Time for another Open Post. This is your opportunity to discuss, vent, observe, or comment on any topic so long as its connected to Newton. Get to work …
What’s on your mind ?- Open Post
by Jerry Reilly | Jun 9, 2020 | Newton | 7 comments
Crazy Divers: Men be like...
drivers man be like
I don’t think it is inherently racist or exclusionary to want to live in a single family home in Newton. I’ve lived in nice apartments, terrible apartments (high rise and four family) and a house on a 1/4 acre lot growing up, and I now have a home on 7000 -ish sf a mile or so from Newton Centre. Am I now a racist Nimby for preferring my SR3 to stay that way. Is wanting more density near (1300 ft) our fixed-rail T stops (yes, including the Chestnut Hill stop), not enough? Do I have to vote to make all of Newton into a two family plus-zoned city to prove that I am not some sort of vile being? When is liking the character of one’s village or neighborhood not exclusionary?
Is there yet another modular classroom being installed in front of the “old” Horace Mann School? Went past the building the other week and sure looked like that’s what is happening.
I am really excited that we might just make lemonade from lemons.
Newton has a great opportunity to create a vibrant outdoor dining scene that might just be sustained into the future. It likely will include turning over some streets to create dining gardens as our sidewalks not naturally lend themselves to al fresco dining.
And I really hope it involves more that picnic tables but some really inspired spaces that include some high end outdoor dining
Crystal Lake looks like a dump. It is technically closed but used as heavily as ever. Throngs of kids hang out there 24/7 and trash the place beyond recognition.
No kids or adults are wearing masks. And this is wonderful. Life as normal.
Has the time come to update the Seal of the City of Newton?
Have you ever looked closely at this seal? You can find it on the city’s website, on many city documents and forms … and on your trash cans. Here is a high-resolution image:
https://images.app.goo.gl/KmwLCZyCG4w9DQx2A
This seal is adapted from a series of 19th-century depictions of the English missionary John Eliot preaching to the native people of Nonantum in present-day Newton. Here is an example of one such print:
http://discerninghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/John-Eliot-predica-agli-Indiani-1024×801.jpg
The audience at Nonantum included Waban, a Nipmuc man described as Eliot’s first convert to Christianity.
Like most missionaries of his time, John Eliot was a complicated figure. On one hand, he cared deeply for the native people of Massachusetts, advocated for them before the colonial and British governments, and wrote several important works in and about the Massachusetts (Wampanoag) language. On the other hand, he promoted the movement (or removal) of “Praying Indians” to “Praying Towns” such as Natick, where they were expected to follow Christianity and Puritan ways of life. Unfortunately, the collection of native people in Praying Towns provided a model for the creation of a concentration camp on Deer Island in 1675 (which Eliot decried); it also exemplified disastrous “Indian reservation” policies that later radiated across the continent.
A number of Massachusett, Wampanoag, and Nipmuc nations remain here today. Many of their members are Christians. One group proudly identifies itself as “Praying Indians of Natick and Ponkapoag”. Their relationship with John Eliot is, like the man himself, complicated.
I wrote emails to three of these nations but did not receive any replies. A next step would be to mail some letters. My own attitudes about this come from conversations with Wampanoag people I have met over the years, and from time I worked on the Navajo Nation.
I believe that Newton and its Seal should honor the Massachusett people. How to do this is a question best left to the Massachusett people alive today. But I don’t believe that a scene of Eliot’s preaching is a proper way to honor them. And how would you feel if pictures of your ancestors were placed on trash cans? The city should phase those out.
Watching the City Council’s Budget meeting(s) and am very impressed by the strategic pragmatism of our City CFO – Miss Lemieux.