A "Greater Boston" web exclusive.

WESTPORT, Mass. — There’s not much that can ruffle the feathers of 79-year-old Norma Judson. But when the Westport, Mass., grandmother heard that the town center’s last standing linden tree was scheduled to get the axe, she got downright feisty.
 
“You just don’t go around killing things like that,” said Judson. “There’s no reason to lose such a specimen.”
 
That “specimen” is a 100-foot-tall linden tree that majestically drapes over Westport’s Main Road. It’s the last of six original lindens planted by town forefather John Macomber over 200 years ago.
 
It may be beautiful, but… its expansive roots make it tough to lay down a sidewalk, something the town wants to do. And the state, which will be overseeing the project, said that any concrete used would compromise the tree’s roots.
 
Elaine Ostroff, a member of the town’s improvements committee, described the response.
 
“Mass DOT said, ‘Cut down the tree.’ And we said, “No thank you! We’re going to find an alternative to cutting down the tree.’”

Elaine Ostroff, a member of the town improvements committee, described the steps taken to try to save the tree.

That search for an alternative turned out to be a challenge, though.
 
Ostroff said a lot of ideas have been tossed around, such as building a boardwalk over the roots of the tree. That plan was scrapped because it cost too much.
 
“The other idea was an even longer shot, which was to use some gentle, some soft material that would be easy to replace in segments if some of the tree roots were coming up and it would not be as dangerous to the roots,” she said. But that option proved unfeasible, too.
 
The last option was to put the sidewalk behind the tree. That didn’t work either, because the grassy knoll the sidewalk would sit on is private property and the owners were afraid of liability.
 
So with a very heavy heart, Ostroff said the committee voted to cut down the tree — something she felt “terrible” about.
 
“I love this tree,” she said. “It really represents all that’s good and old about Westport.”
 
Word about the tree cutting spread like a forest fire through town, with most questioning why the tree had to go if it was still healthy.
 
“If there was a real purpose and it was sick, that that’s a whole different story,” said Frankie Whelan. “The fact that it may be taken down so somebody could walk there on an old sidewalk that no one walks on is a problem for me.”
 
Others questioned why a better solution couldn’t be found.
 
“I think they could just go around the tree temporarily until the tree is really no longer alive,” said Jim Clemmey. “Then the tree could be removed and they could just replace that little spot with sidewalk.”
 
Meanwhile, Norma Judson said her phone’s been ringing off the hook, with friends and strangers asking what they could do to help.
 
“I’m telling all of them, ‘Send a letter to the selectmen. Let people know how you feel.’ And if our selectmen say ‘we’ve changed our mind’ and the committee says ‘we have too,’ no transportation commission is going to tell us what to do, I’m sure,” said Judson.
 
And tree-cutting opponents have already made some progress. In early December, the improvements committee rescinded its recommendation to have the tree cut down. With all the uproar, it seems the historic linden could be spared the axe after all.

WOODS HOLE, Mass. — When the negotiations were complete, when the concerns of businesses, residents and politicians were settled and President John Kennedy signed the legislation to establish the Cape Cod National Seashore on August 7, 1961, the hard work of creating the Seashore park and protecting its ecosystem began in earnest.

Roger Higgin was a 19-year-old Park Service intern in the Seashore's maintenance department in 1968, before eventually becoming a full-fledged park ranger.

"When I first started, I thought the whole job was planting beach grass. The first spring, all we did was dig beach grass, and we would haul it down to Wellfleet, and they were planting around the headquarters at that time," Higgin said. "We spent months, right up until the beginning of summer, planting beach grass."

But beach-grass planting wasn't the only activity ongoing in the early years of the park. Higgin, who is now the park manager of the Cape Cod Canal, said trails were under construction for bicycles, horses and off-road vehicles. Efforts also were underway to protect certain animal life whose dwindling numbers threatened extinction. That work continues today, as each summer trails and beach lands are closed to protect a small, orange-legged bird called the piping plover.

