BOSTON — When Lisa Li moved in with her sister’s family in Boston 4 years ago, the job prospects were dismal, especially for someone who didn’t speak English. What she did have was 15 years of experience running Chinese restaurants in Colombia.
 
“When we watched the news or read the paper, we saw that so many Americans didn’t have jobs. So we said, ‘Let’s work together to open a restaurant!'” she said.
 
She and her family set out to buy the perfect takeout. One in Somerville was too small; another in Walpole was too far away from the home they share in Malden. In March, they found something promising in the Savin Hill section of Dorchester, called Hong Kong Chef.
 
“We were here scouting the place for a good week and we saw that it does have really good business,” said Li's niece Mei Chen. “So we came and we were training with the owner for about a month, just seeing how things work and his interactions with his customers. And we kind of fell in love with this place because it’s spacious, there’s room to grow. It’s a packed neighborhood, so we figured that, why not? Give it a try.”
 
A neighborhood institution
 
By April the Dorchester takeout was theirs. After 5 years, the previous owner had become tired of the long hours and was moving on to run a laundry.
 
And even before him, Hong Kong Chef had been a neighborhood institution. Crystal Stanish, 28, remembered it well.
 
“It’s been a neighborhood place," she said. "It’s been here since I’ve grown up, since I was a kid. We always have it. I don’t live around here anymore so we make a habit, when we come to visit the parents, we come in and get it and have it for dinner. It’s just good, and it’s home.”
 
What really makes it home is the deliveryman.
 
“He knows my mom, he knows the family, he knows our address and it’s always right there really fast. And he’s so funny and he comes in," Stanish said. "It’s neighborhood, it’s the same people. There’s not a high turnover. You recognize people. I like that about it — and I like the food.”
 
Turning a customer into a regular
 
What the Li family has been finding out is that food quality can sometimes be secondary to the relationships with customers.
 
Chen said that since they’ve taken over, the flow of customers has slowed. She suspected it was because people miss the old owner and don’t trust the new owners yet. It couldn’t be the food, since the chefs are the same, as is the menu, for the most part. They’ve even added a few new dishes — like fried plantains, which some customers had asked for — and tweaked the recipe for others like chicken wings and crab Rangoon.
 
Chen had paid attention to the previous owner’s interactions with his customers.
 
“The customers would come in or even call and he would recognize their voice and he would say, ‘Oh do you want a D25 or a D2? Oh, no onion in your fried rice.' Something like that. He would just know from looking at them or just hearing their voice. That’s great. That’s something that we want to accomplish as well, because it seems like it’s one of the things that really brings customers back into the restaurant,” she said.
 
Ted, who declined to give his last name, has lived in the neighborhood his whole life and remembered the old owner fondly. “He was just genuine and kind and the whole family seems to be — the whole group just seemed to work together so well,” he said.
 
For Li, running the takeout has become a family affair too: Her nephew runs the counter several days a week and Chen works there when she’s not working as a nurse at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Her mom helps out after her job at a dollar store. And they both pick up produce by hand several times a week.
 
While Ted isn’t quite sure about the new staff, he said he was willing to give them a chance: “Let’s see how the food is, how the comfortability factor is, and go from there.”
 
When I told regular customer Crystal Stanish that the takeout had changed hands, she said she'd noticed having a harder time ordering on the phone. But she said the food hadn’t changed and most importantly, neither had the deliveryman.
 
“He’s a great, fun guy and he literally has been delivering since I can remember. He’s been here forever, so hopefully they keep him,” she said.
 
Can the takeout evolve?
 
But is it any easier to start a takeout from scratch? I went to Wok N Talk on the border of Mission Hill and Jamaica Plain to find out. It doesn’t look like a traditional takeout: The walls are painted a cheerful lime green and orange, and udon noodles and pad Thai sit alongside lo mein on the menu.
 
Owner Nathan Long and his business partner borrowed $300,000 from relatives 2 years ago to set it up. They didn’t want to open just another run-of-the-mill Chinese takeout.
 
“You go to a traditional one, and you usually see hundreds and hundreds of items. I go to there and I have a headache ordering,” Long said.
 
So Long and his partner stripped down the menu. Only five appetizers. The main dish was stir-fried noodles: Customers could choose their noodle, their sauce and their meat, and it would be cooked up right in front of them.
 
But customers found the menu too sparse and business suffered. So crab Rangoon, chicken wings, boneless spareribs and around 20 other takeout standbys reluctantly went back onto the menu.
 
