America's second-dirtiest city

Sophie Wright,  New Orleans educator.

Travel and Leisure Magazine ranks New Orleans as America's second dirtiest city.  I'm not going to say New Orleans is April fresh and clutter-free.  It isn't.  I've passed through clouds of questionable smells while walking through the French Quarter and other neighborhoods.  They are the kinds of smells you can't put your finger on and wouldn't want to if you could.  These are organic smells, not the industrial or chemical scents that define other cities I've visited.    

Canal Street is clean.  Magazine Street is Clean.  Prytania Street is clean.  Banks Street is clean. There isn't an inordinate amount of litter that I see.  I think the impression of dirtiness comes from the state of disrepair that afflicts the city's architecture.  I can't say that St. Claude Avenue is dirty.  It just doesn't sparkle.  I feel this way about St. Bernard Avenue and Washington Avenue and Freret Street, the whole St. Roch neighborhood, Treme, heck, even the Vieux Carre itself.  It isn't litter, it's just disrepair.  In an old, moist city the decay and peeling paint are inevitable.  Some would say this is part of New Orleans's charm, others would say it indicates a lack of civic pride.

If New Orleans lacks anything, it isn't civic pride.  This is a place that inspires fervent love in its inhabitants.  It does in me and I'm new here.  I'll take any street in New Orleans warts and all over the prim, manicured vistas of Commonwealth Avenue in Boston.  Plop me on Jefferson Davis Parkway or any stretch of Broad Street or Chef Menteur Highway and I will find something to catch my eye and someone to talk to.  An entirely different city, New Orleans has the vibe of New York (the dirtiest city on the list).  Everyone is up to something.  They may not be chasing a buck but New Orleanians are engaged with their lives and their surroundings, working to make a mark.

Midnight Public Garden

If you've read these posts for the past month or so you might get the impression that I am against Boston and for New Orleans.  That isn't entirely true.  While Boston and I haven't been the best fit, even with me being a born and bred Nutmeg Yankee (and that may be the reason), Boston is a beautiful, beautiful city.

It is full of the most breathtaking parks and views you will find in any American city, hands down, bar none, and I'm not talking through my hat.  The Emerald Necklace, the Esplanade, Boston Common, Castle Island, all these places have a charm that cannot be matched.  All of these places have the perfect setting for what are essentially perfect jewels.  There is one that I like best most of all though, and that's the Public Garden.

With its pond in the middle, the statuary scattered throughout along winding, tree shaded paths, the flower beds different every time you visit and always in full bloom, the statue of General Washington staring down Commonwealth Avenue, the birds, the ducks and, of course, the swan boats, the Public Garden is a place of delights.

Photo credit: zipzapnzoom

Last night I walked through the Public Garden at night.  Ducks were sleeping in the lawn and there weren't many people about.  A few lovers groped on park benches facing the water, their passion undisguised by the shadows.  The swan boats were tied up and moored out of reach.  The ruffled breast of the pond caught and tossed back the glittering lights of the Four Seasons and the rest of the surrounding cityscape.  A guitar player perched on the cast iron gingerbread bridge, strumming Iberian melodies as people tossed coins into his open guitar case.  It was a romantic night.

I've never been in the Public Garden at night before.  It was time now that the Domesday clock is ticking.  In case you have the impression that I think everything in New Orleans is better, that isn't true.  I like City Park and I like Audubon Park, but they are little compared to the beauties Boston's parks harbor.

We didn't stop for a nightcap.  The T would stop running in a half hour anyway and we were in no mood to pay for a cab.  We went home, the atmosphere of the Public Garden at midnight casting our states of mind.  A nice night.

Readership and ridership

Does the core readership of New Yorker magazine understand MBTA-based humor?

I'm not clear on who drew this cartoon but since it's copyrighted to the Cartoon Bank, I can only assume it originally appeared in the New Yorker magazine.