In 1968, it was terns the rangers had to watch out for.

"We had a tern warden, and they would go out and do the same thing you do now for a piping plover, they would get the nest, and they would monitor the tern, and keep vehicles out, like you do now with the piping plover," Higgin said.

Throughout the Seashore's history, conflicts between people and nature, as well as between government, visitors and residents, have cropped up from time to time. And a look back at the park's history indicates that it's hard to predict just what those conflicts will be.

In the mid-1970s, for example, the Seashore experienced something of a crisis, Higgin said, when nude sun-bathing was the rage.

"I remember a nude-in at the Herring Cove Beach, and you could fill the parking lot," Higgin said. "It was a national scene. We're talking big-time trouble."

It wasn't the nudity that was the real concern, Higgin said, but the impact of having thousands of spectators trampling over fragile dune areas. In the end, the Park Service curved the practice with vigilant law enforcement and lots of citations.

But other issues emerged, including troubles with zoning rules. The original deal between the federal government and the six local towns called for the towns to enact strict zoning legislation to govern the 600 homes within the park boundaries and to limit their expansion. But Cape Cod National Seashore Superintendent George Price said it's now apparent that not every community made the zoning changes.

"We have been around for all these years trying to maintain the Cape Cod character, as it is described, and yet there are others who are new to the Cape who come in and would like to see how a large mansion -- that is their definition of a dream house on the beach. So it will be interesting to see how this plays over the next 50 years," Price said.

The very fact that communities involved in the Seashore did not make the zoning changes came as something of a surprise, Price said.

"I think people thought the legislation was pretty self evident, and I thought there was a common understanding of what should be in place, and that obviously is not the case," Price said.

Orleans resident Jonathan Moore was a Congressional aide to Sen. Leverett Saltonstall, who helped negotiate the park agreement with local select boards in the late 1950s and early 1960s. That deal included the creation of a community advisory board to work with the Park Service on local issues. Moore said that going forward, there will be more conflicts, but a system is in place to deal with them.

"My basic answer is: hold on for dear life," Moore said said. "There will be more challenges and more conflict. But the base is so strongly structured.

After all, Moore said, it's lasted 50 years. "It's held on and its succeeded so well, that infrastructure, both political and legal and social, is a lot of tenacity, a lot of endurance. I can't predict what the challenges will be, but saidI hope not expediently, but nearly expediently, the efforts to protect this peninsula are going to get tougher, not weaker," Moore said.

The creation of the Cape Cod National Seashore was something of a grand experiment in federal land preservation. The Park Service had never taken over a populated area like Cape Cod, and the effort took compromise and determination on all sides.

Today, there's general agreement that the experiment was a success. And its the very recognition of the park's value to Cape Cod's character and its economy that supporters say will see it through the next 50 years.

WOODS HOLE, Mass. — This week marks the 50th anniversary of the Cape Cod National Seashore, which, after five decades, has proven itself a success, balancing the need for environmental protection with the desire for active recreation on the beaches of the Outer Cape.

By the 1950s, Cape Cod was already a tourist destination, and there were concerns about the region's future, particularly the fragile outer-Cape beaches, salt marshes and sand dunes. National Seashore Superintendent George Price says the worry was that without protection, Cape Cod and other Atlantic seacoast destinations could go the way of Miami Beach and the Jersey Shore.

"Here in Massachusetts, at Revere Beach and Nantasket Beach and other places, they were already commercialized through the 19th century. And it's not necessarily that that's bad and this is good. It's just when you develop it you've defined now what that area is into perpetuity, you don't have the opportunity to have the exploration of natural processes," Price said.

By the mid 20th century, it was estimated that one-third of the United States population could reach the Outer Cape in a day's drive. The Cape economy needed the tourism, but it also needed to preserve what people were coming to see. Discussions about federally protecting the outer seashore had been off and on for decades. By the time John Kennedy was running for president and finishing his time in the U.S. Senate in 1959, the park service had a plan.