Still, Long didn't include any "very traditional" dishes like egg foo young. "Because I think the way people are eating, they’re already slowly, slowly changing,” he said.
 
A new generation with old tastes
 
Long hopes Wok N Talk is welcoming to busy young professionals in the neighborhood. He's hired non-Chinese waitstaff and installed a comments box, which overflows with tiny pieces of paper.
 
Some the comments affirm that Wok N Talk is fulfilling one of the basic functions of the traditional Chinese takeout: supplying the neighborhood with greasy food until 3 a.m. One customer wrote, “Late-night food is essential to the functioning of a proper society and you, you provide this — be proud!”
 
Wok N Talk has also found itself part of the gentrification of the neighborhood.
 
“Some people tell us, before, at nighttime, [the neighborhood] was quite scary. So I think that as we come in, as more and more businesses come in, and the community does more work at this, to keep the place clean, it will change the neighborhood. It will change the neighborhood,” said Long.

Where are you a regular?
 
We want to hear your side of the story. What’s your relationship with your local takeout? Do they know your order when you walk in the door? Do you know your deliveryman? Is Chinese food a late-night indulgence for you?
 
To tell your story, call 617-477-8688, or go to the Planet Takeout website to leave a story or upload photos. And stay tuned for the next installment of Planet Takeout, where we’ll explore more deeply the tensions between takeouts and the neighborhoods they’re in.

 
BOSTON — Food trucks have come to Paris and they've come to Boston. Next up? If Paris wasn't unexpected enough, the food world's hottest phenomenon is moving into the suburbs.

A trend in the city

Stroll through the Financial District, Kendall Square or Cleveland Circle at lunchtime and you will see long lines forming around trucks pulled up to the curbs. The queue of people reflects the diverse, multi-ethnic menus scrawled on the chalkboards. Suits stand behind foreign students in well-worn T-shirts and moms balance their takeout containers on the hoods of strollers while fishing for change.

“I love them," said one customer. "There used to be the fear of the 'roach coach' but these places are really high-quality and they’re also generally cheaper than any of the offerings around here.”

On any given day food trucks line up on city streets, offering a bold variety that competes with brick-and-mortar counterparts. At one truck, for $5, you can get Sichuan asparagus with a slow-poached egg. At another truck, for $3, you can chow down on a taco filled with Chinese sausage, fried rice and black bean mayo.

Yes, gourmet cuisine has gone mobile — and now other cities and towns in Massachusetts want a bite. The Town of Brookline just launched a pilot program for food trucks offering more lunchtime options for workers and residents, and if all goes well, food trucks will shift into park permanently.

“I think the public is fascinated by food trucks,” said Anne-Marie Aigner. So fascinated that it’s going above and beyond the city limits.

Truckin' past the city line

Aigner is the founder of the Food Truck Festivals of New England. A couple of years ago, she saw how the food truck phenomenon was barreling its way over from Los Angeles and thought: Why not make a destination event out of it? Instead of having food trucks pulled up at events like the Head of the Charles or outdoor concerts, you could flip that around and make the food trucks the main event. That means a caravan of food trucks will amble their way to towns like Framingham, Falmouth, Salem, N.H., and Newport, R.I.

“People are interested in the fact that you don’t have to go into a restaurant and sit down to have a good bite," said Aigner.

People like Rick Rushton.
 
A plan in central Mass.

“I look at what’s happened over the past 4 to 5 years with urban cuisine on the go — to the desktop, to the laptop and now to the iPad. And people’s accessibility to food, and to good food, has really transformed itself,” he said.

Rushton is a Worcester city councilor. In this city, food trucks were banned a few years ago, after a heated battle between the brick-and-mortar restaurant and food truck industries resulted in a 6-5 City Council vote that left food trucks packing. Rushton is hoping that by bringing the Food Truck Festival to Worcester on July 14, fellow councilors will warm up to the idea of getting rid of the ban.

“I’m hoping that most of the city councilors are going to head down to the festival, see where the food truck revolution has gone," he said.

If you can't beat them …

Tension between food trucks and brick-and-mortar restaurants is nothing new. Some restaurants see food trucks as a threat, especially if they’re parked a little too close by for comfort. But one Somerville restaurant saw the competition as an opportunity.

“My initial take was hey, we want to get in on that action," said Rob Gregory, co-owner of the landmark barbecue restaurant Redbones in Davis Square. Redbones wheeled out its own truck when Gregory saw that this was not just a flash in the pan.