As anyone who has stood on an MBTA platform for any amount of time knows, the T's riders are the eyes and ears of transit police.  If we see something, we are encouraged to say something.  Somebody's got to be on patrol during coffee breaks.  If something has a hint of sophisticated humor about it, should it be reported to the MBTA's finest?  Will it be passed on to the next level or will it be dismissed as some bright boy trying to be funny but failing.  A good sense of humor is a good indicator if an officer has a good sense of menace.

Does the New Yorker's core readership understand MBTA-based humor?  I guess that's the flip side of the question, "Does the MBTA's core ridership understand New Yorker-based humor?"

I've a pretty good idea that the New Yorker's editors think their Boston-based subscribers are unwashed, beer-swilling, ball cap-sporting, vocational school dropout cavemen.  Heck, when I leave the boundaries of Dorchester and Roxbury, I think that sometimes too.  Especially around back of the Capitol Building on a weekday at the legislators' entrance.

If you see something, you should say something.  If you see trouble, you should report it to the authorities.  If you see trouble with the authorities, you should say it at the ballot box.      

Missed holiday

Yesterday was International Pipe Smoker's Day, a day when pipe smokers are supposed to make the rest of the public aware that they still exist.

Dorchester doesn't have any tobacconists that cater to pipe smokers.  There aren't any dedicated tobacconists at all that I know of.  If you are in the market for a cigarette, there are plenty of convenience stores and gas stations.  If you are looking for a mass marketed cigar, you can find them in the same locations.  If you are looking for a bit of a higher quality cigar, some liquor stores have cabinets, if not actual humidors.  If you are looking for a briar or a corn cob bowl or a tin of pipe tobacco, you won't find them in Dorchester.

The nearest pipe shop you'll get to anywhere in Dorchester is L.J. Peretti, still going strong since 1870 at 2 and 1/2 Park Square on the corner of the Common.   Peretti has a selection of tinned tobacco prepared elsewhere, but the appeal of this Boston institution is that it still mixes it own blends.  This is a rarity in the pipe tobacco world and Boston is very lucky to have L.J. Peretti's established expertise around.   The irony is that Boston is officially a tobacco-hating city despite the Nobel laureates and cultural icons who have lived in Boston and cooked up their best ideas while puffing on a long stem.

There is another pipe shop in Brookline and there is another tobacconist that doesn't specialize in cigars in Harvard Square.  Piretti is  the only one that still mixes their own tobacco and can speak knowledgably about it.  If you want a Dutch Masters cigar to go along with your lottery ticket, Sunny's Cigar in Mattapan Square is recommended.  I have yet to find a tin of Price Albert or Captain Black in Boston.  This is probably because L.J. Piretti is selling their own superior blends at reasonable prices.  That and the fact that pipe smoking isn't much in favor in Boston anymore.  Next year on Feb. 20 Boston's pipe smokers should celebrate International Pipe Smokers' day en masse on the Common the way the marijuana smokers do.  I walked through Boston Common this weekend and I didn't see a single pipe smoker.  Myself included.

Next year.

Dorchester smells like sweat

Labor Day. Dorchester, Mass. is home to the headquarters of organized bricklayers, masons, carpenters, electricians, welders, ironworkers, sheetrockers, framers, subcontractors, pavers, stevedores, teamsters, railroad workers, teachers, firefighters, policemen, government janitors, postal carriers, and healthcare workers. Labor Day passes, a restful break for all the busy hands that keep Boston running on time and on budget.

Hot dogs on the grill, a bun in the oven, relish on the side, sweet potato salad...these are the things that make Labor Day in the Dot a holiday to be savored. It's not just the enjoyment of rest between routines that makes Labor Day Dorchester-specific. It is because Dorchester, like few other parts of Boston is a neighborhood where people have dirt under their nails and grease in their pores that a scrub brush can't erase after only one pass. Dorchester is a sweaty place, where garbage men retire to sleep the sleep of the exhausted and their wives and girlfriends get accustomed to the smell. Dorchester is a place where a worker earns a paycheck from the sweat of his or her brow and the ache of overextended muscles.