President John Kenedy signing the legislation that created the Cape Cod National Seashore (Photo: NPS, CC Nat'l

"And basically we came up with the 44,000 acres we see today," Price said. "However, this was different than other national parks because there were already towns here. Yellowstone in 1872 when they did it there were only territories, so all they had to do was draw a line on a map and it was easy to set aside. Here we had the towns."

Six Cape Cod towns were part of the National Park plan, and there was uncertainty about how the Seashore boundaries could include the nearly 600 existing private homes.

Jonathan Moore, who now lives in Orleans, was a Congressional aide to Senator Leverett Saltonstall and one of a handful of aides sent from Washington to negotiate the park with local select boards.

"The principle challenge, was what happens to the local towns and the individual citizen who were living down here?" Moore said. "What do they get out of it to be enough to allow the federal government such extraordinary authority within their home territories?"

Negotiators decided that people already owning homes could keep them, and even sell them, though zoning limits were placed on home expansions and lot sizes. Commercial businesses already in the park could stay. But there'd be no more.

Wendy Northcross, the executive director of the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce, says that wasn't what the Chamber wanted to hear.

"In the archives of the Cape Cod Chamber board minutes I came across some pretty heated debates at the board level about the development of the Cape Cod National Seashore," Northcross said. "The Cape Cod Chamber came down in opposition to the concept, which sort of surprised me because it's been such a gem, but I think the crux of the matter was the issue of private property rights."

From Chatham and Eastham at the lower elbow of the Cape Cod peninsula, to Wellfleet and Provincetown at the upper fist, debates raged over what land should be turned over to the federal government for protection. In Provincetown the fight to support the Park Service over land developers was taken up by the artists.

"We led the way," said Provincetown author Josephine Del Deo. "But we had to be joined by other people, and we were."

Del Deo worked with the impressionist artist Ross Moffett to convince Provincetown residents to go against their selectmen, who wanted to retain some of the Province Lands for future growth.

"There was a famous developer from Boston named Van Ness Bates," Del Deo said. "And he had such glorious plans for Provincetown. He wanted motels, of course, on the outer beach. He wanted a new sewer system that would replace half of the historic buildings along the waterfront. He wanted a helicopter pad at Long Point. He wanted a bridge from Plymouth to Provincetown — this wasn't fun and games. This was real. This was a real threat!"

Political and environmental threats continued against the seashore plan, but the effort had momentum — local and presidential. President John Kennedy signed the Cape Cod National Seashore Act on Aug. 7, 1961.

Today, the Seashore stands among the top 10 most-visited national park sites annually. The more than 4 million people coming to the Seashore each year are thought to be a sizable portion of the estimated one billion dollars in direct tourist spending on Cape Cod. The federal government and locals on Cape Cod have had their share of clashes on issues such as access and property rights. But overwhelmingly, at its 50th anniversary, the park is recognized as an environmental — and most likely an economic — savior of Cape Cod and its seashores. ]]> Mon, 25 Jul 2011 16:25 PM +0000 http://www.wgbh.org//articles/Industrial-Design-in-Waltham-3777 http://www.wgbh.org//articles/Industrial-Design-in-Waltham-3777
Everybody knows about the Lowell Mills, but how many recall that Waltham was once "Watch City," the U.S. center of the trade, and so efficient in fact that it awed Henry Ford. The Charles River Museum of Industry & Innovation celebrates this past with exhibits on watches and clocks, textiles, a temporary exhibit entited "Virtual Kinetics, and the Art of the Image" focusing on the work of Dave Gordon, an artist who draws inspiration from Eadweard Mybridge's pioneering photos of motion.

