizza joint. UNION SQUARE
ONCE SOMERVILLE FANS AID A CROWDFUNDING EFFORT POST-ROBBERY
UNION SQUARE
BULL MCCABE’S FACES LEASE UNCERTAINTY
“What’s the future of Bull McCabe’s? Here’s the short answer; we don’t know,” the Irish pub wrote in a Facebook post in late May, detailing the 10-year lease and fiveyear extension option that it said its landlord suddenly expressed interest in renegotiating late last year. The landlord proposed a rent hike starting July 1 that doubles what Bull McCabe’s currently pays, according to the post, leading the owners to suggest the issue “may end up in lawyers’ hands.” The pub’s Brian Manning posted an update in early June, however, saying that they’re renegotiating with the landlord, adding that “there are many wrinkles to agree upon, but we are moving in the right direction.” DAVIS SQUARE
CRISTO’S PIZZERIA
This longstanding pizza joint quietly went out of business in early May, but a few Facebook sleuths and nostalgic patrons made sure to wish it a proper farewell online. A former patron posted about its apparent closure in a Davis Square Facebook group, according to Boston Restaurant Talk, sparking an outpouring of memories, speculation, and eulogies to the restaurant’s beloved Chicken Hercules sandwich. Cristo’s website is deactivated
ONCE Somerville shared a cheeky, but nonetheless downtrodden shot of an employee “smudging” their venue with sage to promote positive spirits in late May, serving as the only hint on social media that the business had suffered a burglary and vandalism the day before. The burglars were likely hiding in the venue after the May 23 show, according to a WCVB report, and trashed what appeared to be an office, stealing money along with financial records. A GoFundMe page was started for the venue by WZLX DJ Anngelle Wood, Vanyaland reports, netting its goal of $20,000 within a month thanks to social media boosts from local fans and cult indie acts like (Sandy) Alex G.
UNION TAVERN AND THE JUNGLE
COMING SOON
If newly registered Twitter accounts and Craigslist job posts are solid indicators of a future business, then prepare for two new venues to crop up in Union Square sometime in the near future. A Twitter account created in May under the handle @UNIONTAVERN3 is hyping itself up as the “newest eatery/ entertainment etc.” coming to Somerville, Eater Boston reports, but offers no information on a location or opening date. Meanwhile, Boston Restaurant Talk reports that The Jungle was considering landing in Davis Square at one point last year, but has since started eying a space in Union Square Plaza. The venue, which is named after its desire to “help people meet new friends and form a community in the concrete jungle,” is seeking restaurant, liquor, and entertainment licenses, according to records from an April 19 Licensing Commission meeting.
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NEWS
THE CITY-WIDE WAITING GAME FOR WEED What the Path Forward Looks Like for Hopeful Recreational Marijuana Dispensaries BY TIM GAGNON | PHOTOS BY CLAIRE VIAL
A
fter nearly two years of legislative discussion and preparation, the day that recreational marijuana advocates in Massachusetts have been waiting for … well, sort of arrived. July 1 was the first day that recreational dispensaries could open, but the state didn’t even announce its first license recipient until June 21. Meanwhile, close to 200 of Massachusetts’s 351 cities and towns have already banned retail shops in their municipalities, the Boston Globe reports. Some have gone as far as to permanently ban retail, while others, including Somerville, have resorted to enacting moratoriums—temporary prohibitions to buy officials more time to hash out matters like zoning and legislation. A large chunk of the moratoriums expired on July 1, but Somerville opted for one that extends until December. City officials, however, say they hope to have policies sorted out long
before the moratorium officially ends, ideally before the end of summer. The city aims to start accepting applications in the fall, according to city spokesperson Jaclyn Rossetti. Still, local activists found the decision for a moratorium in Somerville, especially one with a December deadline, a big surprise, including cannabis coop owner Eric Schwartz. “To have the people vote over 70 percent yes on Question 4 [in support of legalization] and then have 9 out of 11 [aldermen] vote on a moratorium to postpone that rollout … yes, that was surprising,” Schwartz recalls. “It seemed like a vote that risked being out of touch with the constituency.” Somerville’s moratorium isn’t necessarily a cut-and-dry case of local officials acting against what their constituents want, though. First-term Ward 3 Alderman Ben Ewen-Campen, one of two aldermen who voted
14 Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers | scoutsomerville.com
against the moratorium, argues that zoning regulations need to be in place before shops open, but emphasizes that the yet-tobe-formed regulations are long overdue. “You can’t just have it be legal with no local policy whatsoever, but the issue for me is that I think the board should’ve acted on this a long time ago,” Ewen-Campen says. “The residents want it, it’s our job to provide policies and regulations, and I think it should be fast tracked.” As the moratorium stretches past July 1, concerns have risen about how it will affect hopeful recreational dispensaries. Potential small business owners are essentially in limbo as they wait to apply for a license and to see what zoning policies the city comes up with. Such local policies ultimately affect the nascent industry more than city officials might care to admit, Schwartz argues. “We’ll see how this plays out
locally in Somerville, but what we’re seeing at the municipal level even across the Boston area … [is] larger players are able to come in, have the time and capital to do a lot of the lobbying efforts, and try to loosen up those [zoning] restrictions,” Schwartz says.
THE PATH FORWARD FOR RECREATIONAL DISPENSARIES
A
lthough a David and Goliath-esque battle between smaller, localized businesses and bigger brands for turf is somewhat hypothetical at this point, some worry that adult-use entrepreneurs will have to scramble for local traction while more established local medical dispensaries expand easily into the adult-use market. The state is granting existing medical dispensaries a faster review process for launching recreational sales, according to city public meeting notes, and
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NEWS
has “restricted local governments from using zoning to prohibit the change in use from RMD to adult-use facility.” Director of Planning George Proakis explains that, although zoning discussions focus on making smaller, local businesses feel that they can be a part of the industry, it’s likely that many existing dispensaries will be interested in offering both recreational and medical marijuana. That being said, it won’t be as easy as clearing out a section of the medical dispensary for adultuse inventory. Despite the state rules allowing expedited application processes for medical facilities, Somerville has established that any dispensary looking to expand into the adult-use market will not simply “skip the line” on the process, according to the public meeting notes, and will likely have to go through whatever process the city ultimately lands on to get a recreational license. Existing dispensaries’ locations and operations were decided based on medicinal status, and it’s likely that another rigorous process awaits any dispensary looking to secure a license for selling adult-use products—which, for medical dispensary leader Sira Naturals CEO Mike Dundas, is welcomed. “We’re waiting to see what that process looks like and how it unfolds,” Dundas tells Scout regarding any potential expansion into adult-use sales in Somerville. “If the zones are written in a way that would allow our facility to engage in adult-use sales, we would presumably apply for an adult-use retail license and go through the licenser process.” After being one of a few dispensaries to get the green light on a dispensary license in 2013, Sira (then known as Sage Naturals) quickly began organizing community meetings outside of its Milford homebase and getting to know local officials in the city, and eventually expanded with dispensaries in Cambridge, Needham, and Somerville. On June 21, Sira’s Milford location received the first state license for adult-use marijuana.
“You can’t just have it be legal with no local policy whatsoever, but ... the board should’ve acted on this a long time ago.” “We’ve got these facilities, we did it, and we started by rubbing two sticks together as well,” Dundas says. “It was very, very difficult and we got very lucky along the way, but we’re here today.” Dundas admits that feelings of insular competitiveness still linger in the local cannabis community from the early days when dispensaries competed for medical licenses, but he intends to prop up local adult-use entrepreneurs through Sira’s new Incubator program. Sira will select several “microbusiness” cannabis projects, bring them to the Milford headquarters, and help them commercialize their products by
16 Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers | scoutsomerville.com
scaling up their output, making it consistent, and using thirdparty independent testing labs to ensure safety. “Cannabis is interesting in that we’re really trying to give birth to an entire industry all at once,” Dundas says. “Despite the fact that we put a lot of time, energy, and capital into building our facilities, we believe the better approach is to embrace competition, embrace others in the space, and really try to give folks a leg up and expand the pie of good, professional operators.” Of course, Sira’s Incubator program can only fit so many projects, and people like Schwartz believe there’s an obvious
avenue small cannabis business owners might take as long as the moratorium stays in place or if zoning becomes too selective. “It’s a scenario where folks are going to other towns or environments that are politically and locally a little more friendly, get a foothold in a different municipality, and develop a good relationship with local officials there,” Schwartz says. “In other words, the more restrictions that are put up, I think small players have no other choice but to go somewhere else.” The city has many questions to answer through regulations, ranging from where dispensaries will be allowed to establish themselves, to whether there will be a limited number of licenses, to whether recreational marijuana will need to be grown organically. The city has not announced specific restrictions or legislative plans as of press time. Still, Ewen-Campen says many of his colleagues who supported the moratorium share his desire to have Somerville lead the way on recreational marijuana, which both he and Rossetti say will be paved by correcting injustices committed in the name of the war on drugs. “We are working to follow policies that are similar to the state’s, by incentivizing business[es] that have local operators that have been disproportionately impacted by the so-called war on drugs,” Rossetti writes, going on to emphasize the prioritization of small craft operators and locally owned small businesses. Proakis also confirmed that the city is looking into a system with the licensing office that gives prioritized licenses to people who have received marijuanarelated charges. “I think this is important to people, particularly in light of the history of the war on drugs,” Ewen-Campen says. “I hope everyone understands this is not just about how we want to be able to smoke weed. This is really righting a wrong that has done enormous harm to generations of people, primarily people of color, and this is a criminal justice reform that has been long, long, long needed.”
