Andrew Station Deteriorating

by Rick Winterson

by Rick Winterson

Boston Centers for Youth & Families (the BCYF) Curley Community Center is now opening. South Boston Online took part in the very first guided tour of the Center on Friday. After the South

One of the most notable architectural features in the renovated Center is the corridor that connects the sections of the new Curley Center together – east at M, central at L, west at K. The continuous, windowed corridor is a full one-quarter mile long; it provides ready access to every one of the Curley’s facilities. On a rainy day, the Center’s patrons can now enjoy a bone-dry, indoor walk from the K Street entrance all the way to M Street and back. All of the various rooms are easy to get to via a few minutes’ walk along this corridor. Each of the three main entrances/exits – K, L, and M – can be used and their appearances, the “Curley look”,

For many years, Andrew Station has been deteriorating. It is a very busy station anyhow, with the Red Line and many bus lines going through it. In addition, lack of care, clean-up, and preventive maintenance have severely damaged it – the Station is nearing a point of no return.

At certain points and at some times, the Station is a hazard. Yesterday, Lydia Polaski of ASCA (the Andrew Square Civic Association) led a tour she organized to show how critical the condition of Andrew Station has become. It has gone from unsightly to outright dangerous in certain areas. Accompanying Lydia were Pattie McCormick and Linda Zablocki from

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Curley Opens

have been carefully preserved. You’ll notice that the almost all the facilities and function rooms are open and accessible equally to both men and women, except of course for locker rooms and bathrooms. This sharing is intentional and makes for equality throughout the Curley Center. Additional activities in the newly opened Center include a Dance Room and several Multi-Purpose Rooms of various sizes. There are many areas that exist simply to encourage informal get-togethers for conversation and relaxation.

Some of the announcements about reopening the Curley Community Center have used the word “limited”. While it’s true that the facilities and services will be phased in gradually during June (the gyms on Thursday, June 15; classes on Tuesday, June 20), most of the Curley’s “limitation” has to do with its closed beaches. And the closed beaches are entirely due to the piping plovers nesting there. This hasn’t been unusual –beaches around Nahant are now restricted, and two acre-sized sections of Wollaston Beach are closed to the public. We can only point out once again that piping plovers have been declared as “threatened” by environmental authorities. There are probably less than a thousand breeding pairs left in the entire U.S.A., even though they are coming back slowly. The nesting season for piping plovers goes into July, after which most of them migrate. Perhaps we’ll be able to enjoy the Curley Center’s beaches once again before Labor Day arrives. In the meantime, we can do Mother Nature a favor by helping to preserve one of her avian species – Charadrius melodus, the Piping Plover. Memberships in the Center are free until Autumn. The fees for membership in the fall have not yet been determined, but you’ll be informed of them later this summer. As mentioned, the gyms are opening today, June 15, as you are reading this. However, “creating a membership” is required first. Do that at the Center itself, or more conveniently, do it at Boston.gov/BCYF-Registration. After that, registration for classes and programming can be done at Boston.gov/BCYFCurley. If you have questions, you may phone BCYF at 617635-4920. Formal ribboncutting at the Curley Community Center will take place soon.

ASCA, police officials from the Transit Police and BPD Station C-6, State Rep. David Biele, Lisa from Councilor Erin Murphy’s office, South Boston Online, as well as approximately 40 other concerned people.

Please examine the accompanying photos carefully. They depict a public service and its structure in very bad shape. We will attempt to list major problems that give a feeling of how bad conditions are there.

The lower levels of the Station structure experience a lot of leaks in bad weather. Stairwell ceilings are falling apart in many areas. We hear that problem was once even worse; it is still quite bad now. And the leakage drops on stairs and benches, making them nearly unusable and occasionally outright dangerous. Extensive corrosion is evident.

Birds, especially pigeons, infest the upper level of Andrew Station, creating huge areas where their droppings collect. The overhead bird screens need to be entirely renewed – pigeons now use them to perch and nest. The screens right under the new Andrew Station lights were left ripped open after their installation. Extremely poor workmanship!

Yesterday’s Andrew Station walk found that all elevators were working. However, one elevator sign wrongly read “OUT OF SERVICE” – the elevator actually worked just fine! And an UP escalator has been down for weeks. At times, both UP escalators are out of service. The overall trashy look and poor housekeeping are everywhere. The Station is often a “home” to the homeless. Everyone on the walk was aware that many hangers-on at Andrew Station are users and addicts. They need help, which apparently isn’t being made available to them. So we should all ask, “What’s next for Andrew Station?” And then insist upon an answer.

By Carol Masshardt

It takes a special kind of person to go back to earn a high school degree several years after attending school, and twenty-five-year-old Shaun Noonan is one. He earned his high school equivalency degree (G.E.D) on April 28, 2023!

The only child of Maryann Noonan, Shaun has lived in South Boston all of his life, and it is in this community where he achieved his goals and looks toward a promising future.

“I went to the Neighborhood House since I was a kid, and then started working there at 15, and that’s where I work now,” he said. “They are the reason I got the