Residents fight to save Melnea Cass Boulevard trees

Yvonne Lalyre drank her first cup of linden tea in Frankfurt Germany in the spring of 1981.

But it wasn’t until she moved to Greenwich Street in Roxbury five years later that she realized how the medicinal brew was made.

“We have lots of lindens,” said Lalyre, a retired Boston Public School employee originally from Panama. “You can make tea out of the flowers, they have fragrant flowers.”

Lalyre has lived beside Melnea Cass Boulevard for more than 30 years and, of all the trees that line the major traffic route, the 130-foot linden trees are her favorite. “In June you can look around and they are wonderful, it smells so beautiful around here,” said Lalyre.

Zara Zsido moved to Windsor Street, parallel to Melnea Cass Boulevard, in 2009. “These trees are a buffer, a buffer for sounds and a buffer for cooling,” she said. “They make the neighborhood livable.”

They’re not just good for shade, scent and herbal tea. These trees, and the hundreds of others that line the boulevard, help manage noise and pollution.

Roxbury is a heat island, experiencing much higher temperatures during the summer than in leafier, greener parts of Boston. On average 32,000 vehicles use the corridor daily, spewing global-warming gases into the air that help raise the mercury in a largely Black, low-income neighborhood with few natural resources to alleviate soaring temperatures.

“It’s an environmental justice neighborhood,” said David Meshoulam, executive director and co-founder of Speak for the Trees, an organization working to protect trees in city neighborhoods impacted by global warming and climate change. “These trees help mitigate against harm by cleaning and cooling the air, providing respite, and creating a sense of belonging and community.”

Despite these benefits, the City is planning to remove more than 100 mature trees along Melnea Cass in order to reconstruct the corridor, add new bicycle lanes and improve safety, according to plans approved in 2018 which received funding this March.

An out-of-state contractor — Newport Construction — has been chosen for the project and construction is set to start this fall.

But Roxbury residents are fighting back.

Yvonne Lalyre stands-out on Melnea Cass Boulevard to protest the City’s plans to remove the trees. Photo by Cat McGloin.

“When they approved the contract we thought ‘Oh my god they can come any moment and start cutting the trees,’” said Lalyre. “So we asked [the City] and they didn’t answer and I said ‘Well we’re going to have to start doing something otherwise they’re just going to come and cut the trees without us knowing.’”

Taking action

Four weeks ago, Lalyre wrapped strips of fabric around the at-risk trees. “I put the bands on the trees for people to see,” said Lalyre. “I got my neighbors to give me their old bedsheets and I stripped them.”

Lalyre — who stands at the intersection of Melnea Cass and Tremont Street protesting the City’s plans every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. — and other neighbors are calling for a public hearing on the removal of these trees. They say attempts at community engagement stopped once project funding was secured and the pandemic shutdown has made communication between city officials, planners and residents more difficult.

Besides stand-outs, a petition demanding a public hearing, started by the Friends of Melnea Cass Boulevard Association, has received 4,490 signatures so far.

“Our organizations include local residents concerned about this project and the impact the loss of trees will have on air quality, ambient temperature, and livability in this neighborhood, part of a designated severe heat island in Boston’s Climate Ready Boston Final Report from 2016,” says the petition.

The Conservation Law Foundation is supporting residents and sent a letter to the Boston Parks and Recreation Department Commissioner Ryan Woods, and Corporation Counsel Eugene O’Flaherty August 6, detailing the case for a public hearing to be held.

The letter states, “The City of Boston, specifically the tree warden, failed to hold a public hearing on the removal of the trees as required by law … We respectfully request that you correct this violation and hold a public hearing to discuss the removal of existing shade trees before the Project commences construction this fall.”

According to the letter, Public Shade Tree Law requires “public shade trees shall not be cut, trimmed or removed, in whole or in part, by any person other than the tree warden or his deputy . . .  except upon a permit in writing from said tree warden, nor shall they be cut down or removed by the tree warden or his deputy or other person without a public hearing.” 

Because no permit has been granted and the project will not widen the existing boulevard, lawyers from the foundation believe the Public Shade Tree Law applies and a hearing must be granted. 

In response to the letter, a spokesperson from the mayor’s office said “While the City of Boston received the letter from the Conservation Law Foundation [August 13], preserving green space and environmental concerns have been at the forefront of this years-long process. The City looks forward to working with all stakeholders as we continue our work to equitably improve Melnea Cass Boulevard for all residents.”

Canopy under-construction 

The street redesign has been under discussion since 2011. This latest plan is set to cost $25 million, 80% from federal funds and 20% from the state.

“As part of a comprehensive multi-year community process, the Melnea Cass Boulevard project will reconstruct this corridor, creating a more pedestrian-friendly, neighborhood street, enhancing its bike facilities, improving its stormwater resilience and increasing the safety of everyone who uses this street,” said a spokesperson from the mayor’s office in an email.

Aside from adding new bike lanes and water drainage systems, project plans promise new trees to replace those removed and accidentally damaged. But the number of new trees “is a moving target” said Zsido. Besides, new trees will take time to grow.  

“There’s no such thing as a net tree gain,” said Zsido. Trees destroyed now will take 40 or more years before they are able to offer the same environmental benefits as those already lining the corridor, said Zsido. “It’s loss all down the line.”

On the City’s claims that the project will increase safety for both pedestrians and cyclists, Lavette Coney, president of the Mount Pleasant, Forest and Vine Neighborhood Association  said “that’s just a rouse so that they can just do what they want.”

According to documents, City officials have advertised the project and public information meetings in local newspapers. There have been several meetings between City planners and members of the Friends of Melnea Cass Boulevard.

“Those meetings may work in a community like Brookline where a lot of people can afford to go to meetings,” said Lalyre, who believes many residents are unaware of what is happening and can’t attend meetings because they are working.

Even before COVID-19 presented its own unique challenges in hosting public forums, Lalyre said the City’s methods at community engagement were not suited to residents. “There hasn’t been really the involvement of the community because the process is not adapted to our needs to involve the community” she said. Door-knocking might be the most suitable way to reach everyone, she said, but during the pandemic phone calls would do.

Since the shutdown in March, days after project funding was approved, residents said they have heard nothing and letters of protest have not been received or acknowledged. 

“We just want community process, we just want to be involved they can’t make decisions for us,” said Coney.

“They couldn’t do this in Beacon Hill. They couldn’t get away with this in that neighborhood,” said Zsido. “Those trees are meant to put the neighborhood back together. I’m not sure if the City doesn’t know the history or isn’t aware of the history of the neighborhood.”

Historical trauma

In the 1960s, much of Roxbury was razed as part of the Massachusetts Department of Public Works Inner Belt Highway Project (I-695). Residents successfully fought back against plans to displace residents and destroy the community’s green spaces, and the plan was cancelled in 1971, although some sections of Lower Roxbury had already been cleared for the project.

