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- February 4, 2010: Kung Fu night at the Peabody Essex Museum
- February 1, 2010: Boston Courant: East Berkeley Street May Get New Name
- January 26, 2010: ACDC 6 Fort Street Project Receives Tax Credit Award from DHCD
- January 22, 2010: Hotel Proposed for 275 Albany Street
- January 16, 2010: Letter from Chinatown Storefront Library
- January 13, 2010: ABCD Headstart Church Health Fair.
- November 20, 2009: Chow Mein, Chicken Wings , and Cheeseburgers: Photo Exhibit of Historic Chinese Restaurants in New England
- October 9, 2009: SAMPAN: Second-round of vision casting for Chinatown Masterplan 2010
- October 9, 2009: Setting up Chinatown Storefront Library
- October 6, 2009: Chinatown Storefront Library Opening Oct 14th
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Is the Boston Arts Academy hiding secret tapes?
No, the Boston Arts Academy is not hiding tapes like Matt Walsh but they are working on plans to build a school in Chinatown and the school is not telling the community about those plans.
At the May 8 Chinatown Coalition (TCC) public meeting, Elaine Ng of the Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center and representing TCC as part of the Executive Committee, reported that members of TCC contacted Linda Nathan, headmaster of the Boston Arts Academy for more information regarding the proposal to build a school on Parcel 12, the former Don Bosco parking lot. However, requests by TCC to invite the Boston Arts Academy to meet with the community has been greeted with silence.
Word on the street is that the Boston Arts Academy has already approached funders to launch a capital campaign. This fact has been verified by several people in Chinatown, including the Chinatown Blogger. As part of the capital campaign, the school has assured funders that they have been meeting with the Chinatown community. Contrary, the school has rejected requests to meet since December of last year. If the school has met with someone in the Chinatown community, they have not provided any names.
TCC, which is a coalition of community agencies in Chinatown, is concerned about the lack of information from the school. Ng said at the TCC meeting that due to limited land in Chinatown, there are only 2 parcels available for development, Parcel A and Parcel 12. Parcel 12 was at one point intended to be developed for housing and the community would like to know what the school’s intentions are.
The Boston Arts Academy has initial plans to build a middle school and high school with a total student population of about 500. Add in the nearby Josiah Quincy elementary school and the Josiah Quincy Upper school on Washington Street, there will be about 1,000 students within a block of each other, which may pose traffic problems and how to ensure the safety of the students.
So far the Boston Arts Academy has refused to meet with the Chinatown community. What are they hiding? If the school has no intentions to build on the site, why not simply say so?
May 9, 2008 at 10:55 pm
Replacing a parking lot with a useful building can only improve this (or any other) neighborhood.
May 10, 2008 at 4:10 am
Ron, thanks for your comment. The main point of Parcel 12 is not about whether the site should be a parking lot or a building. The problem is that the Boston Arts Academy wants to build a school on the site without providing any information to the community. The reality is that Chinatown has limited land available for development, so each parcel will be scrutinized heavily to ensure the development is appropriate for the neighborhood. If Boston Arts Academy has no intention of building on the site, they should simply say so. Instead, the school has preferred to ignore requests by their future neighbors to start a dialogue. This certainly won’t help their proposal moving forward.
May 10, 2008 at 2:43 pm
Do you honestly think Boston Arts Academy will be able to build a school without providing information to the community? Are you completely new to Boston?
I’m sure Boston Arts Academy is trying to get a sense of its funding capacity before presenting a building program to the community. Why should they discuss anything with you until they actually have an idea of what it might be possible for them to build? Simply saying “yes we want to build something there” certainly doesn’t provide anything to discuss but it does allow opposition to start and rumors to fly.
May 10, 2008 at 3:23 pm
CCFK: No one has come out against the school, people just want to know what’s going on. If the school is just assessing funding capacity, the school should say so instead of saying nothing which is fueling even more rumors. Unfortunately, this MAY HAVE moved beyond the funding stage. A hearing was already held last year at the City Council to explore building the school on the site. That was the first time when the community first heard of the news. If you know folks from the school, I encourage you to call someone or even headmaster Linda Nathan and ask her to meet with the Chinatown community. FYI: I’ve lived in Boston for all or parts of 24 years and have been involved in Chinatown planning for 6 years.
May 16, 2008 at 11:05 am
Update: I heard from a very reliable source that City Councilor Linehan “might be” planning to hold a public meeting in Chinatown about the issue of the school. Invitees will inclue the Boston Redevelopment Authority, Boston Arts Academy and interested parties, and Chinatown groups. No date given on when this will happen.