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17
DO-GOODERS, KEY PLAYERS & GAME CHANGERS
Do-Gooders, Ke y
s r e y a l P
&
Game
Changers 18 Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers | scoutsomerville.com
AFRUZA AKTHER, UNION UNITED BY ADAM SENNOTT
A
fruza Akther didn’t want to get involved in politics when she immigrated to Union Square from Bangladesh in 2004. And for about a decade, she didn’t—until 2014, when she was almost forced to leave Somerville because her family couldn’t afford the increasing rent of her Putnam Street apartment. Luckily, they were able get a housing subsidy and find a new home in the city, but Akther, 35, decided it was time to take action. “If it keeps going this way, then we can’t live in the community that we love,” Akther says. She soon became one of the founding members of Union United, a community group dedicated to ensuring that residents aren’t forced out by increased rent costs caused by the Union Square Revitalization and Green Line Extension projects. The group has adopted “development without displacement” as its slogan. The group members have a long road ahead of them. The city is still in the initial stages of the massive revitalization project, which aims to transform Union Square by redeveloping 15 acres of land. About 60 percent of the project will be commercial space, and the rest will be residential. The entire project is slated to create nearly 1,000 new housing units, 20 percent of which will be affordable, according to US2, the company selected by the city to develop the land. The $1 billion
Photo by Angela Cook.
project is also expected to create 5,000 jobs and over $11.3 million annually in new property tax revenue. US2 is aiming to break ground on the D-2 parcel on the corner of Prospect Street and Somerville Avenue this fall, according to Tom Galligani, Somerville’s director of economic development. The space is currently a vacant lot. Union United consisted of just a few people at first, Akther says. Members took turns knocking on doors to recruit residents and get their take on what was happening to the community. At the time it was “icy cold,” and they had a tough time getting people to join them. “People would say, ‘Good, you guys are doing [a] great job keep up the good work,’ and then [they] didn’t show up [at] the meeting,” Akther says. “That hurts.” But over time, their message began to stick, Akther says. Today the group has roughly 200 to 300 members, and it meets the first Thursday of every month at 29 Elm Street. Akther was elected to the Union Square Neighborhood Council in the fall, which is responsible for negotiating with US2 on behalf of the residents. She received 377 votes, the most of any member on the 15-member council, according to the Somerville Journal. In early May, she received the Hazel Hughes award from the Somerville Community Corporation.
AFRUZA AKTHER One of the reasons Akther has been so successful is that she understands that organizing “begins with building relationships,” says Van Hardy, who was also one of the founding members of Union United. “What has amazed me about Afruza is her ability to take one relationship and expand it into a network. Knocking on doors, talking to strangers, making a connection that opens more doors—she is one of the best,” Hardy says. “She is not the kind of organizer/leader that jumps to the front of the room to take charge. She listens and learns from others. Encouraging others to speak up in meetings and to take on leadership roles,
strengthening the organization as a whole rather than providing a leader to be followed.” Despite all of Union United’s efforts, Akther says that people have already been priced out of Union Square and have been forced to move. “A lot of people moved out,” Akther says. “There’s so many families we lost.” Akther isn’t sure if one day she’ll be forced to leave herself. Despite the uncertainty, Akther said she hopes her work will have a lasting impact on her community. “Maybe I’m not going to get the benefit from this, maybe I will,” Akther says. “But someone will.”
scoutsomerville.com | Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers 19
DO-GOODERS, KEY PLAYERS & GAME CHANGERS
LILY XIE, CRYSTAL BI WEGNER, AND AILIN LU
“MOON EATERS” BY REENA KARASIN
20 Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers | scoutsomerville.com
S
omerville resident Lily Xie and her fellow creators choose the words of their mission statement with great care, laying out the groundwork of a zine at the intersection of Asian Pacific Islander American (APIA) and femme identities. “Moon Eaters is a place for us to talk to each other about representation and cross-diaspora experiences. We want to talk
about things we love, like music, snacks, TV celebrities, trending styles. We also want to talk about things like immigrant journeys, our bodies, estranged families, displacement.” The first issue of “Moon Eaters,” released in June, features a diverse yet cohesive set of pieces created by APIA and femme artists. Some pieces are heavy—a poem about racial fetishization, Photos by Claire Vial.
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or a second-person narrative about going through life with a name that is chronically mispronounced. Some are a bit lighter—an interview with a friend, or an APIA Diaspora Bingo board with spaces like “‘No, I don’t speak Chinese or Japanese’” and “Bowl haircut until the age of 8.” While “Moon Eaters” is brand new, its founders—Xie, Crystal Bi Wegner, and Ailin Lu—are already thinking of ways that the concept can morph and expand beyond the zine format to tell the stories and do the work they want it to do. How would you describe “Moon Eaters”? Ailin Lu: We started out as three friends who wanted to put together a zine, and specifically we wanted to use that format to hold a microphone to APIA, femme voices—we think of femme as an umbrella term that falls under queer. It started out as just a really cool zine idea we wanted to put together, but I think this past month it’s sort of grown a little bit. We’ve been doing more than just putting zines together, we’re also selling artwork and zines and chapbooks by other POC makers, we’re also connecting folks. Crystal Bi Wegner: The main thing that we wanted when we started it was to create a platform for APIA, femme/queer folks and their artwork, so we just started reaching out to our friends, and from there it kind of spiraled. We got a ton of submissions and people that want to be part of it, so we found that people were really hungry for this sort of thing. What sorts of art do you picture putting in the zine? Lily Xie: For a lot of projects, the medium is supposed to tie it together, but I think for this one we’re trying to highlight the shared experience, so kind of whatever medium comes through—performance art, painting, photography—is kind of secondary. AL: Depending on the type of contributions that we get, it’s also
making us want to consider how else to feature the work that we receive. Crystal also does sound pieces, and we’ve been thinking about how do we incorporate sound into something that was originally a 2D platform. CBW: I think our mission statement has kind of served as the theme, or the editing tool that people have used. A lot of the pieces just have to deal with identity. You mentioned a shared experience. Have there been any common threads of that experience that have shone through organically? LX: Definitely. When we started, we actually wanted to have a theme for the first issue, and it was going to be about amateur wisdom, and this idea of when you’re growing up within this particular identity, you kind of have to figure stuff out on your own. There’s not a lot of representation in media or books or even elders that can tell you how to navigate this particular identity, so amateur wisdom is kind of the idea that we teach each other, we learn from our peers and our community, and that’s the wisdom that we draw from. Even though we ended up not necessarily highlighting that theme, I think that was really foundational for us, and I think that does come through a lot of the shared experience. There’s a lot of stuff about identifying red flags, one piece of important shared wisdom—when do you feel like someone’s trying to take advantage of your identity, when you’re not being respected and what that looks like. AL: As much as we’re looking for a narrative to share, I think even more so we want to share that there are a lot of differences. There are a lot of differences amongst those in the APIA community, and I think there’s a lot that we can learn from each other. I think it’s difficult to find spaces that do a really good job of bridging different communities within the Asian diaspora.
22 Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers | scoutsomerville.com
Where’d the title come from? LX: We wanted a title that would be shared across different Asian cultures and experiences. The three of us are East Asian, and we didn’t really want something that would be particular to that identity, because we know that the Asian American umbrella encompasses so much more. So we were thinking about what things would tie these different cultures together, and one thing was a relationship with the moon. AL: And also the moon is a feminine symbol. You said earlier that you’re really hoping to amplify these people’s voices. What are some ways in which you’ve felt that your own voices haven’t been amplified before, and how have you felt that positioning change, if you have, since starting the zine? AL: Just a lack of representation in mainstream media. And then to answer the second part of your question, I personally think it’s too early to tell, but what it has highlighted for me is how much people share this need, or this lack.
CBW: I wasn’t encouraged to be an artist at all, and then seeing other Asian Americans pursuing art or pursuing music—I can’t even describe, it fills me with confidence. When I first found out about Yaeji—she has the same glasses as me. Creating a sense of community where we can see a lot of other Asian Americans that are doing the work locally and more quietly, seeing all those people, that just filled me with confidence as well. LX: I feel like not seeing people who share something with you, it’s this loneliness. It’s really hard to create your identity in a vacuum—you really latch onto whatever you can. There’s queer media and there’s APIA media, and there’s not a lot that is both, so you start to cobble together this mosaic of different pieces of your identity from these different worlds, but there’s a lot of things that conflict. So it’s sometimes confusing, there’s tension there. So having something that encompasses both of those worlds makes me feel a little less lonely. Editor’s note: This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and conciseness.