“Competition is good," Gregory said. "It keeps us all on our toes and keeps the quality of food up and quality of service for the customer. It’s all about trying to have something that people want. This is one of the most exciting times for experiments in the food service business. You can innovate and if it doesn’t work, you can try something else.”

Other restaurants are hitting the pavement as well. Even fast food chains like Burger King have launched their own fleets of trucks across the country.

“The word is getting out," Aigner said. "It’s becoming increasingly popular with existing brick-and-mortar restaurants, and the flip of that is it’s a great entry point for somebody who’s interested in getting into the restaurant business, but can’t afford $300,000 – $400,000 to build a restaurant." It takes more like $25,000 – $50,000 to start a restaurant on wheels.

Starting from the street up

Mei Li of Mei Mei Street Kitchen agreed. "The idea is to start small with the food truck and experiment with the different ingredients and have a rotating menu so we try lots of new things and let our customers try new food," she said.

Mei and her siblings Andy and Irene bought their truck this spring as their first entrepreneurial step into the food service business. The Mei Mei Street Kitchen menu exemplifies the diverse palate of second-generation Asian Americans with items like a scallion pancake sandwich with braised beef and blue cheese. She even joked about their food being Chinese food with cheese.

“We think that it’s a unique opportunity to be able to bring real food to areas that sometimes don’t often offer that for people who work everyday and are faced with the same choices," Li said. "If you’ve got a different food truck every day in front of your office, you get to try new things and have real food brought to your doorstep. We think that’s really cool.”

Next stop?

Other cities and towns think it’s cool, too. And they’ll get a taste of the food truck experience en masse throughout the summer in various towns and cities in the New England area. For a $30 entry ticket, people will be able to eat from over 20 trucks.

“Somebody out west of Worcester called and yelled at us," Aigner said. "We get calls every day. Why did you stop in Worcester? How come you didn’t come to Springfield? What about the Berkshires? How about West Hartford?”

The downside of success is that everyone wants a piece of it … or a plate.

There are 10 food truck festivals scheduled for this year, starting with an event at the UMass Boston campus on Sunday, June 10. Get the complete list. 

 
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — I arranged to meet Helen Bryant at the 1369 Coffee House in Central Square, an independent business in a neighborhood that’s arguably one of the last traces of Cambridge’s less-prosperous past.

A tale of two cities ... in one neighborhood
 
Sandwiched between the Sublime Salon and the Hair Collage on Massachusetts Avenue, the coffee shop is just a few doorways away from Pill Hardware with its flaking and peeling red storefront. Rodney’s used bookstore, ABC Pizza and the divey Cantab Lounge are across the street. On the next block west toward upscale Harvard Square is City Hall, the Cambridge Senior Center and the central post office and Y. East about a block toward the Massachusetts Institute of Technology you’ll run into Starbucks, a café that provoked outcry when it arrived in the mid-90s, and that now seems an early indicator of the changes on the way.
 
The 1369 Coffee House is crowded with students and neighborhood locals. Helen is an attorney in private practice, mostly children and family law. Over a cup of strong coffee, she tells me she was born in Cambridge like her three brothers and her father and, except for college, she’s lived here all her life.

“When I was growing up Central Square was just a square full of little shops that you walked through," Bryant said. She remembers Woolworth’s, and the Harvard Doughnut Shop where Starbucks is. "You knew who would be in these places. You knew who worked there. It was either your friends' parents worked there, or you knew who’d be sitting at the counter at the Harvard Doughnut Shop."
 
That was the story, Bryant said, until the 1990s. Then, "these little family-owned businesses started to disappear and were replaced not with another family-owned business but more likely a big chain.”
 
The downside of the old community
 
While the small shops and friendly neighbors made growing up here a pleasure, the Square of the past also had a dark side. Minka vanBeuzekom is a newly elected member of the Cambridge City Council.
 
“When I moved into Central Square in 1990 I was walking down the street and I heard a voice behind me say ‘Get out of the way, lady,'“ she recalled. "I turned around and this guy was coming toward me with a gun drawn and there were three policemen chasing after him."
 
Over the 20 years she's lived in the neighborhood, she's had police in her backyard looking for weapons, and known of "shootings and stabbings and lots of not very nice things," she said. But "that activity’s really plummeted.”
 
For vanBeuzekom, the promise of Central Square renewal is long overdue. After all, the square is where the seat of city government lies. It’s a major transportation hub, not just for Cambridge but for the whole metro Boston area. And it’s an astonishing center of activity.
 