“The historical trauma of having your neighborhood erased like that,” said Zsido, “that trauma is generational.”

Construction of the corridor continued and was named in honor of the Boston civil rights leader Melnea Cass, the “First Lady of Roxbury.” The 600 trees that line Melnea Cass Boulevard were planted in an “effort to put neighborhoods back together after the devastation caused in the 1960’s by clearance for I-95 and the Inner Belt…. The trees were part and parcel of making amends for the destructive auto-centric thinking of the past,” said Kenneth Kruckemeyer, former commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Public Works and founding member of WalkBoston and the Livable Streets Alliance. “It is sad that current City and state administrations have forgotten that promise.”

But residents aren’t ready to let the City forget easily and many believe now is the time their voices will be heard.

While protests against racial injustice and police brutality continue across the nation, advocates like Kruckemeyer are optimistic that the City will choose this moment to support a predominately Black neighborhood in their fight for environmental justice. “It is my hope that the Black Lives Matter movement is making developers, institutions and the City aware, perhaps for the first time, of the devastation they have wrought, and of their responsibility, at least, to stop the destruction and perhaps, more hopefully, to lead the City of Boston and its institutions to become an equitable beacon for all,” he said in an email.

And if the City is looking for more design input, residents have ideas of their own on how best to improve the area. Make the area a greenway, add fountains, put solar panels in the car lots and let the community use the energy: these are just some ideas Lalyre proposed.

A driver stopped at the lights asks Lalyre how to let the City know she wants the trees to stay. Photo by Cat McGloin.

Her morning shift at the stand-out almost over, Lalyre digs into her backpack to retrieve a small square box. “I have a present for you,” she says, “I have these to give away.” She hands out McCormick’s linden tea bags to fellow protestors and passersby.

One woman stopped as she crossed the street. “Alright I want to save the trees,” she said. “I didn’t know this was going on. Everything’s going crazy here, why cut the tree down?” 

“Because they want to spend $25 million of federal funds on construction,” said Lalyre.

“Well they need to give it to the people suffering from this pandemic,” said the woman, wanting to know how she can stop the trees from being destroyed.

Lalyre shouted over the morning traffic and through her face mask. “Call 331 and say ‘We can’t afford to lose a single tree on Melnea Cass, it’s an environment justice issue,” she said. “This is Roxbury, we’re tree poor, we need every tree we can get.”

Would pedestrianizing Centre Street help JP businesses recover from COVID-19?

Drivers parallel parking causes others to swerve into oncoming traffic. Cyclists weave between delivery trucks and rideshare vehicles. Buses collect passengers as fire trucks pull out of the station, lights on, sirens wailing. Add shoppers, dog walkers and children to the mix and Centre Street in Jamaica Plain can be chaotic, even during a shutdown.

But renewed discussions about making the major thoroughfare more pedestrian-friendly, in neighborhood council meetings and local online discussion boards, are more than appeals for calm and less congestion.

They are about helping local businesses survive COVID-19.

Pilot pedestrianization programs in the U.S. and Europe might provide a blueprint for what cutting traffic to Centre Street might look like, and if such a measure would actually help businesses, while Jamaica Plain locals have reimagined the corridor along Centre Street and South Street many times over the years.

The most dramatic option tabled has been to close the road off to all traffic.

“We’ve floated this idea a few times,” said Ginger Brown, executive director for JP Centre/South Main Streets, in an email. But, she said, the proposal has always seemed “difficult.”

“It’s important to keep in mind that the buses that go through Centre and South Street are a lifeline for many in our community and their unimpeded routes are extremely important,” said Brown. She also noted that the only other parallel two-way street in the area is the the Arborway, along which buses are not permitted.

The 39 and 41 buses run along Centre Street and provide important access for residents in Forrest Hills and beyond to the city center.

“It would be virtually impossible to shut down Centre Street to traffic due to the major bus routes that use it,” said Audrey White, owner of Carrot Flower, a plant-based cafe on Centre Street, in an email. She said the idea hasn’t been discussed at recent Jamaica Plain Business and Professional Association meetings, but that she would be open to reviewing specific plans to pedestrianize the area if any were brought forward.

Then there are the emergency vehicles that rely on Centre Street for direct access through Jamaica Plain to nearby medical facilities, including Lemuel Shattuck Hospital and the Hebrew Rehabilitation Center, as well as Engine 28 Ladder 10 fire station at 746 Centre Street. 

For the numerous ambulances, fire engines and police cars passing along Centre Street daily “there are no adequate alternative routes,” said Brown. “The other one-way and circuitous streets of JP would be a major impediment to their operation.”

Rerouting regular traffic is also another hurdle regularly cited. Pushing cars onto the narrow, one-way streets that surround Centre and South Street may only cause further congestion and chaos.

But in other cities, not too far from home, officials have found solutions and made pedestrian commercial districts work during the pandemic. 

A reminder that Moody Street stores & businesses are still OPEN! You can park in any of these municipal lots: https://t.co/oMlaDxpYg2

See more on the outdoor dining options currently available here: https://t.co/ZYGgKwCqH1 pic.twitter.com/BgJlZS5VGW

— City Of Waltham (@CityofWaltham) August 6, 2020

Waltham’s Traffic Commission has approved the temporary closure of Moody Street and the area will remain pedestrianized until November 1, while in Portland, Maine, a pilot program to close several streets started June 1 and the space is now being used by an open-air market, local restaurants and stores.

It’s unclear if organizers of these pilot programs dealt with the same issues — public transport routes and emergency vehicle access — as those of in JP would face. And it may even be too early to tell how successful these programs are. 

But early data from a trial in Dublin, Ireland, show positive results for local businesses.

In the city’s busy Grafton Street area sections were closed to all vehicles between 11 a.m. and 11 p.m. on weekends and during bank holidays. A survey of 292 businesses from the experiment’s first weekend showed owners enjoyed increased takings of between 40% and 100%.

Grafton Street, Dublin, Ireland. Photo courtesy of dublincity.ie

This trend will hopefully continue over the coming weekends, but some business owners are skeptical that such a plan would benefit Jamaica Plain’s businesses.

“I don’t think it would necessarily bring more business to the district, at least not enough to warrant the major disruption,” said White.

If a complete closure is untenable, then an alternative solution could be to remove parking spaces to accommodate more outside dining and retail.

“I am in favor of widening sidewalks, and having temporary pedestrian lanes in lieu of parallel parking while we weather this pandemic,” said Brown.

“Sidewalk seating is usually easier in Jamaica Plain using parking spaces rather than sidewalk space,” wrote Michael Reiskind in the Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Council June meeting minutes. “It’s a question residents have long been asking, and it’s come up again as businesses are starting to slowly reopen after the COVID-19 shutdown.”

But there are concerns about removing parking spaces, particularly from disability advocates. Reducing parking may make an area more inaccessible for those who cannot take public transport, need their cars to travel safely or who must park directly outside their destination.