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DO-GOODERS, KEY PLAYERS & GAME CHANGERS
HIPSTORY BY ALEX SCHROEDER
O
ver the course of its sevenyear history, HipStory has been many things. It started as a mixtape, found a home online as hipstory.org, and then, at one point or another, set its sights on conquering every corner of the musical world. “It had many different aspirations,” founder and coowner Cliff Notez says. “We wanted to be a label, we wanted to be a TV company. We wanted to be everything.” Production company, collective—the list goes on. But no matter what shape HipStory has taken, it’s been driven by the sheer creative energy of the company. Or, as co-owner Tim Hall puts it simply, the desire to “do a lot of dope shit.” After finding success across album releases, film projects, a music tour, and more, HipStory has shifted its focus to providing clients with the expertise needed to accomplish their own creative projects. “Our goal for HipStory is for it to be something that allows creativity to grow,” Hall says. “And it has the resources and the mindset to be able to turn those ideas into products that people want, that people care about, that people like.” Born and bred in various Somerville studios, HipStory is a digital media production company dedicated to “redefining the future history” of media and hip-hop, according to its website. Right now, that means “focusing on what we’re good at and what we’re capable of doing,” Notez says: audio and video production/ engineering, and event curation. These services are platforms to help artists who want to tell their stories get them out there. And the types of stories
HipStory is helping to tell matter. Central to all of the company’s work is a commitment to sharing the narratives of people of color, of those living with mental health issues, of those who identify as queer, and of those who belong to other historically oppressed identities. “Part of who we are is, we care about creating an opportunity for marginalized voices to be heard,” Hall says. Made up of musicians, photographers, graphic designers, visual artists, teachers, and more, HipStory is equipped to handle a diverse array of creative requests. “There’s so many different backgrounds of ours that, like—I don’t want to sound cocky, but we can do anything,” says producer Tony Hamoui, who performs under the name Hamstank. “Any film, any genre, anything. We can do it.” Only recently has HipStory redirected its course to serve clients in this way, though. It’s been a journey to solidify that identity. Hall, 31, and Notez, 27, first met through the Massachusetts Literary Education and Performance Collective’s Louder Than A Bomb (LTAB) poetry slam festival in 2015. Hall, a saxophonist and Detroit transplant who had recently accepted a job at the Berklee College of Music, was a volunteer with the organization. Notez, who grew up in Boston, was coaching a team based out of Raw Art Works in Lynn. A chance run-in at a Guitar Center set everything in motion. Soon, Hall was making trips to Notez’s Winter Hill apartment, which served as the HipStory homebase and studio for two years, to begin experimenting. Speaking with the pair in
24 Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers | scoutsomerville.com
CLIFF NOTEZ AND TIM HALL Hall’s East Boston apartment, it’s easy to see how the two have come so far running HipStory together. They laugh and play off each other while recounting the origin story. “The cool thing is that we just vibed,” Hall says. “It was kind of natural. We would show up. He would play a beat. I would play over it. We were just hanging out, and after a couple weeks, I’m like, ‘Yo, have you thought about doing anything with all this equipment?’” “‘I already got a website,’” Notez remembers saying. From there, the ideas flourished. HipStory and its affiliated acts flooded the Boston
arts scene. Among the projects: Hall’s “Color of my Soul,” poet and rapper Oompa’s “November 3rd,” rapper Forté’s “The Impatient Mixtape,” and Notez’s “When The Sidewalk Ends.” There was also Notez’s award-winning film, “Vitiligo,” which explored mental health and the psychological effects of racism in America. The project, Notez’s thesis for his master’s in digital media from Northeastern University, won the grand prize at the March on Washington Film Festival. Fellow HipStory artists VQnC, Hamstank, Hakim Hill and Nick Martin were also Photos by Sasha Pedro.
“That’s the beauty of HipStory—it allows each person within the brand to maintain their own identity, while the identities mash together to make the HipStory brand.” hard at work on both their own endeavors and collaborative projects that grew out of HipStory. All of the creative output and acclaim culminated in a HipStory summer tour in 2017, which brought the group up and down the East Coast. More exposure and recognition followed.
But at this point, Hall and Notez felt they needed to step back and reassess their success. “As a business, we were starting to realize, ‘Whoa, we’re doing a lot of growing. There’s a lot of things going on. We need to really figure out what makes sense,’” Hall says. “We just needed to figure
out, like, how can we bring in money so we can do half of the things that we actually want to do?” Notez says. The group learned to leverage its collective talent and resources after participating in the Transformative Culture Project’s business accelerator, AccelerateBOS, which gave it
a community of entrepreneurs to learn from. They were also awarded a $15,000 Live Arts Boston grant. Thus, the iteration of HipStory as a digital media production company was alive and thriving. This year, the company has worked with the Boston Arts Music and Soul (BAMS) Fest, Company One Theatre’s production of “Hype Man,” a documentary for Fairfield University’s collegiate recovery program, and more. And, of course, the individual HipStory creators have been producing their own art. “That’s the beauty of HipStory—it allows each person within the brand to maintain their own identity, while the identities mash together to make the HipStory brand,” says Hamstank, whose latest album “Rise of the Giant King” dropped in January. The bright future of HipStory is only getting brighter. Hall and Notez are in the process of moving HipStory to a new workspace in Dorchester, and in the meantime are operating out of Pink Noise in Somerville. Maybe they’ll be a label or something even bigger somewhere down the line, they say. Notez has a vision for the future in which HipStory has built itself into a company big enough to provide even more resources to artists and communities— education, philanthropy, and more. But for now, focusing on media production services will allow them to direct their business model toward a path of expansion. The fabric of HipStory is woven from a spirit of encouragement, validation, and visibility. That’s what brought the group’s members together in the first place. “Being around Tim and around Oompa, it was like the first time I was around these respected musicians that I love, and I was like, ‘Oh? You all think I’m good at this?’” Notez says. “I think that’s what everybody was getting from it.” It’s a simple but profound message from HipStory: What you’re doing is important, and we see you. And we want to help you keep doing it.
scoutsomerville.com | Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers 25
DO-GOODERS, KEY PLAYERS & GAME CHANGERS
RACHEL STRUTT, SOMERVILLE ARTS COUNCIL BY REENA KARASIN
R RACHEL STRUTT
achel Strutt, program director at the Somerville Arts Council, has always been interested in helping to amplify marginalized voices. She got her master’s degree in medieval art history at Tufts, studying the “people on the margins.” She continued with her passion of promoting people’s stories as a journalist, and eventually carried that drive to the
arts council, where she’s channeled her efforts through food. Nibble, the council’s culinary arm that supports diversity and entrepreneurship in Union Square, has grown organically, according to Strutt. Nibble began with tours of the square’s international markets and developed into an umbrella organization that runs a culinary entrepreneurship program,
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cooking classes, and pop-up restaurants—all of which focus on the myriad immigrant communities that live in Union Square. The current group of Nibble entrepreneurs hail from countries including Bolivia, Venezuela, Somalia, Ethiopia, and Bangladesh. In Strutt’s eyes, food is a way for the entrepreneurs and cooking class teachers to communicate and tell stories. One of Nibble’s cooking instructors doesn’t speak English, Strutt explains, “But it doesn’t matter—she’s so charismatic, and food is its own language … It’s like this amazing social experiment where people who started off strangers don’t want to go home.” Nibble will open a permanent kitchen in Bow Market this year, fulfilling one of Strutt’s long-term goals for the program. The roughly 400-square-foot space will hold a rotating restaurant, where different entrepreneurs will get to try out their menus and temporarily run a restaurant.
“Our dream has always been to not be nomadic and have a location where we can do our cooking classes, continue with our entrepreneurship training, but also do regular retail vending to the public in a location that has good foot traffic,” Strutt says. Strutt says Bow Market felt like a good match for Nibble due to its central location and its startup-friendly setup. She could envision Nibble entrepreneurs graduating from the program and opening their own restaurants in the complex or elsewhere in Union Square, she says. “What we hope is that if people can launch a successful menu a couple days a week, and if they really build up a devoted clientele, then the next step would be to open their own restaurant, and I think that could potentially be Bow Market, but the goal is definitely to land those businesses in Somerville,” she says. Immigrants have a “track record of being entrepreneurs” when they come to the United States, Strutt explains, and she
hopes that Nibble can help make culinary entrepreneurship accessible to immigrants and “help people feel pride in their talents.” “In the current political climate, ‘immigrant’ has a bad name, and I think in Somerville,
led by the mayor, I think we take pride in our immigrants,” Strutt says. “I just have met the most beautiful people through this program.” Photos by Angela Cook.
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DO-GOODERS, KEY PLAYERS & GAME CHANGERS
ELLIE TIGLAO, TANÁM BY ABIGAIL FELDMAN
“I
t’s important to tell your own food story.” That’s the driving force behind what Ellie Tiglao, one of Boston’s rising culinary talents, describes as “narrative cuisine.” Her new restaurant, Tanám—slated to open in Bow Market in late summer—blends artistic inspiration and historical awareness to create intimate and memorable dining experiences. A career scientist with a background in art and art history, Tiglao, 33, got her start in Boston’s culinary scene fairly recently. This May, she became one of just two Boston-area nominees to qualify as a national semi-finalist for Eater’s “Young Guns” title, awarded yearly both to restaurant workers under 30 and to those who have been in the business for less than five years. The daughter of a chef, Tiglao grew accustomed to cooking for others while growing up in her father’s kitchen. Frequent family parties meant she was often enlisted to help chop ingredients and wash dishes. Cooking, she says, is the way her family expresses affection. When she moved from California to Boston to pursue a neuroscience career at Massachusetts General Hospital, she continued hosting dinners for 10 to 20 people every weekend. “I just enjoyed that aspect of being with other people,” Tiglao says. “And there was nothing like what I cooked with my family— nothing like that around.” Tiglao eventually left science, leaving herself without a plan. When her brother came to visit her in Boston during the summer of 2014, they opened Tiglao’s first pop-up restaurant, a Filipinostyle eatery called Pamangan. “I don’t know what I was thinking, necessarily,” she says. “I just knew I missed my family and I missed cooking with them, and I took that as an opportunity to do
ELLIE TIGLAO it and share it with other people.” The successful opening of Pamangan set off a chainreaction of events. Tiglao eventually wound up on a two-month research trip to the Philippines, where she worked in local restaurants and attended a conference on the Manila Galleon Trade Route in 2016. At the conference, she studied the Spanish ship route’s role in moving ingredients among areas under Spain’s colonial rule, and met other chefs who were touched by the trade. “Latin American cuisine— what would it be without cilantro and lime? That came from this
28 Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers | scoutsomerville.com
trade,” Tiglao says. “Those sorts of insights are what was really interesting to me.” It’s these elements of history that Tiglao says she wants to get right while developing her own narratives through food. Her hope, she explains, is not to anchor her new restaurant to a specific ethnic cuisine, but rather to tell the stories of the people who will work there. Tiglao’s vision for Tanám’s dining room, which houses just one 10-seat table, is a series of theater-like “runs,” each featuring a different food narrative. The meals will be designed to reflect a part of Tiglao’s story, or that of
one of her associates. Some type of media—perhaps a video, audio track, or performance—will accompany each story. Instead of a menu, restaurant-goers will be given a homemade zine that incorporates information about the story, the history, and of course the food. In her experience hosting pop-ups, small-scale dining settings have made for more memorable evenings, she says. “It allows us to interact with each other in a way that’s not possible in other spaces,” she says. “People were making friends with each other, finding people that they didn’t realize they had a Photos by Chris McIntosh.
