1. Context.
2. Meeting announced on MIT housing expansion.
3. Councilor from MIT/Harvard on destruction at the Cambridge Common.
4. Contacts, Miscellaneous.
1. Context.
Near the Grand Junction railroad tracks across from the MIT athletic fields is a more than block long building at least 12 stories high which is designed to look like a bee hive. This building is dominant. It is MIT Housing.
It came into existence in the usual Cambridge, MA deal. There has been a shelter for the homeless with alcohol problems on the city (as opposed to MIT) side of the Grand Junction Railroad near that structure. The Cambridge city council made a TEMPORARY deal with MIT to allow the shelter’s continued existence.
What they gave in place was to allow MIT to PERMANENTLY call the street adjoining that monstrous structure part of the lot on which the structure sits. Everybody else measures the size of their buildings under maximum floor area allowed based on the size of their lot. It is unheard of to count the street as part of the lot, but Cambridge allowed this in exchange for TEMPORARY continuation of use of the homeless structure.
So MIT gets reality. Cambridge homeless get a temporary use.
This is reality in the City of Cambridge, MA.
2. Meeting announced on MIT housing expansion.
Cambridge Day has a report announcing a meeting this coming Monday, September 30, 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm, toward the river from the Kendall Station on the Red Line, on Carleton Street, the fourth floor of MIT Building E25, room 401. The report is posted at http://www.cambridgeday.com/2013/09/23/mit-working-group-due-to-report-back-in-july-wants-citizen-input-on-housing-oct-1/.
This is to discuss the future of MIT housing.
MIT housing now dominates the riverfront from the Mass. Ave. Bridge, the first bridge east of the BU Bridge nearly to the Destroyed Nesting Area of the Charles River White Geese.
That monstrous bee hive dorm is constructed exactly where the MBTA planned to turn the Urban Ring transit line on the Kenmore Crossing. It is still possible to go under the dorm or go around it. Then the playing fields would still be above the Urban Ring.
A key MIT planner has publicly praised the leader of the Cambridge Machine’s fake neighborhood association for his position on Magazine Beach. This was a rare public communication of reality. The folks are destroying, destroying, destroying, and they recognize the value to their destruction of this company union.
Where will the next “housing” go?
A neutral detailed report on MIT’s plans for its public presentation is posted by Cambridge Day at http://www.cambridgeday.com/2013/09/23/mit-working-group-due-to-report-back-in-july-wants-citizen-input-on-housing-oct-1/.
The building where the meeting is being held is not that far from the two excellent groves of trees destroyed and being destroyed on the Cambridge end of the Longfellow Bridge construction.
MIT aggressively supports the destruction of hundreds of excellent trees on Memorial Drive as part of Governor Patrick’s House Bill 3332. It should be considered in a legislative hearing fairly soon.
3. Councilor from MIT/Harvard on destruction at the Cambridge Common.
Outside last week’s meeting of the Cambridge Machine, in front of quite a few people, I asked Councillor Cheung, the councilor from MIT and Harvard, when destruction is slated to start on the 22 trees he voted to destroy on the Cambridge Common.
He snubbed me.
Reality is so inconvenient.
4. Contacts, Miscellaneous.
Massachusetts Governor’s Office email form: http://www.mass.gov/governor/constituentservices/contact/.
State environmental people, DES Hotline: ESF.Hotline@state.ma.us.
MassDOT Accelerated Bridges Program: 857-368-8904 or Stephanie.Boundy@state.ma.us
All Massachusetts Legislators’ emails: http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2013/04/emails-for-all-massachusetts.html.
Cambridge, MA, USA city councilors: Council@cambridgema.gov.
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For people listening to Boston Sierra Club endorsements of environmentally destructive members of and candidates for the Cambridge City Council, you should be aware that
(1) using the world’s definition of “environmentalism,” there are no environmentally responsible members of the Cambridge City Council; Cambridge’s definition is that environmentalists protect that which Cambridge does not feel like destroying; the Cambridge pols are oh, so pious using their secret, fraudulent definition;
(2) the school committee member running for Cambridge City Council fought for the outrages at the Magazine Beach playing fields;
(a) his indignant explanation is that he claims to be only responsible for the good stuff;
(b) that explanation is combined with exactly no demonstration of any meaningful opposition whatsoever to the outrages; and
(c) as is usual in Cambridge, his claims of “improvements” are belied by reality. The playing fields have been decreased in size by his project!!!!! This is to drain off the poisons being dumped to keep alive sickly introduced grasses which replaced healthy grass that survived the better part of a century without poisons; and
(3) there are Cambridge Machine activists very visible and apparently very active in the Boston Sierra Club.
If you are talking to a person associated with the Boston Sierra Club, do a credibility check. Ask if they are familiar with the “Urban Ring” rapid transit proposal. This is a subway proposal designed to link the existing subway spokes. I have been working on it since 1985. Cambridge raised the project in a comment to an environmental Impact Statement a few months ago.
If the Boston Sierra Club “expert” answers “yes,” that he / she is familiar with the Urban Ring rapid transit proposal, ask how many rail options there are. If the answer is “one,” you are getting the flat out lie put out by the City of Cambridge.
Cambridge’s flat out lie is that, of the TWO rail options, the only one that exists is the environmentally destructive streetcar option which the City of Cambridge supports. This option would be highly destructive to the environment near the Destroyed Nesting Area of the Charles River White Geese.
The reality is that THE STATE LEGISLATURE HAS SUBSIDIZED THE OTHER OPTION, the responsible Orange Line / heavy rail option, the Kenmore crossing. The state legislature has subsidized the expansion of Yawkey Station as part of the massive Fenway Park area project which has gotten recent press.
Cambridge’s nonsensical proposal would move Yawkey Station three blocks. The Cambridge proposal would not work without moving Yawkey Station. The Kenmore Crossing uses the now subsidized and being expanded Yawkey Station as part of a brilliant megastation.
You should immediately respond to such nonsense from a Sierra Club “expert” by having nothing more to do with this person. Whether the person is stupid or venal is irrelevant, the person has no credibility and is not worthy of your time.
It is frequently difficult to pin these irresponsible people down in general. The deviant behavior in my test is extreme. They are pious in their demands that, if you are politically correct and pro environment, you have to rubber stamp them. Please do not waste your time arguing about destruction they can try to wiggle around.
Turn your back on them and walk away fast.