In the Dublin trial disabled parking spaces were relocated nearby to accommodate the closures. 

Removing parking, while still allowing access for public transport and emergency vehicles, is a feasible solution that could help businesses recover from the financial damage wrought by COVID-19, said Brown.

“This can be done without changing the bus routes or the flow of traffic on Centre and South Street,” said Brown. “It requires giving up some parking but I think that’s a sacrifice that we can easily make.”

Should campus police officers carry weapons?

Amid calls to overhaul policing nationwide, Boston residents and students have renewed debate over whether campus police departments should carry firearms.

“Arming campus police officers with guns is the equivalent of handing officers a double-edged sword,” said Hannah Nivar, a Northeastern University Student Government senator, in a written statement. “While their capacity to ensure safety is enhanced, their ability to perpetuate unjustified violence is extended.”

Nivar and the association representing more than 20,000 students called for “a conversation that has long been neglected … Should campus police carry firearms?”

Residents attending a virtual town hall — hosted earlier this month by Sen. William Brownsberger and Reps. Chynah Tyler, Jay Livingstone and Jon Santiago — echoed Nivar’s request for renewed debate.

“Can we have a discussion about disarming these police forces?” asked one attendee, recalling Berklee’s decision to arm university police officers in 2017, with little community input.

“We should examine closely the equipment all police, including university police, are using, eliminate military equipment, and figure out what is appropriate for each department,” said Livingstone. “I look forward to this public discussion.”

Appeals to restart this conversation come as protestors nationwide continue to demand the defunding of police departments, more community policing and a ban on certain practices, including the use of chokeholds. In Boston, Gov. Charlie Baker has been working with the Black and Latino Legislative Caucus on a bill expected to pass that will implement new standards of training and certification for police officers. Boston City Councilor Michelle Wu also filed an order earlier this month, asking for data on the Boston Police Department’s weapons inventory. 

“People say it’s ‘The Police’ in the United States and so they conflate all 18,000 police departments into one logic,” said Michael Davis, Northeastern University Police Department’s chief of police, who spent 21 years as an officer and chief of police of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota. “What we try to do with our community is say ‘Look, there’s the police function in the United States and then there’s your police department,’ and encourage people to come to us and have the conversation … We’re not secretive and we’re all available for that.”

Broken trust 

But in 2015, the NUPD was criticized for arming some of their officers with semi-automatic rifles. “This is a step backwards for community policing and encourages mistrust and fear,” wrote then-Councilors Tito Jackson and Josh Zakim in a letter to Northeastern’s president, Joseph Aoun.

Davis defended the decision as appropriate preparedness for an emergency that may require the use of these weapons, like an active shooter situation. “In responding to active events in a densely populated campus, accuracy over distance is just essential,” said Davis, adding that these guns do not fire at a faster rate than a handgun but give highly trained officers to ability to respond swiftly and with greater accuracy.

During a semester, 65 NUPD officers protect about 25,000 students and staff across Northeastern’s 80-acre campus, Davis said. While he gave no precise number of how many officers have access to long guns, he said “It’s not everyone and its not a small component. It’s enough people of our contingent so that we could respond capably and quickly to any event.”

The NUPD are nationally accredited and trained to the same standards as municipal police departments. Arming officers is about ensuring swift action, said Davis. “Anything that we do in terms of having a capability is really us trying to reduce the response time to mitigate any impact of an event that happens on campus.”

Berklee’s police department started arming their officers in June 2017, before proper notice was given to local residents. A public meeting to discuss the move was held months after firearms were distributed. Although Berklee apologized for their lack of community engagement, residents were outraged by their actions.

Police and public safety officers at Berklee did not respond to requests for comment.

The Boston University Police Department has 49 officers serving a community of 40,000 to 50,000, according to Colin Riley, Boston University’s executive director of media relations. BUPD officers are also trained to municipal police standards and carry firearms. All officers receive firearms training in the police academy and qualify twice annually.

BUPD officers protect the university’s communities and properties “mainly through education and prevention,” said Riley. “BUPD officers are the first responders to incidents on campus, including any acts of terror or active shooter incidents, ensuring prompt emergency response time to critical incidents.”

Brownsberger, during the community Zoom meeting, acknowledged that police militarization does exist, but that “the notion that you wouldn’t have any arms among college police forces is probably not a viable idea … Do we want police to be able to respond and are they going to be dependent and waiting for the Boston police to arrive when somebody goes nuts and starts shooting up a place?”

The decision to arm campus police officers should be made by each institution, said Brownsberger. “I think that’s something the universities need to decide themselves. I don’t think there’s a legislative answer to that question.”

But some of his colleagues disagree.

Legislating firearms for public college police officers

A bi-partisan bill currently under review on Beacon Hill will allow the Board of Higher Education to overrule public college trustees and require police officers at any state educational institution carry firearms. Sponsored by Sens. Paul Feeney and Bruce Tarr, and Reps. Harold Naughton and Timothy Whelan, the bill targets Massachusetts College of Art and Design, the only four-year public college in Massachusetts without armed security.

“As a parent of two college educated daughters, I know the demand families rightly place on the campus police for the safety of their loved ones,” said Whelan, a retired state police sergeant with 26 years law enforcement experience. “I want our colleges and universities to be protected by campus police officers with the training and equipment necessary to swiftly diminish a threat to the lives and safety of the faculty and students.”

The notion that arming officers leads to an escalation of violence “is a false narrative,” said Whelan. “I don’t believe, in any way, there will be any escalation of violence resulting from campus police officers being armed … I believe it equips them to protect themselves and others in the unfortunate circumstance of someone using deadly force.”

In February 2019, MassArt’s Board of Trustees voted to maintain the college’s longstanding policy of employing an unarmed campus police force, a position trustees remain committed to, said Ellen Carr, MassArt’s executive director of marketing and communications. “Along with our colleagues at public educational institutions across the Commonwealth, we will follow the deliberations as the legislature considers this bill.”

Referred to the Ways and Means Committee June 8, the bill, if voted favorably, it will next move to the Senate floor for discussion.

Commitment to conversation

Mandated or allowed to decide, students and community members hope institutions continue to engage with them and are open to their considerations.

“There’s a very serious conversation about how much force do we need to be using to respond to problems in our society generally and the answer is probably less,” said Brownsberger during the town hall.

“Intent matters in policing,” said Davis. “When we see folks bombarded with images of poor behaving police officers, what people think is that the intent and the predisposition of police officers is not noble. For our organization that’s fundamentally not true.”

Nivar hopes student voices will feature more prominently in discussions about any future changes in on-campus policing. “The conversation from 2015 regarding arming NUPD officers must not die,” she said. “It is necessary that the conversation surrounding disarming campus police in 2020 incorporates the voices of our students, specifically elevating the voices of our minority students … it is time for Northeastern administration to listen and take action accordingly.”