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connection with, and finding how much they value that.” While the dining room menu will be constantly changing, snacks and cocktails, served a la carte on the restaurant’s outdoor bar-patio, will stay Filipino, she says. Tiglao’s goals for her restaurant aren’t solely tied to the food. Working for Olio Culinary Collective, a worker-owned food service co-op dedicated to workplace fairness, gave Tiglao the opportunity to reflect on her business ideals find and ways to counter common food industry problems, such as rapid employee turnover and low wages. “People know that if they
do better, they’ll be able to share more in the profits, and because they’re an owner, they take responsibility for things that they do,” Tiglao says. “How people experience [Tanám] aside, I really want to be able to say that everybody who works here can afford to eat here.” Tiglao says the restaurant’s name, “tanám,” means “planting” or “cultivation.” For her, the restaurant’s opening symbolizes her decision to settle on the East Coast. “What makes this so powerful for me is that cooking for others was how I express my love for my family, so it’s kind of a way that I show up for Boston,” she says.
amortondesign.com 617.894.0285 info@aMortonDesign.com scoutsomerville.com | Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers 29
DO-GOODERS, KEY PLAYERS & GAME CHANGERS
JACKIE WANG BY JANAKA STUCKY
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JACKIE WANG 30 Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers | scoutsomerville.com
omerville poet Jackie Wang will not be pigeon-holed. She’s a performer, the author of multiple radical zines, and a self-described “poetry-school drop-out,” “library rat,” and “trauma monster.” She’s also a Ph.D. candidate at Harvard in African and African American Studies, and, she cheerfully adds, “I also make music and films!” You may have heard her name most recently alongside the term “prison abolitionist.” Wang’s new book, “Carceral Capitalism,” is a collection of essays that investigates how the economy of incarceration has evolved over the past few decades. It was published by Semiotext(e), an imprint of MIT Press, in February, and she’s been touring behind the book as an advocate for carceral change since its release. Her sharp focus on prisons grew out of personal experience: her older brother was sentenced to juvenile life without parole in 2005. (Recently, his sentence was reduced to 40 years.) “I usually start with a question, then figure out what tools or resources I need to address the question,” she explains. Needing to expand her financial vocabulary to write about municipal finance, for instance, Jackie watched a bootlegged video course on finance. “For each essay, there was a dimension of the carceral state and contemporary capitalism that I wanted to understand and unpack, whether it was the legal conception of the ‘juvenile’ and its relationship to the superpredator myth, the political economy of fee and fine farming by the police, algorithmic policing, the racialized nature of the debt economy, or the poetics of abolition.” Before her book was released by MIT Press, I saw Jackie read from it at Harvard’s Houghton Library, alongside other poet
activists, at an event titled, “Poetry in the Age of Mass Incarceration.” The excerpt she chose for the event, the only poem in a book of essays, stunned the entire room. It was the first section I turned to when the book came out a few months later, so I asked her about her decision to include the poem in a book of essays. “The poet is a reflection of the present insofar as they index the reality that has produced them,” she says. “What is in the consciousness (and unconscious) of the poet is the world—it flows through them.” For Jackie, the world flowing through her is one of capitalism and incarceration, and it is a world that needs to change. “Poetry not only indexes the present, but it engages in imaginative work that makes new futures possible,” she says. “It is a pickaxe we use to chip away at the edifice of the carceral capitalist present.” What’s next for the activist-essayist-poet? Wang is investigating America’s bail system: the bail bonds industry and the use of risk assessment tools by the state and non-profits to make decisions about bail and pre-trial detention. At Harvard, she’s working with her advisor and another peer on curating an exhibit of highlighted papers from Civil Rights Movement activist and feminist Angela Y. Davis. And, just in case you were worried she might have some free time to go on a picnic this summer, she’s also working on completing two books—one of poetry, titled “The Sunflower Cast a Spell to Save Us From the Void,” and another collection of essays, “Alien Daughters Walk Into the Sun: An Encyclopedia of Extreme Girlhood.” Want to hear more about her work? You can see Wang read at Porter Square Books on August 1.
Photo by Sasha Pedro.
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DO-GOODERS, KEY PLAYERS & GAME CHANGERS
GREEN GAS BY REENA KARASIN
Y
ou use reusable shopping bags. You recycle, and maybe even compost. You take the T whenever you can. But sometimes, driving is unavoidable—maybe your job is inaccessible by public transit, or maybe the bus never showed. You take your car, even though you cringe when you think of the impact non-electric cars have on the environment. Local nonprofit Green Gas is pioneering a new system that will let drivers offset their carbon footprint at the gas pump. The Green Gas Card and Green Gas pumps donate 10 cents per gallon to projects that reduce carbon— the total amount necessary to counteract the damage of driving, according to the nonprofit’s founders. “There are a lot of people who are looking for a way to channel their frustration about this climate impact that we all have and looking to do more,” Green Gas Co-founder and Executive Director Kyle Kornack says. “And as the federal government is failing to do so and regressing, more and more people are standing up in different ways. So our hope is this can just be another one of those tools for people to take a step in the right direction.” Kornack grew up in northern Los Angeles and got a firsthand taste of climate change when the
DAVE COOCH, KYLE KORNACK, AND LIAM MADDEN hills near his community “started catching on fire more and more.” What he saw inspired him to major in environmental studies and philosophy at Northeastern University, where he grappled with the ethical questions raised by climate change. He started toying with the idea of carbon offsetting while working at a juice startup. The team initially used mason jars to avoid plastic, but once the company gained steam the mason jars weren’t scaleable. The founders looked into ways to make up for the company’s negative impact on the environment. Kornack’s focus turned to driving, and he was surprised to discover that it takes just a dime per gallon of gas to offset drivers’ carbon impact. Transportation accounted for 27 percent of the country’s greenhouse gas
32 Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers | scoutsomerville.com
emissions in 2015, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. “We basically created the business plan overnight,” Kornack says. Green Gas launched its card in March, which users can tie to their bank accounts and then use to fill up at the pump. The 10 cent per gallon donation—which Kornack notes is tax deductible— is made automatically with the card. They’re also rolling out Green Gas at the pump, giving people the option to donate as they fill up their cars. The pump initiative will likely be able to reach a larger swath of the population than the cards, as it takes less effort for people to opt in. “We believe [the pump is] the point where people are most motivated to act,” Kornack says. “You’re consuming fossil fuel at that moment, and you’re smelling
it, there’s a tangible experience. We envision gas stations as hubs of environmental advocacy in the future.” One of the main projects Green Gas supports is a reforestation program in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley that is working to restore 1 million acres. Another project in New Bedford, Mass. captures the methane emitted from a landfill and turns it into enough electricity to power 2,500 homes. Green Gas is also working to develop its fleet program, where organizations with large vehicle fleets—companies, universities, even cities—could opt into the Green Gas donations. Green Gas is in preliminary discussions with the cities of Somerville and Cambridge about participating in the program, according to Kornack. Ultimately, the founders want Photo by Jon Beckley.
