As mentioned in an earlier post, well known Newton architect, artist, editorialist, visionary and general instigator Anatol Zukerman will soon be leaving Newton. We can’t allow him to slip quietly away.
Tonight, Tuesday June 11, at 7PM, we’ll be holding a farewell party for Anatol at the Brigham House, 20 Hartford St in Newton Highlands. Everyone is invited! To commemorate his departure, Anatol will be presenting an exhibition of his architectural drawings called “The Newton That Could Have Been”. It will feature drawings from many of the projects that Anatol has been involved with over his years in Newton – Needham St redesign, 9/11 Memorial, Newton Center Fireman’s Triangle, Upper Falls Boulevard ….
Come take a tour of Anatol’s visions for our city and wish him well in the next chapter of his life.
Even though Anatol’s moving truck will be here in a few weeks, he hasn’t eased up on his Newton activities yet. Here’s a Guest Column he wrote for the Newton Tab last week.
Since its his last Guest Column as a Newton resident, I won’t nit pick the details I disagree with 😉
Jerry,
please pick the details you disagree with. I want to know that for I value your opinion.
Anatol, I would very much like to have joined you for your Newton swan song, but I must chair public hearings on special permit applications for the Land Use Committee on Tuesday night. Please accept my best wishes to you and Linda in your new home on the South Shore. Be well, and do good work.
Anatol – well since you asked …..
You describe the various informal walking paths that exist now across the railroad right of way and then say that Upper Falls “leaders fought tooth-and-nail against the proposed connection … but their own people voted with their feet and made that connection which is now used by anyone who wishes to do so.”
Both the neighbors and the Area Council would love to have those informal pedestrian connections formalized. The city’s Upper Falls Greenway working group has been looking at how to do that. The main problem is that those paths go across private property so they can only be formalized with the agreement and support of the commercial property owners. We’re hoping to get that agreement, but it’s not in the city’s hands.
The “tooth and nail” opposition you describe was something totally different. After many, many (by your count 30) years of endless study, meetings and talk, a plan took hold over the last year to build a simple mile long park – the Upper Falls Greenway on the railroad right-of-way. That simple, cheap, and fast plan has widespread support in the neighborhood and is scheduled to be done in October.
I believe the reason your plan received such a bad reception in the neighborhood was that it was quite rightly perceived as yet another large scale master plan, like all those before it. Building a new major road to mirror Needham St would take many years, 10’s or 100’s of millions of dollars, would require public taking of private lands, raise major concerns with abutters and have dozens of other complications and obstacles. Just the minor tweaking of the existing Needham St design, for example, has already been dragging on for years.
After 30 years of waiting, something constructive is now being done. The Upper Falls neighborhood now has a low key, simple plan for turning a problem into a pleasant neighborhood amenity by the end of the year. Given the history, the context, and the timing, I don’t think its hard to see why your extremely ambitious plan for a major redesign of the whole neighborhood was not warmly received in Upper Falls.
Regardless of it’s merits, after 30 years, no one’s in the mood for hearing about more ambitious, expensive alternative plans until at least after this simple Upper Falls Greenway project is completed.
@ Jerry. That was a wonderful sendoff for Anatol. Actually, I most often hear the term “sendoff” for a deceased person’s funeral or memorial service, but I suspect and hope that Anatol will be on this side of the ground for many years to come. He will be missed.
Seeing all of those drawings laid out in one place did bring home just how involved Anatol has been in every major project in this city for many years.
My favorite, which I had never seen or heard of before last night, was his plan for the Rumford St dump (excuse me, transfer station). Cap the dump, build a walkway across the whole property with gardens growing local produce hung off the side, all leading to a restaurant that looks out over the river and uses the garden’s produce. It may not have been politically or economically practical (I don’t know) but it sure had a visionary aspect to it that I loved.
Sorry I missed it last night.
Anatol, I wish you the best of luck. We’ll miss you on Village 14.
Jerry Reilly — I don’t know that I’d eat produce from a capped dump out of concern for leeching of materials and the gases emitted. But why is using this property as a useful open space politically problematic?
No, the gardens were not in the capped dump. They were suspended above it. As for:
As I said above “I don’t know” that it is. I’m just guessing that because the idea never went anywhere there was probably an economic or political reason. Your guess is as good as mine.