If you go: The museum is on Moody Street in Waltham, open Thursday-Sunday, 10-5, and is $7 for adults, $5 for seniors or students. More info at www.crmi.org or by calling 781-893-5410.
]]> Mon, 11 Jul 2011 14:39 PM +0000 http://www.wgbh.org//articles/Bill-Russell-Statue-Planned-At-City-Hall-3629 http://www.wgbh.org//articles/Bill-Russell-Statue-Planned-At-City-Hall-3629 Jul. 11, 2011

BOSTON — A statue honoring Celtics great Bill Russell will be installed in Boston's City Hall Plaza, said Mayor Thomas M. Menino on Monday

During the 1950s and 1960s, Russell led the Celtics to 11 championships in 13 years and was named the team's Most Valuable Player five different times.

President Obama presented Basketball Hall of Fame member Bill Russell with a Presidential Medal of Freedom on Feb. 15. (AP)

But unlike other Boston all-stars like Bobby Orr and Ted Williams, there's not yet a statue for him in the city. President Barack Obama helped build momentum for a Russell statue when he presented the former Celtic with a Presidential Medal of Freedom earlier this year and suggested Boston give Russell the honor of a statue.

During a formal announcement on Monday, Menino said the statue will be unveilied next spring.

"Today we mark another critical milestone in Boston’s tribute to Bill Russell, the greatest sports champion of our time and a tremendous advocate for human rights and education," Menino said.

Three artists — Fern Cunningham, Ann Hirsch, and Antonio Tobias Mendez — will submit competing designs for the sculpture. One will be selected in the fall.

Despite his prowess on the court, Russell did not always feel respected by city of Boston, which he once called "a flea market of racism."

But he has reconnected with the city in recent years, working here on behalf of the National Mentoring Program.

1956: Whitey Bulger is sentenced to federal prison for bank robbery. Suspected of plotting an escape from prison in Atlanta, he's transferred to Alcatraz.

1960: Bulger's younger brother, William, is elected to the state House of Representatives. John Connolly, a childhood friend from South Boston who would become an FBI agent in the 1970s, works on the campaign.

The Mary Ellen McCormack housing development in South Boston, formerly the Old Harbor Housing project, where Bulger grew up. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

1965: Whitey Bulger is released from prison and comes home to live with his mother at the Old Harbor housing project in Southie. He works as a custodian at Suffolk County Courthouse. But within a year he is hanging around Marshall Motors in Somerville, a sort of headquarters for the Winter Hill Gang, and soon becomes a top lieutenant to its boss, Howie Winter.

As a result of his imprisonment for half of the decade, Whitey missed some of the worst violence of the Irish gang wars going on around Boston. But he soon became a much-feared member of the Killeen gang, and was  likely involved in a number of South Boston murders in the late 1960s and early 70s.

“From gangsters to God”: story from the Somerville News about the run-down Marshall Street garage being turned into a Pentecostal church.

From WGBH's "Greater Boston": A story about Lindsey Cyr of Weymouth, who says she and Bulger had a child together in 1967. Cyr says she gave birth to Bulger’s only known child, Douglas Glenn Cyr, in, 1967. Douglas died of Reye’s Syndrome, a severe reaction to aspirin, in 1973.

Mid-1960s: Gangster Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi, an Italian from Roxbury, develops a relationship with FBI agent H. Paul Rico. Flemmi, using the code name "Jack from South Boston" informs on members of the Providence-based New England Mafia. One of Flemmi’s brothers is a Boston police officer.

1970: William Bulger is elected to the state Senate.

FBI Agent John Connolly, entering Federal court in Boston for his trial in 2002. (AP Photo/Olivia Gatti)

1970s: The highly contentious desgregation busing plans in South Boston help Bulger consolidate his influence there. He prevents his gang from getting involved in the protests, which he expects would attract more police and federal attention, and tries to tone down the outrage in the neighborhood.

The same is true for William Bulger: although not wanting to appear racist to statewide voters, he stands up for his constituents and forcefully opposes busing plans. In doing so, he cements his position in Dorchester and South Boston politics, while trying to stop the unrest from escalating.

September 1975: Acting partly on Flemmi's recommendation, Bulger cuts a deal with Connolly to provide information on the Italian Mafia in exchange for protection from the FBI.