“Unfortunately there’s not panacea here,” said Davis. “It’s really about building trust over time.”

He welcomes conversation with students, staff and faculty at Northeastern. “We don’t want to create something that people are fundamentally uncomfortable with under the guise of safety, “ said Davis. “We’re all human beings here just trying to do the best we can for one another. … it gets lost in the soup of controversy and turmoil and conflict and that’s why I’m willing to have a conversation, I’m 100% for that.”

 

A version of this story was published in the Boston Guardian, June 26 2020.

 

Irish America is marching into the 21st century and Boston’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade can’t keep up

Swaying lines of revelers rapidly build outside the pubs and bars along East Broadway in South Boston.

A police officer forces a young man to pour his bottle of vodka, secretly stashed but unsubtly swigged from, into the gutter on C Street. 

A girl crouches to pee beside a curbside skip on Athens Street, while her friends laugh and strangers stop to take selfies with her.

No it’s not a typical Saturday night in Southie. It’s midday, Sunday March 17, the most hallowed of all drinking holidays, St. Patrick’s Day.

One million people in various shades of green and states of inebriation lined the 3.5-mile route of the South Boston St. Patrick’s Day Parade, organized annually by the South Boston Allied War Veterans Council to honor St. Patrick and members of the U.S. military. And this year, for the first time, I donned my Irish rugby jersey and joined the scrum, opting for coffee over pre-breakfast cocktails.  

I’ve been in Boston for almost two years. I’ve been Irish all my life. The grandchild of first-generation Irish immigrants who left their beloved republic for North West London more than 50 years ago, I understand the anguish of clutching at cultural symbols while adrift from your ancestral homeland.

I expected there to be traditional music and dancing. I expected shamrock face-paintings and leprechaun hats. I expected a lot drinking. What I didn’t expect was for it to feel so alien. Yes, there were bagpipers and tricolor flags, but where was the enterprising European nation I know?

Anyone who has witnessed this annual day of Celtic carnage can’t truly believe that all the paddywhackery accurately reflects the Boston Irish community in 2019. But, as Amazon employees fired plastic shamrock necklaces into the crowds of families and day-drinkers, I wondered what the truth was behind all of the commercial nonsense. Does the modern, progressive and proud Irish culture I’d grown up with exist in Boston?

It does, but from the sidewalks of Broadway you’d never know it. The clichés about Irish culture annually promoted in the parade are particularly offensive, not only because they are inaccurate but because they mask the important evolution of the Irish American identity in Boston over the last few decades.

“Drinking is a big part of Irish culture,” says Sorcha Rochford, this year’s Boston and New England Rose of Tralee, an award presented to women who best represent Irish communities in the diaspora. Rochford, who was born in County Kerry in the southwest of Ireland and raised in London, moved to Boston as a Suffolk University student. That Sunday she marched in the parade alongside Mayor Martin Walsh, Gov. Charlie Baker and Boston Police Commissioner William Gross. “People latch on to something they have commonality with,” says Rochford. “It’s harder to have a conversation about Irish literature and history than it is to have a drink with someone.”

St. Patrick’s Day Parade 2019. Mayor Martin Walsh and Police Commissioner William Gross were among the marchers. Photo: Catherine McGloin

Not far behind them was retired mixed-martial arts fighter Conor McGregor. Driven in an SUV emblazoned with his whiskey company’s logo, he landed hits on two stereotypes, the fighting Irish and the ones that love a drink.

As with any ethnic group, stereotypes do not reflect reality. From escaping famine, to building Boston’s national political prominence, through an era of racial conflict in the 1970s, the Boston Irish identity continues to be redefined as immigration patterns and the city’s demographics shift.

In 1990, almost 44 million Americans nationwide considered themselves of Irish descent, but by 2015 this figure dropped to 36 million. The dip is, in part, caused by slowing immigration from Ireland to the United States. During the 1990s and the early 2000s the Irish economy, or the Celtic Tiger, grew rapidly, bringing jobs and fewer financial incentives to emigrate. In 1994, almost 17,000 people moved from Ireland to the U.S., yet in the years since this number hasn’t hit 2,000, according to Department of Homeland Security statistics. Massachusetts and New Hampshire remain the only two states where more than 20 percent of residents claim Irish ancestry.

Fewer first-generation Irish immigrants means genealogical bonds between Ireland and Irish America are weakened. But thankfully, those born in Boston are infusing their Irish heritage with their experiences of living in a minority-majority city. While it still might not be as forward-thinking as Ireland itself, particularly on issues such as LGBTQ rights, Irish America is diversifying and, albeit slowly, becoming a lot more progressive than the picture painted by parade organizers.

Irish America is still perceived as “very white, Catholic and male,” says Trina Vargo, founder of the U.S.-Ireland Alliance, who served as Sen. Edward Kennedy’s foreign policy adviser and was involved in the Northern Ireland peace process in the 1990s. “All these things are fine,” she says, “but we’re trying to build for the next generation.”

——

The first Irish immigrants sailed to Massachusetts in the 18th century. They were white men and women, but they weren’t Catholic. They were Ulster Protestants escaping religious persecution and seeking economic prosperity. The Catholics arrived about a hundred years later, flooding New England during the Great Famine of 1845 to 1849. They brought with them distinct religious and cultural traits. These would be molded and recast over the coming years by certain events and through their pursuit of the American Dream.

After years of discrimination and anti-Catholic bigotry, Irish Catholics came to dominate political life in Boston. A few highlights from the annals: the election of Boston’s first American-born Irish Catholic mayor, John F. “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald, in 1905, grandfather of President John F. Kennedy; the infamous James M. Curley, who served four terms as mayor, one from prison; and Walsh’s election in 2017, the first Irish American mayor whose mother tongue is not English but Gaelic.

The Troubles in Northern Ireland, from the late 1960s up until the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, also helped shape the Irish American identity. Many members in the community in Boston supported the Irish Republican Army by raising money and running guns out of Boston Harbor. Much has been made of Boston’s IRA connection, but Kevin Cullen, Boston Globe columnist and the newspaper’s former bureau chief in Dublin and London, says this has been overblown.

“The IRA supporters in this area were real bigmouths, so you get the impression there were more of them,” says Cullen, who lived with his wife in South Boston in the 1980s. He says that South Boston was actually a more moderate place and that the influence of the Boston Irish on the Republican movement in Ireland has been exaggerated.

For Bill Forry, second-generation Irish American and editor of both the Dorchester Reporter and the Boston Irish Reporter, the Troubles in Ireland were a present but distant problem. “It wasn’t a front row seat, it was kind of in the distance for us,” he says. Born to Ed and Mary Forry, from the Republic of Ireland, Bill Forry says, “As an Irish American person in Boston we had great sympathy for the Catholic Republican cause and that kind of permeated throughout the community in different ways.”