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“We envision gas stations as hubs of environmental advocacy in the future.” to make Green Gas free for drivers by having companies sponsor the carbon offsets, which would allow them to show their stake in environmental protection. This setup could be in place in about a year, Kornack says. Kornack sees the Green Gas program as in line with other ways that people choose to spend their money responsibly. “There’s a wide body of research, [but] you don’t even need the research, you just look
around and see people are willing to pay more for fairly produced goods,” he says. “This is just another form of fairness, fairness to our general climatic balance.” Kornack and the nonprofit’s other cofounders, Liam Madden and Dave Cooch, have worked out of Greentown Labs since February. They’re moving into Boston for four months to participate in MassChallenge, but plan to come back to Greentown Labs in the fall. scoutsomerville.com | Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers 33
DO-GOODERS, KEY PLAYERS & GAME CHANGERS
LEE ERICA PALMER BY TIM GAGNON
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hile most elected officials can vividly recall the blood, sweat, and tear-soaked path to completing their first campaign for office, Lee Erica Palmer couldn’t have been more prepared for her initial run as school committee representative for Ward 3 in 2015. “Unlike a lot of first-time candidates who can be surprised by what it takes to run a successful campaign, I actually had a lot of advantages in that regard,” Palmer recalls. “I knew I was going to have to raise a ton of money, even for a ward race in a city like Somerville.” It certainly helped that Palmer was no stranger to both local politics and the city’s education system—along with formerly teaching high school Spanish, she aided several statewide gubernatorial campaigns and served twice as the campaign manager for Representative Denise Provost. But what was a challenge for Palmer was finding care for her son, Andrew, who was then entering kindergarten. Palmer’s campaign raised $15,000, which she put toward high-quality campaign literature, several mailing campaigns, and data access for targeted voter outreach. But since child care was considered a personal expense, she was not allowed to tap into campaign funding to even partially cover a babysitter. “My son was not interested in campaigning with me at all,” Palmer emphasizes with an understanding laugh. “Some kids maybe think it’s fun, but I brought him to knock doors one time just so he’d know what I was doing, but he just wanted to play at home.” Roughly half of the hours she needed to campaign were covered by playdates with friends and family stepping up to care
LEE ERICA AND ANDREW PALMER for Andrew, but Palmer, a single parent, ultimately paid for about 250 hours of babysitting out of her own pocket. “It’s put it in the category of a personal expense when, literally, you can go out, rent a tuxedo for your inauguration, and that’s not a personal expense,” Palmer adds. “That is fully covered and you can use your campaign funds to do it.” Soon after being elected to the committee, Palmer put her experience as a legal services
34 Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers | scoutsomerville.com
attorney to use as she began looking at ways to improve funding regulations and allow candidates to use campaign funding for childcare while on the trail. Palmer’s story and efforts eventually caught the attention of several state representatives and a bill, H.2898, began to form. “Lee Erica Palmer’s experiences are an important example of how our campaign finance laws may preclude
individuals, particularly based on gender and socioeconomic status, from ruwnning for office,” Representative Joan Meschino told Scout in an email. “My sincere hope is that we can adopt this bill right away, as doing so will help to mitigate some of the barriers faced by many women and by all parents who wish to participate in the political process,” Representative Mike Connolly, one of the bill’s other presenters, told Scout in an email. Palmer is quick to point out that she doesn’t want “candidates raising money, then spending it on whatever they want to,” but has been heartened by the groundswell of support the bill has seen. The Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women put its support behind the bill soon after its announcement, and the Somerville Board of Alderman unanimously voted for its resolution. Palmer has received “dozens and dozens” of letters sharing support, testimonies, and thanks for her story and for inspiring the bill, many from fellow single parents who are thankful that a local elected official is paving the way for them to get involved in politics. “Anyone who has a kid or knows people who have kids understands the cost of child care is prohibitive, so I think it was a no brainer,” Palmer says. Still, Palmer thinks the playing field can be leveled further across Massachusetts. “Campaigning is hard work and long hours, but being an elected official is also and many of the positions across the state, particularly school committee, are unpaid, volunteer positions,” Palmer says. “I don’t know how someone, particularly lowincome folks, would afford to represent their communities. That seems undemocratic.” Photo by Randi Freundlich.
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scoutsomerville.com | Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers 35
DO-GOODERS, KEY PLAYERS & GAME CHANGERS
CORPORATE INVESTMENTS IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD
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here’s a dirt patch outside of the East Somerville Community School that Vazquez-Dodero calls an “eyesore.” The school had been trying to revamp the area, but didn’t have promising prospects until Assembly Row’s Callahan Construction came along looking to make an investment in the community. The city is reviewing plans to revamp the area, according to Vazquez-Dodero. “By connecting the corporate investment into the community, now the entire community’s together—there’s corporate investment, there’s the parents of the school, and the city, working together to recreate this into an amazing project,” she says. TRANSFORMING THE KENSINGTON UNDERPASS
EAST SOMERVILLE MAIN STREETS
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BY REENA KARASIN
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ast Somerville Main Streets is hard at work supporting the neighborhood’s small businesses. The organization is focusing on three big tasks, according to Executive Director Teresa Vazquez-Dodero: making connections that benefit small businesses, helping companies make investments in the neighborhood, and making the Kensington Underpass safer. MAKING CONNECTIONS TO SUPPORT SMALL BUSINESSES
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ast Somerville Main Streets buys into the idea that “it takes a village,” according to Vazquez-Dodero. So when the owner of Rincón Mexicano wanted to expand into the vacant site next door, the organization drew in help. Lorenzo Reyes, owner/chef at
Rincón Mexicano, had a collection of items related to Frida Kahlo that he wanted to highlight in the expanded restaurant. PSG Framing helped him frame the pieces, even more challenging ones like a scarf. Kevin Jackson Carpentry built the tables. Tresfort Metal Works handled lighting. Cambridge Reprographics helped to repurpose signage. Now the expanded Rincón Mexicano features Reyes’s collection, and displays what Vazquez-Dodero calls “an ode to Mexican women, specifically Frida Kahlo.” “It contains, really, the soul of the owner, and it contains the connection between all of the businesses,” Vazquez-Dodero says. “That’s what we’ve been working on: the concept of community, in the really, really deeper sense.”
36 Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers | scoutsomerville.com
ast Somerville Main Streets is working to transform the Kensington Underpass, which can isolate residents because of how dangerous it is to walk through. In a simple but major move, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation changed the traffic signal at the underpass from constantly flashing yellow lights to typical traffic lights that direct cars to stop when a pedestrian is crossing. East Somerville Main Streets is hoping to use state funding to make further changes to the Kensington Underpass, and is working with architecture and design students to explore options. There are homeless individuals who live in the Kensington Underpass, VazquezDodero says, and East Somerville Main Streets is working with the Somerville Homeless Coalition to explore options for those people, such as creating housing out of shipping containers, as part of the changes to the underpass. Vazquez-Dodero says the organization also hopes to bring more art to the underpass area, from paintings on the ground to murals to projected art.
Kellyn Morrow of ESH shows off some balancing skills on the Lyra (hoop). Photo by Derek Kouyoumjian.
ASSEMBLY ROW BY REENA KARASIN
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his used to be nothing, back in the day,” says Vanessa Martinez, an assistant marketing manager for Federal Realty Investment Trust, the developer of Assembly Row. “It kind of was a pile of dirt. There was not really much here before we came in.” Assembly Square has come a long way since its days as a Ford plant. Federal Realty, which owns and redevelops areas across the country, has built up the square over more than a decade, curating a neighborhood complete with retail, apartments, a fitness complex, and a grocery store. Assembly Row is distinct from the rest of Somerville. Where elsewhere mom-andpop businesses and startups fill old buildings, Assembly Row is gleamingly new and populated with national chain stores. The neighborhood is home to the city’s first high-rise apartment building, which offers luxury apartments that representatives say have mostly attracted nonSomerville residents.
But Martinez doesn’t see these two sides of the city as being at odds. “With any type of development, you always run into [a situation where] you have a lot of national players, you have a lot of retailers and stores that you would find downtown, that are not necessarily mom-and-pop, but since Somerville has such an eclectic group of squares and areas that do have that, the mom-andpop thing, I think that Assembly Row is a good complement to that, because there are different options you can get that you wouldn’t get at the different squares,” Martinez says. Martinez, who’s a Somerville resident, emphasizes how convenient it is for her to have large retailers accessible right in the city. Despite the number of chains—from Banana Republic to Earls Kitchen + Bar to Polo— Federal Realty emphasizes hiring locally, Martinez says. About a quarter of Row employees are Somerville residents, according to Federal Realty. “For all of our stores, we really push this local hiring initiative, to really get Somerville people to work here,” Martinez says. Assembly Row also created an appealing environment for Partners HealthCare, now the city’s largest employer, according to Martinez. While the apartments at Assembly Row’s Montaje highrise are pricey—one-bedroom apartments start at about $2,700/
month, two-bedrooms at $3,700/ month, and three-bedrooms at $5,000/month, according to a spokesperson—12.5 percent of units are designated for affordable housing. However, the agreed upon affordable housing percentage for the building is well below the city’s usual 20 percent rule. The luxury building includes an artist/maker space, an outdoor pool, a common lounge area, and a fitness-on-demand studio where residents can conjure up fitness videos with the click of a button. Montaje will have a sky deck with beautiful views of the city once construction is complete, according to representatives. Building representatives point out that it takes just seven minutes to get into downtown Boston from the Row, given the nearby Orange Line T stop. Montaje is part of Assembly Row’s Phase 2, which Martinez says is crucial to Federal Realty’s vision of giving the Row a community feel. The Trader Joe’s, the new apartment building, and FITRow—the square’s center for different exercise classes, including pilates and boxing—all contribute to making the curated neighborhood a place where people can live, rather than just a retail destination, Martinez says. Federal Realty is designing a second apartment building, which will have 500 units, and a 250,000-square-foot office space. Both buildings will have retail on the first floor, according to the developer. Photo courtesy of Assembly Row.
DO-GOODERS, KEY PLAYERS & GAME CHANGERS
SHEBOOM BY REENA KARASIN
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hey have many names for themselves. “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Drums.” “The Rolling Crones.” A “post-menopausal percussion and vocal ensemble.” They are many things— women, activists, mothers. One was a realtor, another’s a former professor, and a third has written five books about Halloween. They came together haphazardly. “It’s a small world in Somerville and Cambridge,” says Lesley Bannatyne. “Especially for old feminists,” Janet Axelrod adds.
S
heBoom started eight years ago as four weeks of drumming classes. Many of the women didn’t know each other, and only one is a professional musician. The eight women, all in their 60s and 70s, now practice weekly with Brazilian drummer Marcus Santos. He has “infinite patience” for them, they say. “We’re like his eight American mothers,” Axelrod says. “He really loves us.” Santos teaches the women various drum beats, and they gradually hear songs from their past in the rhythms. They rewrite lyrics to those songs, typically to reflect their firmly liberal views. The tune of “Stayin’ Alive” by the Bee Gees, for example, gets reimagined as a section of a song about BP: “Ah ha ha ha drilling to hell, drilling to hell.” “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’” is channeled into a song about protesting and women’s rights: “You just want to legislate my body / And I don’t want this congress in my bed / These boots are made for marching / And that’s just what they’ll do.”
FROM LEFT: CANDYCE DOSTERT, JANINE FAY, LESLEY BANNATYNE, JANET AXELROD, DEB PACINI, AND JULIE SCHNEIDER. NOT PICTURED: ADRIA STEINBERG AND LISA DOYLE. Peggy Lee’s “Fever” becomes a comment on global warming: “Mother Earth has got a fever / That is one thing we all know / Wind and solar that’s the future / These fossil fools have got to go.” The women gather for rehearsal on a weeknight in June, with cake and champagne to celebrate Candyce Dostert’s birthday. At 66, she is at the younger end of the group. They sit around an oval table in Janine Fay’s Prospect Hill home, swapping news about mutual friends’ health and laughing at each other’s jokes.
38 Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers | scoutsomerville.com
Weekly rehearsals in the “Boom Boom Room”—a living room turned practice space in Fay’s home—are sacred for the friends. They made an unspoken promise to show up every week and have become a huge support system for each other, they say. “We’ve always searched for this kind of sisterhood,” Axelrod says. The Boom Boom Room is littered with evidence of the group’s liberal views. A throw pillow shows a picture of Barack Obama with the line “Hooray for the president.” A sign stuck to a lamp declares “We demand $15 minimum wage and a
union.” A Rosie the Riveter sticker reading “¡Sí se puede!” adorns one of the drums. Having come into adulthood in the ’70s, many of the SheBoom members have been activists throughout their lives. But most of them never thought they’d be on stage singing about their views. Several had to work through stage fright. They explain, though, that they feel supported by their communities. “My major spiritual moment was at PorchFest, when we were making mistakes, and it didn’t matter,” Fay says. “It just didn’t Photos by Sasha Pedro.
“You just want to legislate my body / And I don’t want this congress in my bed / These boots are made for marching / And that’s just what they’ll do.”
matter, and that was so freeing.” Being part of SheBoom helps keep their memories sharp, several members say with a smile. “We could be playing mahjong, or we could be playing bridge, or we could be playing tennis, or whatever, but this is what we like, so this is what we do,” Axelrod says. They say that young women
sometimes come up to them after their shows and tell them that it’s wonderful to see older women performing, being creative, and embracing their age. The SheBoom members point out that there are few examples of older women being portrayed positively in American society. “People really don’t see a lot of older women in ways that they
WANT TO READ ABOUT MORE PEOPLE MAKING A DIFFERENCE IN YOUR COMMUNITY? VISIT OUR WEBSITE TO CHECK OUT THESE ONLINE-EXCLUSIVE STORIES.
Ben Ewen-Campen and a New Era of Local Politics
like. It’s nice to know that people our age can still be cool,” Axelrod says. “Life is long, and you can do a lot of great things during your lifetime. Don’t think you have to rush and hurry and do everything in your 20s or 30s. If you’re lucky and you live, you’re still able to do lots of stuff into your 60s and 70s. And that stuff is some of the best stuff you’ll How the Bicycle Committee is Making Our Streets Safer
ever do,” she adds. Gathered around Fay’s kitchen table, the women marvel at what the group has been for them—a place to express political views, to be supported, and to have fun. “You can count on Monday night, you’re going to laugh your ass off for two hours,” Deb Pacini says.
Meet Fluffy, Creator of Community at the Mystic Learning Center
A New Community Coalition Fights for Unions and Affordable Housing
scoutsomerville.com | Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers 39
CALENDAR
EVERY WEDNESDAY
Photo courtesy of CambridgeSide.
| FITNESS
FIT + FABULOUS OUTDOOR SERIES 5:30 p.m., Free CambridgeSide - 100 Cambridgeside Pl., Cambridge One of the many highlights of summer is free, outdoor fitness classes, and CambridgeSide has enough to have you covered. The classes switch up every week, but offerings include kickboxing, dance, zumba, and more.
EVERY SATURDAY IN JULY Photo by Andrea Savino.
Photo courtesy of Assembly Row.
JULY 14 Photo courtesy of the Somerville Arts Council.
JULY 29
| MUSIC
CAMBRIDGE JAZZ FESTIVAL 12 to 6 p.m., Free for grass seating, $25 for seats Danehy Park - 99 Sherman St, Cambridge What’s better than music in a park? The Cambridge Jazz Festival, now in its fifth year, will feature Terri Lyne Carrington and will offer up face painting, food trucks, and even a jazz museum.
AUGUST 1
| FOOD & DRINK
Photo by Kyle Klein.
| FOOD & DRINK
CHAR & BAR WARS 5 p.m., $55 91 Sidney St., Cambridge Last year’s inaugural Char & Bar Wars was such a success that the Chamber of Commerce is once again asking you to judge who has the best cocktail and burger in the city. A ticket to the event will get you up to seven drink samples and as many slider-sized burgers as you can stomach.
| ART
ARTBEAT 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., Free Davis Square, Somerville “Flip” is the theme of this year’s ArtBeat, the annual art festival that shuts down Davis Square. The arts council is taking “flip” both literally and figuratively, and will toy with point of view while being a “celebration of all things upside down, backwards, and sideways.” ArtBeat will offer up music, dance performances, food, activities, and 75 craft vendors.
JULY 20
Photo by Evgenia Eliseevas.
| FITNESS
ASSEMBLY ROW BAR STARS 6 p.m., $20 in advance Assembly Row, Somerville Assembly Row is asking for your help to answer one question: Which restaurant in the neighborhood makes the best cocktails? Your ticket gets you samples of drinks from at least a dozen Assembly Row spots, “small bites,” and one vote for your favorite drink.
| FOOD & DRINKS
BURGERS & BLOOMS 6:30 p.m., $65 Boston Burger Company - 1105 Mass. Ave., Cambridge Alice’s Table aims to create events that are “the bright spot in the modern busy woman’s life.” This Burgers & Blooms event will include flower arranging, cocktails, and burgers.
YOGA IN THE BEER GARDEN 10 a.m., $10 Remnant Brewing - 2 Bow Market Way, Somerville Pairing beer with your workout has gotten quite popular, and luckily you don’t have to go far for the opportunity. Bow Market’s Remnant Brewing has yoga in its beer garden every Saturday morning in July, with core-focused Vinyasa classes taught by CorePower Yoga’s Andrea Savino.
JULY 12
JULY 24
AUGUST 5
Photo by Nina Eichner.
| DANCE
RESIST(D)ANCE: UNDER CONSTRUCTION 9 p.m., $20 OBERON - 16 Arrow St., Cambridge Part performance, part party, RESIST(D)ANCE: UNDER CONSTRUCTION is a chance for “all creative leaders, change makers, and body shakers to reclaim space and re-imagine a future where young people have an active role in shaping their cities,” the event description says. People interested in making all kinds of art, from poetry to dance to visual art, are encouraged to join the event, which will underline “the importance of social dance in black communities.”
40 Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers | scoutsomerville.com
AUGUST 18 Photo courtesy of Meredith Reiches.
| FESTIVAL
SEIZE THE SUMMER 2 to 6 p.m., Free Davis Square, Somerville The third SomerStreets event of the year will shut down Holland Avenue between Davis Square and Teele Square. Last year’s Seize the Summer festival included live music, a beer garden, water balloon dodgeball, and a 90-foot water slide.
| ART
SOMER FEST 12 to 5 p.m., $10 ArtFarm - 10 Poplar St., Somerville Comedy, music, and magic? The first iteration of the 21+ event, which its organizers plan on making annual, will feature Oompa, Nonye Brown-West, Zoë Reiches, and more. Plus, it’s a fundraiser: profits from Somer Fest will go to the New Life International Orphanage.
VOT E O N L I N E AT S C O U T S O M E RV I L L E . C O M
VOTING IS YOUR CIVIC DUTY. (But it’s also a lot of fun!)
You nominated your favorite businesses in Somerville. Now, it’s time to give ’em the push they need to be crowned one of the city’s best. The final round of Scout’s Honored voting is now open. Select your favorites through July 22 at scoutsomerville.com/vote or mail this paper ballot to Banks Publications, 519 Somerville Ave. #314, Somerville, Ma 02143. You can vote up to five times in each category. Winners will be announced in our next issue, out in early September. Best of luck to all the nominees!
Food BAKERY o Forge Baking Company o Lyndell’s Bakery o Caramel Patisserie BAR EATS o Olde Magoun’s Saloon o River Bar o Winter Hill Brewing Company BUTCHER o M.F. Dulock o McKinnon’s Meat Market o Modelo’s Market Cafe CATERING o Cuisine en Locale o Forklift Catering o Pennypacker’s BREAKFAST o Ball Square Cafe o The Neighborhood Restaurant & Bakery o Oat Shop BRUNCH o The Painted Burro o Highland Kitchen o La Brasa CHEAP EATS o Taco Loco Mexican Grill o Tenóch Mexican o Machu Chicken COFFEE SHOP OR CAFE o Bloc Cafe o Diesel Cafe o 3 Little Figs GOURMET OR SPECIALTY FOOD o Capone Foods o Dave’s Fresh Pasta o Q’s Nuts KID-FRIENDLY RESTAURANT o Flatbread Company o Oat Shop
OUTDOOR DINING o The Neighborhood Restaurant & Bakery o Daddy Jones Bar o River Bar TAKEOUT o Tasty Mo:Mo: o La Posada o Magnificent Muffin and Bagel Shoppe VEGAN OR VEGETARIAN o Dosa-n-Curry o True Bistro o Taco Party CHEF o Juliet - Joshua Lewin o Sarma - Cassie Piuma o La Brasa - Daniel Bojorquez SERVICE STAFF o Trina’s Starlite Lounge o Highland Kitchen o La Brasa SWEET TOOTH SATISFYER o Gracie’s Ice Cream o Union Square Donuts o Caramel Patisserie BURGER o Boston Burger Company o La Brasa o R.F. O’Sullivan & Son PIZZA o Flatbread Company o Pini’s Pizzeria o Leone’s Sub and Pizza SUSHI o Fuji at Assembly o Sugidama o Ebi Sushi
TACOS o Taco Loco Mexican Grill o La Posada o Taco Party AMERICAN o Five Horses Tavern o The Kirkland Tap & Trotter o Highland Kitchen ASIAN o Lemon Thai Cuisine o Lotus Xpress o Sugidama GREEK o Zo Greek o Daddy Jones Bar o Opa Greek Yeeros ITALIAN o Posto o Vinny’s Ristorante o Fat Hen LATIN AMERICAN o Oliveira’s Steak House o La Posada o Machu Picchu MIDDLE EASTERN o Amsterdam Falafelshop o Noor Mediterranean Grill o Sarma RESTAURANT IN ASSEMBLY SQUARE o Earls Kitchen + Bar o Fuji at Assembly o River Bar RESTAURANT IN BALL SQUARE o Ball Square Cafe o Sound Bites o Taco Party
RESTAURANT IN DAVIS SQUARE o Five Horses Tavern o The Painted Burro o Rosebud American Kitchen & Bar RESTAURANT IN EAST SOMERVILLE o Fasika Ethiopian Restaurant o Vinny’s Ristorante o La Brasa RESTAURANT IN MAGOUN SQUARE o Daddy Jones Bar o La Posada o Olde Magoun’s Saloon
RESTAURANT IN TEELE SQUARE o Instanbul’lu o True Bistro o Masala RESTAURANT IN UNION SQUARE o Juliet o Ebi Sushi o The Independent RESTAURANT NOT IN A SQUARE o Dali Restaurant o Trina’s Starlite Lounge o Highland Kitchen RESTAURANT OVERALL o Sarma o Highland Kitchen o La Brasa
Drinks BARTENDER o Spoke - Ethan o Trina’s Starlite Lounge - Bonnie o Bergamot - Paul BARISTA o 3 Little Figs - Grace o 3 Little Figs - Becca o Winter Hill Brewing - Erin BEER PROGRAM o Five Horses Tavern o Foundry on Elm o Olde Magoun’s Saloon BREWERY o Somerville Brewing Company o Aeronaut Brewing Co. o Winter Hill Brewing
COCKTAILS o Backbar o The Painted Burro o River Bar LIQUOR STORE o Downtown Wine & Spirits o Ball Square Fine Wines o Sav-Mor Liquors WINE SHOP o Dave’s Fresh Pasta o The Wine & Cheese Cask o Ball Square Fine Wines
Continued on next page
Wellness
Beauty
ACUPUNCTURE o Great Way Wellness Center o Waterlily Wellness o Open Space Community Acupuncture
BARBERSHOP o Dentes Barbershop o The Barber Shop at Assembly Row o Razors Barbershop & Shave Parlor
DENTIST o Casey Cook o Smiles by Rosie o Katie Talmo
HAIR COLOR o Clementine Hair Studio - Francesca o Evie Salon Studio - Abby o HAIR by Christine & Co. - Ashley
GYM o Soul.Train. Fitness o The Training Room o Achieve Fitness MASSAGE o BlueFern Massage Therapy o Centering Touch Massage Therapy & Bodywork o Massage Therapy Works YOGA o O2 Yoga o be. in union yoga o More to Love
HAIR SALON o Clementine Hair Studio o Evie Salon Studio o HAIR by Christine & Co. HAIRCUT o Clementine Hair Studio - Patrick o Evie Salon Studio - Rebecca o HAIR by Christine & Co - Christine
EYEBROW SERVICES o Grace Salon o The Perfect Threading Spa o Threading Studio
Arts & Shopping SHOP Entertainment BIKE o Ace Wheelworks
MANICURE o Bliss Nails o Lisa’s Nails o Polished Nail Boutique
BEST COMEDY SHOW o Somerville Brewing Company - Liquid Courage Comedy Club o Arts at the Armory Laughing Liberally Boston o Winter Hill Brewing BEER ME!
SKIN CARE o Amal Niccoli Salon o Noel Herbal Skincare o Skin Skedaddle
EVENTS SPACE o ONCE Somerville o Warehouse XI o Arts at the Armory
TATTOO OR PIERCING o The Boston Tattoo Company o Empire Tattoo Boston
JEWELRY DESIGN o e. scott originals o Jade Moran Jewelry o Porcelain and Stone KID-FRIENDLY ENTERTAINMENT o Craftwork Somerville o LEGOLAND Discovery Center o Parts and Crafts LOCAL (NON-SCOUT) MEDIA o The Somerville Journal o Somerville Media Center
Services BANK OR CREDIT UNION o East Cambridge Savings Bank o Naveo Credit Union o Winter Hill Bank
FRAME SHOP o Michaels o The Prince Gallery o Stanhope Framers INSURANCE AGENCY o Garrett-Lynch Insurance Agency o Wedgwood-Crane & Connolly Insurance Agency o Eagle Trust Insurance
BEST ARCHITECT OR ARCHITECTURE FIRM o Group Design Build o Peter Quinn o aMortonDesign BEST PHOTOGRAPHY OR VIDEOGRAPHY o Jason Corey Photography o Leah C-S Photography o Lee Kilpatrick
LANDSCAPING o Green City Growers o Tree Removal & Landscaping by Mal o Your Garden Curator
COMMUNITY CLASSES o Artisan’s Asylum o Craftwork Somerville o Somerville Media Center DOG WALKING o Boston Outdoor Canine Adventures o Second Chances Dog Walking & Sitting o Trail Trekkers FLORIST o Bostonian Florist o Nellie’s Wildflowers o Wagner Floral Designs
MECHANIC o ABJ Auto Repair o Chicken and Shakes Automotive o Mike’s Automotive Services MOVING COMPANY o Gentle Giant Moving Company o Precision Moving Company o The Two Brothers Moving Company
PRINTING SERVICES o Union Press o QRST’s o The UPS Store, Somerville Ave. REAL ESTATE AGENCY o Benoit Real Estate o Century 21 o Thalia Tringo & Associates Real Estate REAL ESTATE AGENT o Century 21 - Charlie Ball o Thalia Tringo & Associates Real Estate Team Jen and Lynn o Thalia Tringo & Associates Real Estate Thalia Tringo SHIPPING SERVICES o The UPS Store, Davis Square o The UPS Store, Somerville Ave VETERINARIAN o Huron Veterinary Hospital o Porter Square Veterinarian o Union Square Veterinary Clinic
o Bike Boom o Somervelo
GIFT SHOP o 4GoodVibes o Blue Cloud Gallery o Davis Squared HOME DECOR o A Curated World o 4GoodVibes o Davis Squared KIDS SHOP o Comicazi o Two Little Monkeys o Magpie Kids PET SUPPLIES o Big Fish Little Fish o RiverDog o Stinky’s Kittens & Doggies Too THRIFT OR VINTAGE o Buffalo Exchange o Goodwill o The Salvation Army
MUSIC VENUE o ONCE Somerville o The Burren o Thunder Road
Wild Cards DATE NIGHT SPOT o Backbar o Sarma o Fat Hen
NEIGHBORHOOD TO WORK o Assembly Square o Davis Square o Union Square
ECO-FRIENDLY BUSINESS o Bootstrap Compost o Green City Growers o Neighborhood Produce
NEW BUSINESS o Neighborhood Produce o Remnant Brewing o Revolutionary Clinics
LATE-NIGHT HAUNT o Brass Union o Underbones (Part of Redbones) o Bull McCabe’s Pub
OLD FAVORITE o The Neighborhood Restaurant & Bakery o Ricky’s Flower Market o Leone’s Sub and Pizza
NEIGHBORHOOD TO DINE IN o Assembly Square o Davis Square o Union Square
PLACE TO PEOPLE WATCH o Mike’s Food & Spirits o River Bar o Saloon
NEIGHBORHOOD TO LIVE IN o Union Square o Assembly Square o Davis Square
PLACE TO SPLURGE o The Kirkland Tap & Trotter o Sarma o Tasting Counter
NEIGHBORHOOD TO SHOP o Assembly Square o Davis Square o Union Square
VOT E O N L I N E AT S C O U T S O M E RV I L L E . C O M / VOT E
MENU ITEMS INCLUDE GLUTEN FREE!
Thank you For Nominating HAIR by Christine & co for Best Salon, Ashley Best Color & Christine Best Cut! We strive to serve our community as a welcoming & safe space for all kinds of folks! Thank you for all your support!