1978: William Bulger becomes president of the state Senate and goes on to serve in the post longer than anyone in its history.

The John Adams Courthouse, Suffolk County & Supreme Judicial Court. (hyperion327/Flickr)

At this time, John E. Powers, himself a former Senate president, is clerk of the Supreme Judicial Court at Suffolk County Courthouse. He finds that Whitey Bulger is still on the Courthouse payroll, though he had left his job there in 1971.

Powers, apparently resentful of the younger Bulger's fast rise to the presidency, cuts Whitey's salary. William Bulger retaliates four years later by having any increase in pay for Powers’ job frozen.

June 1978: Four known gangsters and a former Boston Channel 7 investigative reporter and anchorman, John A. Kelly, are killed by unknown shooters at the Blackfriars Pub in downtown Boston. Kelly had for some time been building relationships in the local underworld — probably initially to pursue a story, but he soon got in over his head.

By this time, Kelly had been fired from his job for other reasons and was managing Blackfriars, where he had hired Flemmi’s mistress, Marilyn DiSilva, as a waitress. Drugs and guns found at the bar, combined with the known victims who had associations with the Winter Hill Gang, have suggested that Bulger and Flemmi were involved.

“Dangerous liaison”: In the Boston Globe Magazine, DiSilva talks about hanging around the Marshall Street garage in those days, and all the violence from which she was just a step or two removed. She says Flemmi told her not to go in to work the night of the massacre.

1979: After a former business associate implicates Bulger and Flemmi in a horse race-fixing scheme, FBI agents Connolly and his supervisor, John Morris, persuade federal prosecutors to leave the two out of the indictment. Twenty-one people are charged, including Howie Winter, whose conviction paves the way for Bulger and Flemmi to assume control of the Winter Hill Gang.

Late 1970s, Early 1980s: Cocaine and crack cocaine hit American streets and Bulger gets involved. Southie folklore has long held that Bulger kept drugs out of the neighborhood. But as this story from the Globe shows, quite the opposite was true: Bulger charged massive amounts of money from drug dealers in exchange for operation in the areas he controlled.

1981: Flemmi allegedly strangles Bulger's girlfriend, Debra Davis, because she is seen as a threat to reveal what she knows to law enforcement. Her family later files suit against the federal government for protecting Bulger as an FBI informant.

January 1995: Bulger disappears on the eve of his indictment on racketeering charges.

1997: The FBI, under court order, acknowledges that Bulger and Flemmi were "top echelon" informants, as a federal probe into the agency's corrupt ties to its mob informants begins.

A site in Quincy where an unidentified body, thought to be a Bulger victim, was found in 2000. (AP Photo/Angela Rowlings)

2000: Testimony by Bulger’s friend and associate Kevin Weeks leads to the discovery of five bodies, spread around Dorchester and Quincy. Some were rivals of Bulger, some were personal acquaintances or girlfriends, not involved in criminal activities. Debra Davis was among those found.

May 2002: Connolly is convicted of racketeering for warning Bulger, Salemme and Flemmi that they were about to be indicted in January 1995.

From WGBH's “Greater Boston”: This 2001 episode tells the story of Bulger and Agent Connolly, recorded before his trial.

June 2003: William Bulger testifies before a congressional committee investigating the FBI's ties to mobster informants such as his brother. After receiving immunity, he acknowledges receiving a call from Whitey shortly after he fled, but says he has not heard from him since and has no idea where he is. Amid growing pressure, he resigns as president of the University of Massachusetts system shortly thereafter.

2005-2010: During this time, Bulger and his girlfriend, Catherine Greig, are spotted in London. Then they are thought to have been caught on tape in a small Italian town, but those people are later identified as a tourist couple from Germany.

2008: Connolly is convicted of second-degree murder in relation to the 1982 killing of a former henchman by Bulger and Flemmi, as prosecutors argue he provided critical information to the mobsters. He also produced an FBI report on the murder at the time that implicated rival gangsters in place of Bulger and Flemmi.