“Those are all the pluses," vanBeuzekom said. "And then, if you actually walk around and you see the condition of some of the buildings, the condition of the sidewalks, the condition of the public spaces, how some of the streetscape is being handled, how vital or not vital it is — that’s where the disconnect lies.”

A moment of change
 
Efforts to revitalize Central Square have gone on for decades — and failed. But for vanBeuzekom, the urban renewal stars are aligned as they’ve never been before, thanks to big pharma.
 
“There’s much more of an urgency because of what’s going on at the eastern end of Mass. Ave., closer to MIT where Novartis is expanding," vanBeuzekom said. "It’s going to be a breathtaking building but mind-boggling development that’s happening — especially when you couple that with Pfizer, which is just on the back side of almost that same block, which will be another large building. So I think there’s a new urgency to solve the Central Square problem.”
 
That urgency is being driven by massive new development projects already begun just blocks away. A quarter-mile east down Mass. Ave., Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis has already broken ground on a Maya Lin–designed park and tower complex. And right across the street, the two blocks of small shops, restaurants and apartments will be replaced by a 240,000-square-foot MIT research facility.
 
City officials and other community interests see the resulting property tax revenues as a historic opportunity to accomplish what others have chronically failed to achieve in the past.
 
"The solutions that came out of the Red Ribbon Commission were middle-income housing, [a] day care center, public space that could be a year-round arts and crafts or farmers market," vanBeuzekom explained."There’s also an effort led by urban planners who helped with the East Cambridge planning team for Kendall Square. And then there’s a third effort going on simultaneously by Community Development, they’re calling that K2C2. So that’s why it seems like we’re going to solve it this time.”
 
Gentrification?

But area residents and small shop owners who have already seen stores and neighbors pushed out by high-tech expansion don’t have much faith in the good will of institutional encroachers or city planners.  They’ve formed coalitions and committees to make sure their interests are heard. And while most would like to see the neglect apparent in some parts of Central Square remedied, there’s deep concern that gentrification pressures will drive poor and middle-class residents out of a once affordable neighborhood.
 
Tim Love is associate professor at Northeastern University’s School of Architecture and a founder of a firm specializing in complex urban projects.  “It’ll be interesting to see how those real estate pressures effect both the mix of people and the kinds of businesses that survive maybe as rents go up," he said. "That’s the big question.”
 
In an area as unique as Central Square, institutional neighbors, he told me, have a particular obligation. Universities have a different kind of responsibility when they’re building on a public street like Mass. Ave. As a positive example, he cited the MIT Broad Center, which has a gallery on the ground floor that mimics the typical Central Square scale.
 
"I think there are ways to mitigate between the needs of life science companies that need big buildings, and the need for those institutions, of companies, to make and contribute to a kind of healthy sidewalk life, which is what Central Square is about," Love said. "It’s one of the most vital, healthy, interesting, active, sidewalk kind of urban environments in the Boston area.”
 
Forces that keep organizations in the square

Beyond institutional goodwill and efforts to hold MIT and big pharma in check, vanBeuzekom believed the organizations that own property in Central Square, like the YMCA and YWCA, will likely moderate the worst of the gentrification pressures.
 
“The YWCA is just embarking on a big expansion project to increase the number of single residency occupant units. And the YMCA is also going to be improving the housing that they have right there," she said.
 
In addition, the Salvation Army has a shelter that provides services to a low-income population, and many social service organizations own their buildings and thus can't be pushed out by rent pressures. "So I think it’s going to be a very interesting juxtaposition of the eastern end of the Avenue that will have the highest high-tech that you can possibly imagine right next to these service industries that are helping the poor and the disenfranchised,” vanBeuzekom said.
 
A tale of two cities ... in harmony
 
Time will tell. But the promise of a uniquely Central Square solution that serves the needs of industry and the people is an enticing aspiration.
 
"We’re going to have the 99-cent McDonald’s and we’ll have the $5.99 carrot-beet juice with boosters from Life Alive. Both of those things will co-exist in Central Square," vanBeuzekom said, laughing.
 

BOSTON -- In a sign of the times, your neighborhood café has become an office space. No longer just serving coffee, tea and pastries, coffee shops are a central community meeting place for business, job hunting and work. But this shift isn't without a new cultural tension.

> > What do you think of "laptop campers"? Do you love them, hate them ... are you one of them? Let us know in the comments, on Facebook or by tweeting @wgbhnews.

I’m at a café and I've just fired up my computer to write this story. I’ve patronized coffeehouses for years. But I noticed that when the economy collapsed and thousands were thrown out of their jobs and work cubicles, it become harder to find an empty table. What traditionally had been a community center or public square of sorts has been replaced by individual spaces. The café has become the office.