The second half of the 20th century also heralded a cultural reawakening for Irish Americans in Boston. Assimilation had been the best survival tactic when they first arrived, but as their political and economic power grew, the Boston Irish began to rediscover their heritage.

“There was a tipping point in the ’60s and ’70s where … Irish people started getting more interested in finding out their own roots, in finding out their own lineage,” Forry says. This interest, he adds, was inspired by other groups, like the African American community, who were also redefining their identity at this time and throughout the civil rights movement.

The two communities, however, clashed during Boston’s busing crisis during the 1970s. Forced to finally desegregate schools by federal judge W. Arthur Garrity Jr., children were bused between white and black areas of the city. South Boston High School was the site of racial attacks and the image of angry, white Irish Americans flinging rocks at school buses remains a stain on the community’s most recent history.

For the Boston Irish not involved in the riots, it was still an unsettling time to live in Southie. “There was a lot of racism in the communities, and it really got bad during the busing crisis,” says Cullen. “That really pushed people into corners both black and white, and it was really ugly.” But, he says he never heard a racial slur in his own household, and he knew many Irish Americans who supported the civil rights movement. “I don’t know how any Irish person who knows their history in this country could be a bigot I don’t fucking get it,” says Cullen. “It doesn’t make any sense to me.”

Most recent clashes have been with members of the LGBTQ community. Barred from participating in the St. Patrick’s Day parade in the early 1990s by organizers and leader John “Wacko” Hurley, a Supreme Court ruling upheld this ban in 1995, stating that because the parade was a private event organizers could prohibit anyone they wanted from marching. Organizers eventually voted to allow LGBTQ groups to march in 2014, only for the ban to be reinstated in 2017. Community outrage forced organizers to concede, and this year Bryan Bishop, a gay veteran and founder of OutVets, helped organize the parade and LGBTQ groups were, once again, invited to march.

Raised in the Boston Irish community, Bill Forry has witnessed the evolution of this group’s collective identity. In many ways, he and his wife, former state senator Linda Dorcena Forry, and their young Haitian-Irish-American family, represent the future for Irish America.

“I think there has been a dramatic shift in attitude over my lifespan,” says Bill Forry. “Anybody who has been here long enough sees it just walking through the streets … I’ve seen things shift, and there’s a lot of examples of that, from LGBTQ to the way people view themselves in the context of other races in the city, and just in terms of how you view Ireland.” He says his ethnicity is not what defines him. He is an American who celebrates his family’s cultural diversity and sees this reflected in the melange of the wider Boston Irish community.

“The nature of any city is that it’s always changing … that’s all just part of a continuum that’s natural,” says Forry. “People have had the opportunity to have real life experiences with other people who aren’t like them, and that’s what should happen in the city.”

——

We’re not yet at the fast end of this continuum. Stereotypes die slowly, but there are ways we can speed up the destruction of old tropes about Irish America.

The first step is simply to recognize it isn’t a monolith. “There isn’t a specific kind of Irish American,” says Vargo, and within this community groups sit at various points along political, social and cultural spectrums. Conservative views are still held within the community but Vargo says, “a lot of the old style Irish America stuff is generational and it’s dying away.”

Rather than wait for the wake, those in a hurry to modernize the Boston Irish identity are engaging people in the progress happening back in Ireland.

“Obviously Ireland is changing,” says Bob Mauro, director of Boston College’s Irish Institute. Farming has been replaced by FinTech startups and Ireland, with support from the European Union, has embraced many forward-thinking policies. Ireland introduced a single-use plastic bag ban in 2002, while it took Boston until 2018 to follow suit. The Gardaí, the Irish police, recently said they would allow hijabs and turbans to become part of officers’ uniforms. While the Boston Police Department has attempted to improve its diversity, the majority of the workforce, are still white (64 percent) men (73 percent).

But “Irish America is changing too,” Mauro adds.

Mauro praises the work of the Irish International Immigration Center in downtown Boston. The IIIC supports immigrants not just from Ireland but from more than 120 countries, providing legal services as well as mental health support. They host cultural exchange events and storytelling sessions to encourage cross-cultural community building in Boston. Their work, Mauro says, is truly representative of a younger, more inclusive Irish America, and their participation in the 2019 parade is noteworthy.

“It’s important for the Irish community here in Boston that change continues,” Mauro says. For him and those at the institute, this means strengthening the transatlantic relationship between Ireland and Irish America, through educational exchanges and business partnerships. He says universities, the Boston Irish community and the Irish government have an important role to play in providing these platforms for communication.

Vargo, former adviser on Irish issues to President Barack Obama, also says the Irish government could do more to encourage a new relationship between Ireland and the U.S. Despite the progress, bigotry still persists in some diminishing corners of the Irish American community, and Vargo says that the Irish government should more vehemently disavow this behavior. “The Irish government shouldn’t participate in an America that’s out of touch,” she says. One way to denounce stubborn prejudices would be to stop sending diplomats to men-only events, such as the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick’s anniversary dinner in New York held in March. Vargo told Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar as much in an email last November, writing “it’s time to drag Irish America into the 21st century.”

Bill Forry advises simply ignoring the stereotype. “Our strategy is we don’t dwell on that negativity, and we try to give a steady drumbeat of what’s actually happening,” he says. Immigration, particularly the status of undocumented Irish immigrants in the U.S., remains one of the community’s biggest concerns, Forry says. The other is Brexit. As the future of the Irish border between the north and the south remains uncertain, Forry says, “I don’t think there will be this descent into real sectarian violence again … I think there’s enough of a foundation of pretty well informed and well-meaning people who won’t allow that to happen and Boston is one of the places that will be an important anchor of that.”

——

The faintest sign of sectarianism in South Boston is in the faded paint flecks of the pro-IRA mural on the side of Al’s Bottled Liquors on St. Casimir Street. Proclaiming “Ireland Unfree Will Never Be at Peace,” the painting from a bygone era is wholly anachronistic, here and in Ireland. Below these words is an image of the U.K. wrapped in a Union Jack, the tricolor flag flying beside it. No one paid it any attention as they watched parade floats go by.

This year’s St. Patrick’s Day shenanigans were also relatively peaceful. Boston police officers issued 244 citations for drinking in public and made just eight arrests, mostly for disorderly conduct. I have no idea if the vodka smuggler or the skip squatter is included in those numbers.

St. Patrick’s Day Parade 2019. Photo: Catherine McGloin

What I do know now, having seen it for myself, is that the parade, although more inclusive than in recent years, is still “a weird leftover of Irish America,” as Vargo calls it. It does nothing to help promote a modern Boston Irish identity, and it belies the progress this community has made in refining itself over several decades.

That doesn’t mean it has no purpose — for the bars and restaurants that sponsor it the parade is a lucrative pot of gold.

But Irish America is about more than one boozy Sunday. Like other ethnic groups in the city, the Boston Irish are a culturally diverse, one that defies stereotyping. But you’d never know that if the parade, with its tired tropes, is the only picture of the Irish community you see.