It isn't easy being a hod-carrier. It isn't a walk in the park to dig ditches, shovel to soil hour after hour. It isn't easy to maintain the skyscrapers and office parks that information workers take for granted. Someone has to tighten an elevator's cables and someone has to fine tune the escalators. Dorchester's working folk trudge up and down endless flights of stairs and ladders to get into and out of tight places, making sure everything transpires as it should, without a hitch. If a belt doesn't slip, if the gears turn as intended, if everything is well-oiled and all the parts fall into place, if a toilet flushes, chances are that a Dorchesterite has done the job to spec.

Dorchester smells like sweat: clean, honest sweat that pours out of a working person hard at a thankless chore. A wet forehead gets mopped by a wet hand swung cavalierly without any thought but to keep a hammer swinging without missing a beat. No candles or perfumes can disguise the scent of Dorchester. It is as natural as Adam and Eve being cast into the Garden of Dorchester and laboring to build a home for themselves. There is no shame in being ripe.

Dorchester, Mass., brawny and savvy Dorchester, Mass. Boston would be weaker without the good folk who inhabit the Dot. Boston wouldn't be Boston. It would be frozen without lubricant, without electricity, without workers, without hope, without anyone able to jerry-rig a broken part in a complicated, interlocked machine. Labor Day is Dorchester's day. Boston should observe a moment of silence in respect for the people who inhabit Dorchester's three-deckers while they stroll the Common and the Esplanade.

Bowling after midnight

Boston Bowl was hopping at 3:30 AM this morning. It's no wonder since this is the only place in Dorchester, indeed in much of Boston, that is open at this hour that isn't selling gasoline or potato chips (though you can buy potato chips at Boston Bowl). As the website says, this is "Boston's best 24-hour bowling." No argument. This is, however, the kind of ad hoc claim impossible to disprove when you are Boston's only round the clock bowling venue.

If not gasoline and convenience foods, what is Boston Bowl selling? The chance to meet in a lit public place indoors, which is a rare commodity in Bean Town. Naturally, Dorchester offers the most unexpected option for after-midnight diversion. In Boston, after 2:00 AM if you want public lighting, there are always the streets. If you want to go to a public place, there are the parks, though most of them are closed after sunset or 9PM or 10PM, or some other Puritan curfew hour. Boston Common is technically open, but don't loiter. It is open for passing through to get from end to the other by means of a shortcut.

We didn't count how many lanes are available for late night/early morning bowling, but the place is impressively vast, tidy and inviting. About ten lanes were being used and maybe an estimated twenty-five were vacant. This includes both regulation lanes and the regional favorite, candle pin lanes. Prices per game range between $4 and change to $5 and change, candle pin being the best bargain.

The most popular part of Boston Bowl during our visit, besides the outdoor smoking area conveniently located at the entrance, was the extensive and crowded pool room. Apparently, people like to engage in a round of billiards late in the wee hours of the morning. The clientele's demographics skewed young, but everyone was congenial and seemed sober. This isn't a place to work off the effects of a bender. It is a place to gather and socialize because there are few other options. Two on-duty policemen occupied a table near the foyer, chatting with each other, keeping an eye on the peaceable proceedings.

Largely invisible except from the southbound lanes of I-93, Boston Bowl is tucked off to the side of lot number 820 Morrisey Boulevard. You can only access the parking lot from the inbound side of Morrisey and you have to know to tuck a quick turn after the hotel but before the candy shop. There aren't any public transportation options during the MBTA's normal operating hours that I am aware of and, obviously, there aren't any public transportation options when the T shuts down sometime after 12:30 each night. There weren't any cabs in the parking lot during our visit.

With this less than ideal location, how does Boston Bowl stay in business year after year? That's an easy question to answer. It's the only game in town.