What the customer wants

At a Starbucks in Brighton, Brendan Latrell and Stuart Powers are cranking out a project on two computers, side by side, like dueling pianists on keyboards. They have a small company called Moving Metrix that advertises on YouTube, and Starbucks is their office. "Because we’re a start-up company we don’t have an office yet, so we often use coffee shops as a place to meet and get work done together. There’s food, free internet, good atmosphere," Latrell said.

For Patty Jacobs, an independent public relations consultant, working alone can bring on the blues. "I find that by being in the café, I’m around a lot of other people, so I’m not so lonely, and I find having other people around me working helps me focus," she said. "And I like the fact that I can have my coffee whenever I want it and take a break if I want and come back."

Brian Epstein, a Tufts University philosopher who does most of his writing in, you guessed it, a coffee shop, said the office café has blurred the notion of public and private.

"There’s been this erasure of the distinction between work and home but it's penetrating outward also. It’s not just that work is coming home. It’s also that our entire lives are now mixing up the public and the private, so when I’m sitting in a café, am I working or am I at leisure? What’s happening is that there is a breaking down of boundaries."

In many ways. In a city where racial diversity in the workplace is in short supply, in the view of many, Lesley student Rachel Laine, researching at Bourbon Coffee in Cambridge, said this is an ideal setting. "Aesthetically this place is very gorgeous. And even the people here are really diverse and so it mirrors the diversity and the aesthetics," she said.

The downsides of "laptop camping"

Now, the two questions that complicate this story….

How much coffee does Laine purchase at Bourbon?

"I don’t purchase coffee here," she said — adding that she didn't feel guilty because she liked Bourbon's baked goods.

And there's also the issue of the customers who come to a café off the clock.

Mark Newall is a senior vice president at Keystone Associates, a large employment consulting firm in downtown Boston. "Sometimes, to be honest with you, I’m a little annoyed when I go into a cafe and I want to sit and read a book or relax and all of the spots seem to be taken up with folks who have iPads and laptops who are busily working away," he said. However, "I do recognize as a profession that it has become a place for people to congregate, a place for people to connect."

Which is why he advises his clients to find a seat at a café ... even if he can’t find one.

Newall said the café is a near-perfect venue for job networking. It’s a bit of wisdom that comes to him firsthand. 

"One morning I was waiting in line at a Panera Bread — a café, right — and there was a guy in line who looked over at me and he said, ‘Hey Mark, how are you,' and I looked at him and he and I used to play basketball together," Newall said. "One thing led to another and I ended up working here. He made a job for me and it worked out tremendously."

He tells clients the story "because opportunity comes in the most random places and for me it was in a café."

Designing for the new café culture

Israel Fridman is constructing a brand-new café in Cambridge called Dwelltime, set to open in two weeks. The space is designed with individual tables that can be put together, to accommodate both singletons and groups. There will be free wireless internet … but with a design element to keep the office crowd contained.

"We’re going to have a communal table for all the laptop people and that’s the only electric outlet that you’re going to find here," Friedman said.

Friedman said for the most part he has no problem with customers using the café as an office:

"I think it’s fine as long as it’s done with some regard for the storeowner as well," he said. "I think if you come here and you have an office meeting with two or three other mates and you do nothing but conduct business and not consume, well, clearly, if carried to an extreme that will be detrimental to the business."

Dwelltime has enough space to accommodate "people coming here, doing some of their business and spending a number of hours perfectly comfortable," Friedman said. "So I don’t necessarily see the conflict."
 
The old school …

Oscar DeStefano, owner of Harvard Square's legendary Caffe Paradiso, did see a conflict. The Italian native had neither an internet connection nor electrical outlets in his café. He was hell-bent against the very idea of the coffee shop as an office. 

"The coffee shop is an area where you mingle with people. Not just go there, take your computer and stick two things in your ears. If you want peace and quiet, go to the cemetery. But don’t come to the café," he said in an interview recorded in 2007, after the Harvard location closed and shortly before DeStefano's death.

One former customer, Tom Magliozzi of "Car Talk" fame, remembered DeStefano's struggle against the tide of change in café culture.

"The Paradiso, where we used to hang out, he was paying something like 12,000 bucks a month rent. You got to sell a lot of coffee. Now we’ve got no place to sit down anymore. This is the closest we’ve found, but it isn’t home," he said.

… goes new school

Still, Magliozzi, a coffee connoisseur, has found not one but two replacement cafés: the Algiers in Cambridge and the old Caffe Paradiso in Boston’s North End, run by Oscar's sister Adriana DeStefano-Federico.

She acknowledged that the North End’s changing demographics have turned this old-world café into a high-tech workspace: "You have a different crowd that’s coming in and so you have to accommodate, and we have free internet."

The café as DeStefano-Federico once knew it will likely never be the same again — and she can live with that. But, pointing to patrons sipping cappuccinos near the doorway, she said the Paradiso has also held on to some of the old ways that made Oscar proud.

"We have two or three people starting their own business. You know, the shoe business, and it’s a handshake. So the human contact, the human interaction is still there," she said.

Now the sounds of tradition — the grinding of coffee, arguments over politics and soccer, the clanging of cups and saucers — blend with the tapping sound of fingers on computer keyboards and the muted symphony of the iPad.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Fashion isn’t exactly the first word that comes to mind when you hear “Harvard,” but lately its Business School graduates have been stepping out in style. Xconomy has tracked down 19 young, fashion-focused internet companies with founders from the B-school. So what’s in the water? Harvard’s rising female business student population, an increasingly supportive environment for startups, and a retail industry that’s ready for innovation. Add that to the success of early fashion-tech startups like Gilt Groupe, and you have yourself a trend to watch.
 
In other innovation news …
 
MIT president Susan Hockfield is stepping down after seven years on the job. Local business leaders credit Hockfield for supporting entrepreneurs, recruiting pharma and tech companies to Kendall Square and steering MIT through the economic downturn.
 
Our deal of the week comes from the life sciences realm: Biogen Idec is acquiring Cambridge-based drug developer Stromedix in a transaction that could be worth upwards of $500 million.
 
And where will Gov. Deval Patrick be on Feb. 21? Try Ruby Riot, the second annual gathering of about a thousand techies, developers, and startup aficionados in Boston. Partygoers are asked to help at least one other person there, with the eventual goal being to lift the Boston tech scene to new heights.

The weekly roundup of business, technology and life science news from our partners at Xconomy.com airs every Friday on 89.7 Boston Public Radio.

BOSTON — Michael Pollan is an American author, journalist, activist, and professor of journalism at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. Author of the “Omnivore’s Dilemma,” a 2006 New York Times book review describes Pollan as a "liberal foodie intellectual."

Polan will present an illustrated version of his book, "Food Rules," during the Boston Speakers Series this week at Symphony Hall. WGBH News' Bob Seay had a chance to speak with Pollan about his book and his views on food.

The book itself is a "20-minute read," according to Pollan; however, its life changing message is simple: Don't eat what's not good for you.

At the Speakers Series, Pollan will discuss our society's confusion over what's right to eat, as well as what influences our knowledge and informs our choices. He offers up some simple solutions, such as "Don't shop in the center aisles of your grocery store, where the most immortal foods live," explaining that the most processed foods exist there.

Visit Pollan's website for a complete list of his books, articles and a collection of food information resources.

NPR, the Washington Post and the Guardian made an offer: tweet your would-be-Wikipedia'd questions with the hashtag #altwiki and the organizations would try to answer them. NPR reference librarian JoElla Straley was the point person. With help from her colleague Kee Malesky, she managed to answer about 20 questions between her regular tasks. WGBH News spoke to her via email. 
 
Now, to knock down our headline: Straley emphasized, "The point of the project wasn’t to substitute for Wikipedia really in any way."
 
(The idea, NPR online journalist Mark Memmott said in an email, was "to see what a day without Wikipedia is like and what types of questions people ask.")
 
And in fact, a lot of #altwiki users just seemed to be having fun with it, Straley said. Would you ask Wikipedia, as someone did #altwiki, "How many fingers am I holding up?"
 
Beyond that, #altwiki garnered a few "gotcha" questions about highly specialized scientific research as well as short factoid requests, Straley said. Given the format, long answers were out. "One of my favorites today said something like 'I need detailed info about thermodynamics in 140 character bursts.'"
 
Where to find the answer, with no Wikipedia? Straley has access to subscription-only databases but stuck with sources anyone could access. That often meant… you got it… Google. But Google as manipulated by a professional librarian with a master's degree. "I use Google Books a lot for answering questions in the newsroom, and I did that with this project," Straley said. "The important part is picking good stuff out of the results. It’s helpful to have a sense for what types of org[anization]s are going to have the info you need before you start looking, too. Otherwise you can spend a lot of time barking up the wrong tree."
 