A new generation of immigrants and American-born Irish is reshaping the community’s cultural identity, bringing it in line with the reality of a modern Ireland and a modern Boston. But this is a long process that needs to be supported by closer ties to Ireland, better funding and a recognition that this community is as complex as any other in the city.

“It’s never shades of orange and green when it comes to Irish things,” says the Globe’s Kevin Cullen. “It’s always shades of gray.”

You’ve got to care before you can criticize

No one likes being told they’re failing.

Especially not after 12 months of radio silence from your manager, when, without any prior warning, you’re told that you’re not hitting your goals, not “failing fast” or “leaning in.” You are not “a unicorn.”

Fight-or-flight kicks in, and you either want to hide behind the nearest flip-chart or kick it over, raging at your boss that the whole review process is a sham, designed to hold you back from that big promotion. 

The last thing many of us feel coming out of demoralizing annual reviews like this is valued, as an employee or a person.

Feedback only works when we feel heard and respected, and when it’s given by people who genuinely care.

Thankfully, many companies are realizing that annual performance reviews are not the best way to motivate employees to excel.

A growing number of Fortune 500 companies — 10 percent, according to most recent estimates, including General Electric, the Gap and Microsoft — have ditched this model in favor of real-time feedback. This gives employers a chance to address concerns in a timely way, and for employees to actually improve their performance. As psychiatrist and executive coach David Brendel says, “real feedback exists in real time.”

“Feedback is a way to deepen relationships and to get people to collaborate on a strategy and executing on tasks,” says Brendel, author of bioethics book “Healing Psychiatry” and a former Harvard Medical School teacher. “My sense is that feedback should be used consistently, in real-time to produce productive and trusting conversations in the workplace.”

The downside is that being criticized almost every day, maybe multiple times, can be a little soul-destroying. How is constantly bombarding someone with negative feedback more useful, or motivational, than hiding in the stationary cupboard?

It’s not. Again, feedback, regardless of frequency or format, only works when it comes from someone who really cares about you. It must be preceded by strong professional relationships and personal connections.

If you know that your manager cares about you as a human being and not just a number on a forced ranking scale, if you feel valued rather than browbeaten, and if you receive nonjudgmental feedback that is fair and actionable, you’re more likely to listen and to change. 

“We excel only when people who know us and care about us tell us what they experience and what they feel,” write Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall in their recent article for the Harvard Business Review.

It doesn’t sound revolutionary; people are more open to criticism if they believe the person giving it is sincerely concerned with their well-being. But in workplace cultures built on forced rankings and other made-up metrics that subjectively rate our personalities, strengths and weaknesses, it’s easy to forget the value of real human relationships and honest conversations. 

During my mid-twenties I was a marketing assistant at a company where the strategy shape-shifted weekly. I was working in a toxic team environment and struggling with an undiagnosed anxiety disorder. Needless to say, it was not an ideal situation. But the insensitive, unsubstantiated criticisms I received almost daily from a manager who clearly was not interested in my career nor my well-being did not help. I left the office most days fighting the urge to flip the office ping-pong table (yes this was a tech start-up) and my manager the bird.

This is not to blame those who did try to help me. I had my own reasons for resisting feedback. But if my manager or mentor had cared about me as a human being, had noticed that my morning meditation ritual in the “quiet room” was not a quirk but a way to deal with our poisonous team dynamic, I might have reacted differently to their feedback.

Dave Bushy, former senior vice president of flight operations for Delta Air Lines and JetBlue, says that once resistance sets in, giving someone feedback can “be like hugging a porcupine.”

I was that porcupine. “But porcupines can be hugged if their spines are down,” Bushy adds.

Calming woodland creatures and building relationships at work are the same. They take trust, and time, not soggy compliment sandwiches.

A compliment sandwich — a slab of cold-cut criticism wedged between two positive statements — is something most of us have given and received. They’re about as personal as a corporate Christmas card. They are confusing and they don’t help build good relationships. 

“I suppose if I’m teaching a dog I can use a sandwich,” says Bushy, “but dogs are smarter than that.” Bushy, who is now an executive coach, has found no use for this method during the span of his 35-year career.

Research shows that this approach muddles the message we’re trying to give out. Our brains will most likely only remember the good parts and tune out the bad bit in the middle. But this technique is also deceptive and patronizing, making it a pretty poor way to build meaningful relationships with co-workers.

Katrina Graham, an assistant professor of management and entrepreneurship at Suffolk University, recommends that in most cases, giving good feedback and earning colleagues’ trust means opening with your point and being upfront with views. 

Graham points to the importance of creating “psychological safety” at work, encouraging an environment where you can speak your mind or share concerns without fearing repercussions. This builds trust and respect, from which healthy conversations can be had and constructive feedback shared.

“We should try and understand the position of the person giving and receiving that feedback,” says Graham. “People want to be heard, accepted and listened to,” and, she says, it is important that although we may not agree with them, we recognize that their perceptions are valid. 

This does not mean that you need to be best friends with your manager.

“I don’t presume to be a therapist,” says Bushy, “but sometimes you have to get to the underlying problem.”

And the best way to do this he says, is to “let curiosity be your guide.” Ask questions that start a dialogue about how each person is feeling and how they perceive the situation.

“We don’t have a home life, a work life, a sports life, a recreational life, we have one life,” says Bushy. “We have to understand that when a person walks into work they could be sick or have a dying mother at home … it’s so important to recognize that we bring who we are to the workplace.”

Until we acknowledge that the people we work with lead complicated lives, and until we truly care about them, our feedback will fail.  

 

Feature photo by Headway on Unsplash.

Final project idea

For my final project, I would like to write about Irish American cultural identity in Boston, and argue that their patriotism is misguided and dangerous.

Since moving to Boston, I have seen people use or support both Republican and Unionist slogans. It may seem innocuous to order an “Irish car bomb,” chant “Up the RA,” or call someone a Fenian (all things I have experienced here). But, as a second generation Irish immigrant from a staunch Republican family, I was shocked by the cultural insensitivity of many people, and the ease with which they appropriate certain imagery without any understanding of its meaning, or the implications of doing so. I understand the difficulty of clinging to a cultural identity when you’re a part of the Irish diaspora, but the fact that a pro-IRA mural still exists in South Boston is outrageous. It also hints at the underlying problem: that many Americans who claim Irish heritage base their patriotism on a romanticized past, and know very little about Ireland’s history, or more importantly, it’s reality today.

The use of such slogans and imagery discredits all of the hard work and success of the Good Friday Agreement – it took years to build and brought a degree of peace to Northern Ireland, while leaving open the possibility of a reunified Ireland. Their lack of understanding has been exposed by Brexit — although Irish Americans are not alone, many Brits aren’t sure what the backstop is all about. Even St. Patrick’s Day, the hallowed excuse for a week-long drinking session, often does Irish culture a disservice by reinforcing negative stereotypes. But, more importantly, their ignorance and the perpetuation of this type of misguided patriotism is dangerous, in both the U.S. and in Ireland. There has been increased violence in N.I. since Brexit, and in the U.S., where many communities are socially and politically divided, any type of nationalistic rhetoric does nothing to heal these rifts.