GREAT BITES AT SOMERVILLE’S FAVORITE PLACE TO PEOPLE WATCH THE PATIO IS OPEN! COME PEOPLE WATCH WITH US ALL SUMER LONG. PLUS: • TRIVIA TUESDAY • MUSIC BINGO THURSDAY
BEST HAIR SALON: 2013–2017 BEST HAIR COLOR: 2016, 2017 BEST HAIRCUT: 2016, 2017
217 HIGHLAND AVENUE, SOMERVILLE • 617-776-6470 WWW.HAIRBYCHRISTINEANDCO.COM
9 DAVIS SQUARE
(617) 628-2379
MIKESONDAVIS.COM
FUN, MODERN GIFTS FOR HIM, HER, HOUSE AND BABY.
BEST GIFT SHOP BEST HOME DECOR 617.666.6700 409 HIGHLAND AVE • DAVIS SQUARE
DAVISSQUARED.COM
scoutsomerville.com | Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers 43
RESTAURANT DIRECTORY Please consider shopping with these and other Scout sponsors. THE DARK HORSE PUBLIC HOUSE
LEONE’S SUB AND PIZZA
EBI SUSHI
MIKE’S FOOD & SPIRITS
499 Broadway, Somerville 617-629-5302, thedarkhorsepub.com Your friendly, neighborhood pub... with great food.
292 Broadway, Somerville 617-776-2511, leonessubandpizza.com Pizza and subs fit for a king since 1954. Now being delivered by Dash!
OPA GREEK YEEROS
378 Highland Ave., Somerville 617-718-2900, opayeeros.com Authentic Greek cuisine and a lively atmosphere. Expanding soon!
MASS AVE DINER
290 Somerville Ave., Somerville 617-764-5556, ebisushi.com Japanese restaurant serving an extensive menu of sushi and other favorites in informal environs.
9 Davis Square, Somerville 617-628-2379, mikesondavis.com Pizza, Pasta, Seafood, Burgers and more! Dine in our casual dining room open to Davis Square or watch a game at the bar!
JOSE’S MEXICAN RESTAURANT
MIX-IT RESTAURANT
ZUZU RESTAURANT
LA POSADA RESTAURANT
OLDE MAGOUN’S SALOON
TACO PARTY
131 Sherman St., Cambridge 617-354-0335, josesmex.com Authentic, homemade, Central Mexican Cuisine. Patio, private party room and full bar. Catering also available.
505 Medford St., Somerville 617-776-2049, laposadasomerville.com Somerville’s spot for delicious, hand-crafted Latin American cuisine.
1678 Mass. Ave., Cambridge 617-547-0212, mixitrestaurant.com Unique selection of traditional Asian specialties from sushi to noodles and grilled dishes.
518 Medford St., Somerville magounssaloon.com, 617-776-2600 Local bar featuring 28 lines of craft beer, cask ale and delicious food.
R U O Y R O F U O Y Y A P L WE’L
! S O T O H P N O I T VACA ENTER and WIN our Summer photo contest. See details page 46.
44 Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers | scoutsomerville.com
906 Mass. Ave., Cambridge 617-864-5301, massavediner.com Since 2010 Serving Killer Brunch and Diner Fare. Now Open Late and Serving Craft Beer and Wine!
474 Mass. Ave., Cambridge 617-864-3278 mideastoffers.com/zuzu Serving Mama Sater’s recipes for more than 40 years.
711 Broadway, Somerville 617-764-0683, tacopartytruck.com Building tacos from the ground up.
HEALTH & WELLNESS DIRECTORY REVOLUTIONARY CLINICS
67 Broadway, Somerville 617-213-6006, revolutionaryclinics.org Professional, well-respected medical marijuana clinic offering natural solutions to a wide variety of illnesses and chronic conditions.
DR. KATIE TALMO, D.M.D.
180 Highland Ave., Somerville 617-864-6111 Dr. Talmo provides a personalize approach to dental care. Come enjoy a comfortable dental experience in her newly renovated office space.
LOCAL SHOPPING DIRECTORY MAGPIE
TEAM JEN & LYNN
416 Highland Ave., Somerville
Thalia Tringo & Associates Real Estate Lynn 617-216-5244, Jen 617-943-9581
617-623-3330, magpie-store.com
TeamJenandLynn@ThaliaTringoRealEstate.com
Unique jewelry, apothecary, art, edibles, housewares and more!
Bringing our expertise and good humor to help you find a perfect home or say good-bye to your old one.
MAGPIE KIDS
95 Elm St., Somerville 617-764-4110, magpiekids.com Modern gifts for modern kids. Clothes, toys, books and more!
SOMERVILLE FAMILY PRACTICE
DAVIS SQUARED
1020 Broadway, Somerville 617-628-2160 somervillefamilypractice.net Now accepting new patients.
409 Highland Ave., Somerville 617-666-6700, davissquared.com Fun, modern gifts for him, her, house and baby.
BE. IN UNION YOGA
PORTER SQUARE BOOKS
440 Somerville Ave., Somerville 617-623-9642, beinunion.com Empowering classes, workshops, trainings and retreats helping you build a practice to fuel your life.
REAL ESTATE DIRECTORY
25 White St., Cambridge 617-491-2220, portersquarebooks.com Porter Square Books is your fiercely independent source for great books, magazines, fun gifts and more.
? E V O L U O Y O D O WH We want to know your Somerville favorites for the 2018 Scout’s Honored Awards.
CHARLES CHERNEY TEAM AT COMPASS REAL ESTATE 617-733-8937 CambridgeRealEstate.com SomervilleRealEstate.com Making your next move a reality.
IRENE BREMIS THE IBREMIS TEAM
617-905-5232, irenebremis.com irenebremis@gmail.com Real Estate Consulting, Listing, Marketing, Sales & Rental Specialist.
LIZ & ELLIE REAL ESTATE AT COMPASS 617-444-9644 lizandellie.com Your Life. Our Expertise. Together, let’s find a home.
THALIA TRINGO & ASSOCIATES REAL ESTATE
617-616-5091, thaliatringorealestate.com
Our agents strive to make your experience of buying and selling as smooth as possible. From start to finish, we are here to help you. Free classes.
See details page 41.
scoutsomerville.com | Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers 45
PHOTO CONTESTS
FOOD PHOTO CONTEST Congratulations to Mary, who won our “Food, Glorious Food!” photo contest with this great shot from Kelly’s Diner!
ENTER & WIN! SUMMER PHOTO CONTEST Sponsored by Irving House and Harding House
Wherever your travels take you this summer, be sure to take your Scout along! Take a photo with Scout on your vacation and at the end of the summer we’ll highlight the farthest trip, the most creative photo, and the funniest submission. HOW IT WORKS: 1. Take a picture with a copy of Scout on your summer vacation. 2. Post the picture on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter and be sure to tag us (or you can email the photo to scout@scoutmagazines.com). 3. We’ll pick three winners to be printed in our Scout’s Honored issue (out in September) and to win a $50 prize plus a night at the Harding House or Irving House!
CHARMING COMFORT, CAMBRIDGE CONVENIENCE
FRIENDLY ACCOMMODATIONS IN THE HEART OF CAMBRIDGE SINCE 1945
We are available 8 am to 10 pm daily at 617-876-2888 to answer questions and help with reservations.
We are available 24 hours a day at 617-547-4600 to answer questions and help with reservations.
www.harding-house.com • Breakfast buffet with a daily home-cooked special • All day coffee, tea, snacks
www.irvinghouse.com • Internet – Guest computer/printer • TV – Free Local Phone Calls
• Limited Off-street Parking FREE with DIRECT BOOKING • Convenient Cambridge location
• Guest fridge & microwave in dining room • Non-smoking
W.E. is nominated for Best Bartender (Zach Hirtz) & Best Brunch We would be incredibly honored if you voted for us if you love what you have experienced. If you have not visited us yet, we would welcome you with open arms and hope you give us the opportunity to show you the pride we put into everything we are about!
WIT’S END 1248 Cambridge Street Cambridge, MA @ the corner of Cambridge & Prospect for reservations: www.witsendbar.com or call (857) 259-6168
HANDCRAFTED COCKTAILS & A TRULY UNIQUE BEER PROGRAM
ELEVATED PUB FARE THAT BEGS TO BE SHARED
A BRUNCH THAT STANDS ALONE ON STYLE, FLAIR, ORIGINALITY & ADDITIVE DISHES
WIN DINNER FOR 4 BY TELLING THE US ONLY ARTIST ON THE BORDER OF THIS AD THAT WE HAVE NOT NAMED A DRINK AFTER ON OUR DINNER OR BRUNCH MENUS the first 3 people to correctly answer will win by emailing jayson@witsendbar.com
r e p Su
S
s e aV i
Meet Savies, or as he’s known to many of his patients, Super Savies. Because when it comes to helping them find the right cannabis products for their needs, he’s a real life super hero. Savies is just one of the many Revolutionary Clinics patient advocates who are passionate about connecting their patients not just to the finest products, but also to the people, resources and knowledge they need to get the most out of their cannabis experience.
67 BROADWAY, SOMERVILLE 110 FAWCETT ST, CAMBRIDGE (OPENING IN JULY) FREE PARKING YOUR SOURCE FOR HIGH QUALITY MEDICAL MARIJUANA PRODUCTS
617.213.6006
REVOLUTIONARYCLINICS.ORG