Julie & Julia & Goldwater

I am conservative in my tastes. Though fond of the Beats, it is from a distance of thirty years that I discovered them. Had I been alive in the 1950s, I don't know how attractive I would have found them. Though I was a punk, I was more the art school variety than an anarchist squatter. While I tend to be of a fairly liberal state of mind socially, my politics tend to run more conservative. I will come out and say that I am more Goldwater Republican than Great Society believer, for whatever that means. To me, it means that I am all for government spending on defense and other programs that benefit everyone in common and I am less inclined to support meddling in other people's personal affairs. "The government is best that governs least," and other bromides. I like to be left alone and I like to leave other people alone without judging their intentions. No political party captures my heart at the moment.

I am also a snob. I'm not ashamed to say it. I like what I like and I don't like what I don't. I'm happy to concede that other people can like what I don't and I don't begrudge them their enjoyment in wallowing in lowest common denominator entertainments. This statement sounds dismissive because it is, but these things aren't for me. So what? I am not refined so much as eccentric and whatever is happening in popular culture is usually outside the stream I am swimming in. I don't miss what I don't see. If I am highbrow, and I'm not certain I really am, it is because I tend to think too much. I think, therefor I am. I don't find any cause for shame in that.

This report is a movie review, however, though that hasn't been clear until now.

I haven't been to the Transformers movie that is very popular and I won't be sitting through the latest GI Joe screen gem. I did succumb to going to the latest Star Trek picture, but I left unsatisfied. Too modern, too much skittery camera work and violence and characterization shorthand, since we are all already familiar with the characters. Nothing new and little of interest.

Tonight we went to see Julie and Julia and if my description of my background hasn't turned you off, I would like to recommend it. It was an choice between an Errol Flynn flick at the Brattle or Julie & Julia at the Loews on the Common. I didn't think the lady of the house would enjoy swashbuckling (though I had never heard of the film playing at the Brattle tonight, had it been Robin Hood, I may have felt differently) so I pushed what I thought would be a chick flick at Loews. The lady of the house agreed without putting up a fight. I'm not macho by any stretch of the imagination, my admiration for John Wayne and my motorcycle notwithstanding, but sitting through film geared toward a distaff audience doesn't necessarily appeal to me. I had read a few reviews and thought I would be able to tolerate two hours. I not only tolerated the running time, I enjoyed it. Immensely.

It was a pretty full house for a 7:00 Wednesday showing and there were plenty of men in the audience without female companionship. They were young men and not all of them outwardly gay, though I don't really have a radar for these things. This film isn't camp and it isn't just for women. The men in this film are good men, as good as the women who are the main characters. This isn't a film about dysfunction, which is a kind of film for which I have little patience (Little Miss Sunshine, or Clerks, or any number of 'indie' pictures). This is a film about pursuing your goal honorably and succeeding. There's no shock value. It is wholesome while being adult. There is no nudity, no violence and little cussing. Yet it is adult. Imagine that.

There is little glamour. The characters are real people, likable people, people who overcome their foibles, or, rather, who make their foibles their strengths, the way real people do when they succeed. The two title characters have their counterparts in partners that love them for what they are. The men in this movie are not John Wayne, but in their own way they are: they have values, they love, they don't bend but they support. They are honorable.

I left this movie, not dizzy from consuming two hours of empty eye candy. Neither did I leave the movie with the message that "I'm a fuck-up and that's okay." I left thinking I would like to be a better partner for the woman in my life. I don't think I am a particularly bad partner and the lady of the house doesn't seem to think so either, but this isn't a bad impulse to take away from watching a film. $11.00 well spent. Nothing about this film left me feeling guilty or soiled or used or gulled into giving up eleven bucks. I left with inspiration.

This is where my conservative tastes come in. I want to see a film, or any artwork, that appeals to my better instincts. If I want to watch something base there is plenty of pornography and pseudo-porn available. If I want to confirm that my shortcomings are acceptable there are plenty of outlets that will comfort me, but being content with being small is a nutrient-deficient gruel. Witnessing an example of nourishing love and persistence and fortitude in the face of commonplace odds, not world-threatening ones but life-satisfying ones, gives me hope and food for thought. Character, not special effects or sound tracks, get us through to the end of our days and make us the best human beings we can be. A few more films like this probably won't be financial successes, but the bottom line isn't always measured in dollars and I thank whatever show biz deity is responsible for bringing them to the screen. This is the kind of entertainment I crave.