I would like to explore why this lack of historical context or cultural understanding exists, perhaps explaining how the Irish American identity was formed, particularly in Boston. I’d like include a brief history of the IRA and the Troubles, to show that to trivialize these events is inappropriate and insulting. Then I’d discuss why, in such a politically and socially divided time in America, Irish nationalism and unionism is dangerous, and how it helps fuel increased violence back in Ireland. Finally, I’d look at ways in which we could improve education and how the Irish American identity can be modernized to reflect Irish culture in the 21st century.

Potential interviews:

Kevin Cullen, columnist the Globe https://www.bostonglobe.com/staff/cullen

Una Mullally, columnist at the Irish times http://www.unamullally.com

Sorcha Rochford, Boston and New England Rose of Tralee

Noel Whelan, Chairman Kennedy Summer School

Dr. Robert M. Mauro, director of Boston College’s Irish Institute

Kevin Kenny, Irish history professor at BU

Trina Vargo, founder and president of the U.S.-Ireland Alliance

Greg Jackson, director of the Irish Cultural Centre of New England

Ed Flynn, city councillor for South Boston

This event: https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/boston-college-ireland-business-council-breakfast-tickets-57984246442

 

 

 

Banning plastic bags won’t save the planet

We’ve all seen that video of the turtle with a straw stuck up his nose. And yes, we know that out in the ocean somewhere between Hawaii and California there’s a floating island made of trash twice the size of Texas.

So paying a few cents for a paper bag and forgoing a plastic straw in our iced coffee is a small price to pay when it comes to saving the earth and its wildlife.

But when our groceries are wrapped in reams of cellophane, our drinks served in non-recyclable Styrofoam cups, and manufacturing our cute tote bag does more damage to the environment than producing a plastic one, it’s time we take a closer look at how good banning plastic bags and straws actually is for our planet.

The answer; it’s a start but we could, and should, be doing so much more.

Banning single-use plastics is very noble, particularly when there are more than 150 million tons of plastic in the world’s oceans, a figure expected to triple by 2025, according to estimates by the British government. Bans may even encourage individual action and make us feel more positive about the future of the environment. But it’s too narrow an approach.

To really make a difference we should be thinking about wide-ranging legislation that targets the major pollutants, like agricultural waste, and electing governments that take climate change seriously.

Photo by Dustan Woodhouse on Unsplash.

The first state to ban plastic bags was California back in 2016. Two years later, then-California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill prohibiting restaurants from serving diners a straw unless they requested one. Seattle followed suit last year, banning plastic straws and utensils, while New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced in January that he would include a ban on single-use plastic bags in his 2019 budget.

Boston’s own ban rolled out in December 2018 when city officials ruled stores could no longer stock single-use plastic bags and imposed a five-cents charge on recyclable, compostable or reusable ones. This came two years after the city of Cambridge issued a similar directive that all stores must charge at least 10 cents for a reusable bag at the checkout.

It’s not just governments that are gallantly trying to go green. Starbucks, McDonald’s, Hyatt Hotels and many other global corporations have announced that they will phase out plastic straws in their establishments over the next few years.

Any measure that helps reduce the amount of plastic we waste is positive. In California, the city of San Jose reported that a year after implementing their plastic-bag ban they saw 89 percent less bag litter in their storm drain system, and the number of plastic bags clogging the city’s streets fell by 59 percent.

But many of the bans governments and corporations are pursuing, whether to gain kudos with voters and customers or from genuine environmental concern, are inadequate and barely begin to address the issue.

Take plastic straws. A study published in 2017 estimates that the world’s beaches are strewn with 8.3 million discarded straws, while a U.S. survey found that we use about 500 million straws every day. Nonetheless, the U.N.’s environmental agency has reported that straws only account for 0.25 percent of the 8 million tons of plastic that enters the world’s oceans each year.

It’s clear that we have a problem with plastics, but banning a few specific items is not the most consequential or sustainable way to reduce garbage pollution. Instead, we should follow the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s advice to reduce, reuse and recycle — I’ll add refuse — all non-recyclable materials, not just bags and straws. We need to make more conscious purchasing decisions that are based on how goods are packaged and produced. Look for eco-labels like Fair Trade and Better Cotton. And if you’re really invested in change, then vote for green initiatives in local and national elections, buy a more fuel-efficient car and try eating less meat — after all, animal agriculture is responsible for 18 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions.

But most of us aren’t willing to go to these extra lengths for the environment.

Instead, we righteously sip on metal straws and carry our groceries in cotton bags, making only small sacrifices that help us to feel like we’re doing our bit and that perhaps the planet isn’t doomed after all. This false hope stops us from making any substantial lifestyle adjustments and we fall into the trap of “single action bias.” One baby step forward is quite enough, any further commitments to environmental change is a green giant leap too far.

Photo by Rahul Bhogal on Unsplash.

Even when we do make small changes we are unlikely to stick with them. There is very little evidence that banning plastic bags shifts our fundamental attitude towards recycling, or encourages other types of long-term environmentally conscious behavior.

Not only are limited bans bad for promoting broad-ranging, long-lasting change, they are potentially worse for the environment. A 2011 U.K. study found that plastic bags are greener than many alternatives, including paper bags and “bags for life.” Paper bags must be used more than four times in order to offset the amount of emissions and waste created by their production. Cotton bags must be reused 131 times before their environmental impact falls below that of regular single-use plastic bags.

So before we congratulate ourselves for remembering to bring a bag next time we’re at the checkout, consider that saving turtles and reducing garbage patches in our oceans requires consistently reducing, reusing, recycling and refusing all plastics whenever possible, as well as finding alternatives that truly are environmentally friendly.

A real solution is a holistic one that relies on government intervention and one that the planet is still waiting for.

 

Photo by Gary Chan on Unsplash

Reported column on college-admissions scandal

The Atlantic’s Adam Harris, a staff reporter covering education for the magazine, answered my main question about the college-admissions scandal revealed earlier this week; why are we all so surprised by this news?

His column starts with a good chunk of service journalism for those not entirely sure what the uproar is all about, without getting too bogged down in the detail. Then his interviews provide an alternative perspective on the case.

Rather than contacting institutions at the center of the allegations, as most journalists will undoubtedly be doing this week, he went for Michael Crow, the president of Arizona State University, a college mentioned by a parent and cited in the complaint for not being prestigious enough to warrant their illegal efforts. Crow provides interesting insights and Harris selects his quotes well to support his opinions. His second interview is with Julie Posselt, an associate professor at the University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education, whose words he uses to introduce readers to new aspects of the story. Both of his interviews allow Harris to show the wider significance of the scandal and what it means for the future of college admissions. I only wish he had more space to explore inequality within college student populations and to go behind this idea of “prestige.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/03/stop-college-admission-cheating-admit-more-students/584749/

Photo by Good Free Photos on Unsplash.