So now we're back in the wide-open internet and we can quit bugging Straley and go back to using that information source everyone maligns (but secretly relies on) until it's blacked out.
 
Straley is not among the haters. "Personally I like Wikipedia. I mostly use it as an index to the internet," she said. As with Google, she brings a trained eye to the information — and skips to the bottom of the page: "Searching through the references usually leads to some good stuff."
 
Whether it's Wikipedia or the Encyclopedia Britannica, Straley said, "It's good to have a healthy skepticism for most reference works. If something is in doubt you should really consult a bunch of different sources, and maybe even call some experts!"

Coming to a smartphone near you: 1-800-ALT-WIKI?

Jan. 24, 2011

BOSTON — Bruce Stuart, who spent 10 years living on the streets of Harvard Square, has a home now.

And over the weekend, drawings by this Vietnam veteran, profiled last week in WGBH's series "Recognizing Bruce," were exhibited at an art gallery in Harvard Square. 
 
Etchings by Bruce Stuart now hang on the wall of the Pierre Menard Gallery in an exhibition titled “Bruce Stuart, Oneiric Cartographies,” a phrase pertaining to dreams.  

Over the course of the exhibition's Saturday night opening reception, about fifty people braved the cold to view Stuart’s work.

Dan McLaughlin, a Somerville based artist, was one of them. 

"It was beautiful.  Really generous, really involved. I think that calling it Oneiric Cartographies, it is like a dream. It’s a  a very particular dream. And it was really beautiful to enter into it," McLaughlin said. "And I was really glad for the generosity in him showing it. It’s really something."

The exhibition is open to the public until February 8th at the Pierre Menard Gallery. 

CAMBRIDGE — For the past ten years or so, Bruce Stuart has lived his life traveling between three places, all within a one-mile radius of each other.  His day begins on a wooden bench outside of Darwin’s café on Cambridge Street, where he sleeps, then continues on a busy sidewalk in Harvard Square, where he asks strangers for money. And, finally, at Peet’s Coffee shop in the Square, he draws and etches abstract images, inspired by the people around him and events long ago. 

“Maybe (it’s) the strongest way I have of keeping memory alive,” Bruce said.
 
In an early morning drizzle, memory is indeed alive. Bruce is recalling the high points of his life. Hanging out with his army buddies in Vietnam, washing dishes at the Comedy Connection where he sometimes joined the comedians on stage.
 
“An elevator operator’s job at Steinert Piano Hall in Boston. And I could wait until midnight when everybody left and we could just go to the most seasoned Steinways.   And just go there and boogie on G Major. Just slow blues and boogie-woogie,” Bruce remembered, laughing.

Ink on paper, 8.5 x 11 inches. Courtesy Pierre Menard Gallery.

But what could well be the highlight of Bruce’s 63 years is the news the Pierre Menard Gallery in Harvard Square has offered to exhibit his drawings in a special one-person show.  The owner, John Wronoski, saw Bruce drawing one day at his usual spot at Peet’s Coffee.
 
“This guy is an extremely talented, obviously technically trained artist, and if he’s not, he’s all the more interesting,” Wronoski said.
 
But Bruce was surprised by this invitation and is not sure how to react. “I have never wanted to do that until he came along,” he said. He’s still not sure if he wants to do it.
 
By mid December, at about 7 a.m., the counter at Peets is bathed in a reddish winter glow.   But Bruce – usually here with pencil in hand by this time is nowhere to be seen. 
 
Days go by, and then weeks, and Bruce doesn’t show up at any of his three spots. 
 
One night at Darwin’s, an employee named Kate looks out the window at the empty wooden bench. “I think at first I thought he was kind of crazy—when he first gave us his drawings and limericks—but he’s just really nice and I miss him,” Kate said.
 
Bruce’s friend, Mark Blumberg, misses him too. He usually greets Bruce at the same spot as he passes through Harvard Yard in the early morning on his way to work at the Harvard Business School Library.
 
“The last couple of weeks I haven’t seen him there. I was a little concerned because I haven’t seen him and I hope its all for the best,” Blumberg said.             
 
Each year society loses track of thousands of adults and children, who, because they’re living on the streets, are not always noticed when they go missing. Often when the homeless are noticed, it’s because they stand out -- like Ted Williams, whose now-familiar voice has resonated across the country. 
 
“When you’re listening to nothing but the best of oldies, you’re listening to Magic 98.9.  Thank you so much.  God bless you.”

Ink on paper, 8.5 x 11 inches. Courtesy Pierre Menard Gallery.