Two women wrote two books and a movie was made of them. Smart men loved them. Good women, good men, these things, and love make the world go round.

The Roxbury-Dorchester border

I was reading an article about OpenAir Boston describing how they brought wireless service to "the Grove Hall neighborhood of Dorchester." I remember when the service started and it was likewise described as being in Dorchester in the Globe.

The funny thing is, I was in Grove Hall this morning headed down Blue Hill Avenue to the Stop & Shop located in Grove Hall's Mecca. As an aside, 'Grove Hall's Mecca' is the most inappropriate name of any shopping center located next to a mosque. Anyhow, headed from Franklin Park, the typical blue oval sign that announces Boston neighborhoods reads, "Welcome to Grove Hall/ ROXBURY/ City of Boston/ Mayor Thomas M. Menino."

To my mind Dorchester has always ended at Columbia Road. I know it's not a perfect or official boundary but it works well enough in my mind. I travel the length of Dudley Street everyday, and when I cross Columbia Road in Upham's Corner, from Stoughton Street onto Dudley, my head knows I am still in the Dot, but my heart tells me I am entering Roxbury territory. In the opposite direction on Dudley Street, after the East and West Cottage Streets intersection I feel I am entering Dorchester, but I don't feel I'm home free yet until I cross Columbia Road at Upham's Corner.

I had a conversation recently with an acquaintance and he assured me Grove Hall is part of Dorchester. I'd known of the overlap but I've always thought it a part of Roxbury. It's a little off my radar to be Dorchester proper to me, just far enough to be somewhere else. That somewhere else is the next nearby neighborhood: Roxbury.

I'm sure real estate agents represent it as either, depending on their client, but the two neighborhoods are of similar essence. It is like comparing platinum to gold, one is somewhat more desirable, but both elements have high intrinsic value worth the investment.

Who decided that the official sign should designate Grove Hall as part of Roxbury? Surely, the incumbent mayor who is ever-sensitive to popular perception wouldn't have allowed his name to be attached to an erroneous attribution.?

In the end does it matter? It is Grove Hall, Boston, after all, another example of parochial hair-splitting. It is like my personal decision to end Dorchester at Andrew Square. That seems to be where the Dot's magnificence ends and Southie's begins. I've talked to people from South Boston who have debated me that Andrew is definitely, solidly part of Southie, stomping grounds of Whitey Bulger and Michael Flaherty. Who am I to argue? These things are hazy. The important thing is that all of these places are Boston.
A book about Dudley Street. I recommend it.

Can Dorchester stand alone?

If you haven't spent 50 cents on this week's Dorchester Reporter, check this out. Local freelancer Adam Pieniazek has researched Dorchester's history and posed this question to thoughtful local residents: "Can Dorchester stand alone?"

I gave the twee reply that the Dot would just be another Quincy if it did and who needs two? Our correspondent from the Polish Triangle justifiably didn't report my response. While it is quotable, the observation doesn't apply. Neither does something someone said to me recently in passing, that if Dorchester had rejected annexation it would be a twin of Brookline. This also isn't exactly accurate. After a hundred odd years being under the aegis of Boston, itself, you can't go back again and rewrite history.

Unlike Quincy, Dorchester doesn't have any undeveloped land that I've ever seen. There is no room to grow, only room to improve. Unlike Brookline, which carves a hole out of Boston's silhouette, Dorchester is built up mainly for function rather than vanity. You won't find many empty parcels on which to drop your corporate headquarters and you won't find many majestic mansions on shady, meandering streets. Brookline and Quincy are suburbs. Dorchester is part and parcel of a bigger city, there is no cutting the cord this late after delivery.