Review: Russ & Daughters Cafe, same salmon without the soul

I’ve been coming here since I was a girl, proclaimed a disgruntled shopper to the shivering tourists salivating outside Russ & Daughters on New York’s East Houston Street. But this place has changed.

Disappointed that her childhood didn’t award her queue-jumping privileges, she waited in-line with the rest of us day-trippers, risking hypothermia for some of the greatest gravlox in Manhattan on that chilly Saturday in 2016.

Despite her grumbling, she was right.

After more than a century of serving the Lower East Side with schmaltz herring and gut-busting bagels, things have changed at one of New York City’s most iconic eateries.

Joel Russ immigrated from Poland in 1907 and became a street vendor before opening his first brick-and-mortar store in 1914. Six years later, the family business relocated to 179 East Houston St., where Russ and his three daughters sold dairy, fish, pickled vegetables, spreads and pretty much anything else you’d stick between two yeasted wheat rings.

After almost 100 years, crowds of bialy-seeking brunchers continue to flock to the shop on East Houston St., one of New York’s last appetizing stores, a specific type of deli that caters to Jewish customers abiding by the kosher law that states meat and dairy can’t be sold or eaten together.

But with no indoor seating, sampling the store’s unique slice of New York history during the winter posed a serious dilemma for customers: where to sit and savor your lovely lox and cream cheese without catching frostbite?

In 2014, the Russ family’s fourth generation offered a solution. Josh Russ Tupper and Niki Russ Federman opened a full-service sit-down restaurant at 127 Orchard St., a five-minute walk from of the original deli, complete with 1920s-inspired interior, white-aproned servers, vinyl booths, black-and-white photographs and an original soda fountain.

Returning to New York last weekend, I swapped sheltering in an ammonia-scented doorway at the previous location for this bright 70-seat dining room.

Russ & Daughters Cafe. Photo by Catherine McGloin.

Before ditching the deli for these refined surroundings, it’s worth noting that you’re likely to face the same tedious wait before plowing into your fish platter. The cafe does not take reservations. When we arrived on a recent Saturday at midday we waited for an hour and 45 minutes before being seated in a booth, which comfortably accommodated four adults. Solo diners and couples are generally seated at the front of the cafe or on stools at the first-come-first-served counter, which was crowded with awkwardly hovering guests like us.

Above our table an illuminated glass cabinet was filled with assorted jars of dried fruit and candies. Beneath this was a framed black-and-white photo of a 1960s-bouffanted Anne Russ Federman, the youngest of Joel Russ’s daughters who died last year at the age of 97.

Russ & Daughters Cafe. Photo by Catherine McGloin.

Looking up at this display, I remembered the indignant woman I’d encountered on my previous trip, and now I understand her dismay.

While the food was good, dining in the cafe lacked any sense of authenticity, an integral part of my enjoyment in Russ & Daughters’s original offering at the store. We were only about 1,000 feet down the road but it felt like miles when comparing the charm and comfort of the two locations.

Yes the gaspe nova salmon is still of the finest quality, the pickles tongue-ticklingly tart and it’s all beautifully presented as “The Classic” ($18), a deconstructed lox and cream cheese bagel. My wooden board was laden with tissue-thin slices of smoked salmon, rounds of red onion, beef tomatoes, a leveled cup of cream cheese and a sprinkling of capers. But it was too measured, too pretentious to embody what was always at the heart of Russ & Daughters’s offering – soul, history and character.

Russ & Daughters Cafe. Photo by Catherine McGloin.

The smug satisfaction of holding the doughy bagel in my frozen fingers, having endured the wait outside the store, was gone. Cream cheese oozing down my chin was replaced with a carefully controlled amount that provided adequate bagel coverage, but with very little left to spare. Russ’s signature expert craftsmanship was missing. At almost $20 for a breakfast sandwich, I’d rather the chef had built it and saved me the mild anxiety over how to best distribute my five slices of salmon between the poppy seeded rings, which were perfectly toasted.

Similarly, the herring plate ($22) demanded that we construct our own morsels from three types of pickled herring, two rollmops, a pot of cubed beetroot, pickled onions, three sickly sauces and a short supply of shissel rye bread. The cream sauce was the only reprieve in an overwhelming dish that otherwise oscillated between salty and sour, leaving my plate-mate and I feeling seasick by the end.

The platter was too big for two to share, perhaps deliberately so in order to justify the dish’s hefty price tag: one herring fillet, prepared as it was in the restaurant, costs just $4 in the store. What is a polystyrene-plated delicacy in the shop is an overwhelming fish frenzy in the cafe.

A bowl of matzo ball soup ($9) was the most authentic course of the meal. The waiter kindly split the portion for two to share, avoiding any messy dumpling dueling, and the delicious chicken broth cut right through the gelatinous globe.

Yes, it’s less like feeding time at the zoo. The boards and platters are artfully presented but over-priced. I didn’t miss being jostled by displaced locals and bewildered tourists. But no matter how many black-and-white photographs they hang on the walls, Russ & Daughters Cafe is a polished but poorer version of the original store that fails to capture its cultural importance. And that’s not worth a seat.

Russ & Daughters Cafe, 127 Orchard St, New York, NY 10002 (212.475.4880). Open Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m., and on Saturday and Sunday from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.

 

Feature photo via Flickr, by Jazz Guy, CC by 2.0.

A review of the Super Bowl ads

Of the many Super Bowl ad reviews written following last Sunday’s game, I think Spencer Kornhaber’s critique, published in The Atlantic, is the most unusual and thought-provoking.

Kornhaber did not take the easy route, to highlight how bad the ads were or focus on their obvious capitalist messaging, as other reviewers did. Instead, he creatively linked the ads under one theme; morbidity. He underlined how this theme ran through many of the adverts, which was a refreshing approach.

Kornhaber does, importantly, engage in service journalism, detailing each advert. His opening brings readers into the action and to his unusual interpretation of what they have watched. He goes on to detail the other adverts so that if readers missed any of them they are still able to understand what he describes. Usefully, the article includes embedded commercial clips to supplement Kornhaber’s writing.

Kornhaber’s references to Andrew Wyeth and Andy Warhol make the article sound almost like an art review. This lends his writing an air of authority which he uses later on in the piece when discussing big themes such as personal legacy in a post-Warhol world and consumerist culture. He also places his critique within a wider context, mentioning recent advertising controversies (the Gillette ad) and public concerns over some of the brands advertising during the Super Bowl (Amazon’s use of AI).

This is an imaginative, witty review that rips each advert but treats it as part of a collective, ultimately bringing his critique to the broader issue of the state of Super Bowl advertising.

Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash