THURSDAY FEBRUARY 1, 2024
SOUTH BOSTON ONLINE
VOLUME XIX- ISSUE 74
Urgent Care Clinic Proposed by Rick Winterson
T
he photograph depicts the existing frontage bet ween 457 and 469A West Broadway in Perkins Square, where an Urgent Care Clinic is proposed. This Clinic will be a for-profit business belonging to American Family Care, Urgent Care, which has other Urgent Care Clinics – e.g., in Birmingham, Alabama. Said frontage is approximately a hundred (100) feet in length and stretches between the City of Boston Credit Union headqua rters and the Citizens Bank Branch. The proposed Clinic will be located on the ground f loor; it will be five thousand (5,000) square feet in tota l area. L a st fa ll, t he Boston Inspectional Services D e p a r t me nt re c e i ve d an application to permit this
West Broadway (Nos. 457 – 469), where the proposed Urgent Care Clinic is to be located. proposal, which the Department turned down. That was because the New Occupancy at this location will be “professional o f f i c e /m e d i c a l ( Urgent Care Clinic)”. That violates the existing Zoning Code. Therefore, before proceeding with the Urgent Care Clinic, the Zoning Board of Appeal must first grant the proposer a specific
exception to the Zoning Code. S out h B oston On l i ne recommends that you become informed about the Urgent Care Clinic project on West Broadway, especia lly about t he possible exception to t he loc a l Z on i ng C ode. Last week, we received a letter about the proposed Clinic from City Councilor Ed Flynn
via his own email address. In Ed’s email, he informed us that a critica lly important Community Meeting on the Urgent Care proposal on Monday evening, January 29, had been postponed. Ed went on to give his opinion that the proposed Urgent Care Clinic would have a strongly negative effect Continued on Page 2
Kathy Lafferty: Community Leader By Carol Masshardt
O
bser va nt a nd energetic, Kathy Lafferty, Executive Director of the South Boston Neighborhood House, was shaped by early experiences on the same streets she can nearly see from her office on H St. “I remember looking at Bob Monahan and Helen Alex and thinking, Wow, you can grow up here, and then stay and make a difference.” That was, and continues to be, appealing to a woman who has now devoted
thirty years to an organization where she went as a child and in a community she knows well. Five generations of her family have participated, including her own two now college age children with husband, Shine Lafferty, also of several generations in South Boston. As the youngest of five, she remembers with delight her early days spent in camps and programs hosted at the Neighborhood House, and that she would eventually go on to lead, one step after another. Yet, her lens is broad, and she sees the needs of a complex community with Continued on Page 3
Kathy Lafferty, left, Executive Director, with Director of Development, Mary Fiske.