 Williams was panhandling on the streets of Columbus, Ohio, until a reporter with a video camera taped this encounter and it became a media phenomenon.
 
Across the country, and across history, there have been various examples of stand out talent among the homeless.  There was Jean-Michel Basquiat — the New York graffiti artist discovered by Andy Warhol.  And more recently, Nathaniel Anthony Ayers, a former classical music prodigy, who was discovered playing his cello on the streets of L.A., and became the subject of the movie, “The Soloist.”  
 
But homeless advocates argue that by paying attention only to the exceptional is to miss the larger picture.
 
“It gets me angry, frankly,” said James Shearer, a formerly homeless man who is the chair of the Homeless Empowerment Project in Cambridge, which publishes the Spare Change newspaper.
 
“We wanted to have our own voices in there, because we wanted to destroy a lot of the myths about homelessness,” Shearer said. “A lot of the things you hear about homelessness ‘oh they’re all crazy. They’re all drunk.  They’re there because they want to be there’ and we wanted to dispel all that.”
 
Shearer says that stories like that of Ted Williams, Nathaniel Anthony Ayers, and Bruce himself can be helpful if they can inspire the nation to look at the homeless in an entirely different way. 
 
And, especially if it can lead to finding homes, for those without them.
 
In mid-January, one month after Bruce Stuart disappeared, I received a call from the Cambridge Housing Authority.  Not only had they found Bruce, they had moved him into his own apartment, thanks to collaboration between the Housing Authority and the US Department of Veterans Affairs. 
 
And last Sunday, Bruce gave me a tour of his one-bedroom home.

Bruce says after a decade of sleeping outdoors, he was ready to come in from the cold. 

Ink on paper, 8.5 x 11 inches. Courtesy Pierre Menard Gallery.

“One winter, without wind chill, it was five degrees. With chill, God knows what it would have been. So I had to just wrap both my two sleeping bags around me at night and  I’d have my thick winter coat and I’d still be shivering.” 
 
Bruce says he never wants to go back to living on park benches again.   Here, at his home, he can draw anytime he wants.  The opening of The Bruce Stuart Exhibition at the Pierre Menard gallery is now just days away. Bruce is ambivalent about the public recognition, but he’s excited.
 
Still, he adds, there is nothing that compares to having a roof over his head;  a place to call home.
 
“I’ve been largely an atheist. But I pray to Jesus, just about every night.  A lot of it has to do with having been homeless. I tell you, I think about it every night.  In fact, the most luxurious feeling I get is having the lights off,  with the TV off, everything off,  and just sitting on the edge of my bed, and ready to go to sleep, with the comfortable warmth in the air.”
 
The Bruce Stuart exhibition opened this week at the Pierre Menard Gallery in Harvard Square. It is open for viewing until February 10th.

An estimated 15,482 homeless people eke out an often-solitary existence on town and city streets across Massachusetts.  About 20 percent of them are veterans. One of them is a former army soldier named Bruce Stuart.

Three years ago,WGBH's Phillip Martin stopped into a cafe in Cambridge and struck up a conversation with a man sitting alone on a bench. It was Bruce, and he was making drawings of the world around him -- or at least the world as he saw it.   That conversation led to more like it, and to the revelation of a complex human story.

 Bruce's story is not only about homelessness.  It is also about a man who has lived a life of both privilege and deprivation.  It is a story about unheralded artistry. And it is about the acknowledgement of individuals who have grown accustomed to being invisible and unknown.   

Part One: A Man Without A Home

We meet Bruce Stuart, a 63-year-old homeless man who lives in and around Harvard Square. Earning $5 by asking for it on the street wasn't always the way Bruce lived, and it's not the way Bruce defines himself. He's an artist, too.
 

Part Two: Enduring Street Life Through Art

Bruce Stuart has survived on the streets of Cambridge for the past ten years. He says he could not have done it without the help of strangers, or without his art, which gets him through the day. He has also found help and friendship in a Harvard librarian who gave Bruce a few dollars whenever he saw him -- and talked with him about music, another one of his passions.
 

Part Three: A Home For Bruce And His Art

After ten years of homelessness, Bruce Stuart has a show in a Cambridge art gallery, but he's not sure he wants to be recognized. His subsequent disappearance worried friends and locals who were used to seeing him around -- until they found him in a home of his own.



Series credits: 

WGBH's Senior Reporter Phillip Martin reported and wrote this series. Jay Allison was the editor. WGBH's Jane Pipik, Alan Mattes and Antonio Oliart were the engineers. WGBH's Jess Bidgood edited and produced the series for the Web.