Dorchester has no room to grow, only to improve. That sentence sticks in in the soul of every Dorchesterite. The neighborhood can only enhance not expand. It can get taller, more dense, more electric, it can bulk up on its muscle. In a place that is home to so many sheetrockers, roofers, carpet layers, masons, and pavers, more muscle is something they want to build in order to take on more work. Dorchester is proud of its strength. Like any body builder, it wouldn't mind having more health, stamina, focus, or heft. With its shoulder to the puddingstone, Dorchester is primed to push Beacon Hill off kilter on its foundation. The day will come. Mark my words.

Ask anyone in Dorchester if the city or the Commonwealth is run right. They'll tell you they could do a better job.

Pork pulled at Pit Stop

Anyone who lives in Mattapan knows where the best barbecue can be found. If you're not familiar with the Dot, go down Morton Street and look for the knot of cars congealing traffic around address 888. Three eights are a good numerological number for the Pit Stop Barbecue. A calligrapher couldn't make a better choice. The number eight has a handsome head and a swollen belly, three in a row resemble the line of customers that leads to the counter at the Pit Stop.

The Pit Stop is a little shack on the corner of Morton and Hannon Streets. Its chimney exhales the mouth-watering scent of smoked meats. The people who live in Morton Street Village must be the hungriest in Boston, their appetites are always stimulated by the smoke out of the Pit Stop.

The pork ribs have a national reputation as being the best Texan style, slowly cooked meat north of the Red River Valley. You will sometimes see Winnebegos parked on Morton Street that belong to pilgrims who have made the trip east and north from southern, desert states to taste the best barbecue New England has to offer. It makes me feel fortunate to live a mere mile and a half away.

The pulled pork sandwich is a regular favorite, as are the pork ribs. Rich, salty, flavorful sauce that hasn't been replicated at any other, more fancy outlets complements the smoky meat the Pit Stop offers Thursdays through Sundays at a price every Mattapan citizen can afford. Local high school students and Back Bay Lotharios both report that the best way to get a date in an amorous mood is to offer her a meal of pulled pork. The Pit Stop often runs out of menu items due to excessive demand, but the demand for pulled pork sandwiches always seems to be the first supply that's exhausted. The rumors may be true, the pulled pork may be an aphrodisiac. The theory has been tested enough times to have street credibility.

The Pit Stop is more than a barbecue pit, if hearsay is to believed. It is also a passion pit, at least off premises. There isn't enough room in the Pit Stop for an orgy, only for takeout.

I was chatting up a couple of college students at Teatro, on Boston Common last night. They told me, "Spanish Fly drops have nothing on Pit Stop pork. That sandwich is a one-way ticket to heavy petting and then it's easy to get it punched for a transfer to the next zone." I asked if they were worried about the Swine Flu epidemic that may be heading to Boston. "I don't think past tomorrow morning," one rake replied.

Being a part of it

When the going gets tough, the tough take a stroll in Dorchester, Mass. Boston is a city full of inspiring sights but Dorchester is the part of Boston that breeds aspirations. I have wandered these streets and felt myself buoyed to flights of fancy inspired by the people who crisscross this liveliest part of a great, active metropolis. You can be down on your luck, counting on the loose change in your pocket to get through the day, without a hope in the world yet plenty of cares. Time spent in Dorchester will show you the way past immediate hardship if you have the eyes to see rainbows.

The economics in Dorchester aren't rosy. Details are difficult to pin down, but a neutral statistician will soon deduce that Dorchester's per capita income skews Boston's overall average down. You'll see frowns in Dorchester, but most of them are turned upside down. This is a neighborhood full of stores that boast your dollar will buy more here. It isn't the material things that count in the end, though. If you don't have money, you still have your health. If you don't have good health, you still have your family. If you are a transplant, you have the surrounding community. High fences may make good neighbors, but Dorchesterites make the best neighbors of all.

The people of Dorchester are rich in gumption and pride. They get knocked down on a regular basis but that doesn't stop them from starting each day with a grin, good cheer, and the expectation that things will get better. Things often do get better, eventually. It is good to be alive in Dorchester, just as it is good to be alive in any part of Boston. A city is a place where opportunities coalesce in kaleidoscopic array. Some people pick the low fruit while others reach for the stars.

Aim high if you want to hit the mark. Dress for the job you want, not the job you have. Be prepared for whatever chance may come your way. Let Fortune be your guide. Follow you nose through thickets and brambles and down Dot Ave. It is always darkest before the dawn though platitudes won't put food on the table. Hustle and bustle are Dorchester's hallmarks. If you can make it here you can make it anywhere.

I only speak for Dorchester, but I think all of Boston is a place of opportunity if you can seize a day and make it yours and parlay that into weeks and months and years. Fortune smiles on the bold. The Imperatrix Mundi has a special dispensation for Boston and an even more especial one for those who call the Dot home.

The Spare Change Guy

He's an ugly guy with an ugly face. We don't follow him everywhere he goes but we suspect he brings up the rear in the human race. Despite that, he is a man and he seems to be an honorable one, even if he is often misunderstood.

No one goes to college to be a panhandler. It's not a profession any parent is proud their offspring chooses to pursue. Some people, by design and destiny, have no choice but to live off the indulgence of others. If you are in downtown Boston, you'll pass plenty of people shaking a styrofoam cup with a rattle of coins in its bottom. The Spare Change Guy isn't one of them. He keeps his earnings in his pocket and asks outright for a handout.

He has a voice that can scratch concrete. He travels Boston Common or the Public Garden or Park Street Station scrounging for a little pocket money. His voice is both whining and grating when he calls out to all who can hear, "Can anybody spare some change?" He isn't clean and he doesn't look like a worthwhile cause. He's no matinee idol with a smooth pitch. He doesn't look like a good investment. He is often openly mocked and taunted but that doesn't stop him. With a voice that makes babies cry, he belts out, "Can anybody spare some change?" to whatever crowd he happens on.

Tough work if you can get it. Even tougher if you can be successful. The Spare Change Guy gets by, whatever that means. He is downtown haunting public places and T stations every day, surviving on whatever handouts he collects. They say the meek will inherit the Earth. I shudder to think of the Spare Change Guy replacing Mayor Mennino but there is a place for him in my city. Most of Boston's streets are pretty but all of them can be pretty mean.

I wasn't born as ugly as some people, nor as disadvantaged. I do what I can to be comfortable, relying on the gifts God gave me to maximize returns. Doesn't everyone? Am I any better than this man? In the end, we are both part of this moment in Boston. In the end we will both be food for the worms and fodder for Heaven.

Franchise Opportunities

A hungry person can purchase Royal Roast Beef sandwich in East Boston, but not downtown. Something is wrong with this city. Granted there is no beach downtown and a shaved roast beef sandwich is traditionally considered beach food in Massachusetts. This isn't the case in states that call themselves something other than commonwealths. The proliferation of Arby's and Roy Roger's chains attest to this. They have chain outlets clustered thickly around landlocked, highway cloverleaves in Oklahoma, Montana, Nevada and Kansas. Downtown Boston does have a frog pond. Does that count as shoreline? The tykes seem to believe. If they can, so can I.

Downtown does have a Falafel King. As someone who happens to have the last name 'King' I will tell you it does carry a bit of initial cachet, but that wears off soon enough after a bit of familiarity. Boston's falafel king is indeed the peak of the our fair city's falafel vendor hierarchy. Is a falafel sandwich purchased at Downtown Crossing and consumed on the Common as satisfying as a Royal roast beef sandwich bought in Eastie, carried across Bennington Street, and devoured on the shore of Constitution Beach? That's a tough call. I am mostly vegetarian, but Royal Roast Beef is better than good. If the shop were located on Dot Ave, the kids would call it Dottatstic!

I think Kelly's Roast Beef, a Revere-based enterprise with expansionist ambitions has a market built in at Downtown Crossing. Royal Roast Beef is content ruling its domain in Eastie. Kelly's wants everyone to enjoy its sandwiches. There are plenty of hungry students and tourists ready for some shaved, rare beef in Boston's skyscraper canyons. They don't need a beach. They need a point of purchase. The stars are aligned and the opportunity is ripe.