Centers And Squares
Welcome to Centers and Squares
As a Cambridge real estate agent, the city squares of Cambridge, Somerville and Medford and the town centers of Arlington, Watertown and Belmont, Massachusetts are my home turf. And as a lifelong New Englander who’s lived within twenty miles of Boston most of my life, I can introduce you to other nearby towns as we search for your new home. If you’re planning to sell your home in Cambridge, MA or nearby you’ll find plenty of info about the home selling process here too. Questions? Send me an email or call me at 617-504-1737.
Sustainable Belmont – Green Garden Tour
Green Garden Tour in Belmont
This Sunday, Sustainable Belmont is sponsoring a “Green Garden Tour.” The Belmont Green Garden Tour will showcase organic and sustainable gardens around Belmont. There are eight private gardens and two public gardens on the tour. Gardeners on the tour are growing herbs, fruits, vegetables, flowers and shrubs. Their gardens attract a variety of birds and butterflies. Features of yards on the tour include:
- Rain barrels
- Compost bins
- Solar panels
- Chicken coops
- Beehives
You are encouraged to ask the host gardeners questions while visiting their gardens. You’re bound to pick up some great ideas.
The Sustainable Belmont Green Garden Tour is scheduled for Sunday, September 18, 2011 from 11 am to 3 pm. The tour will be held rain or shine. It is free and open to the public.
Here is a pamphlet to download with addresses, info and a map of the Green Garden Tour in Belmont.
Good Stamps
Good Stamps
Representative Stephen Lynch has proposed a bill to tweak the USPS pension payments in an effort to keep the USPS afloat. Good thing since I’ve got a lot of stamps to use.
I love good stamps. I’m that picky customer in front of you making the postal clerk produce every commemorative stamp he’s got in his drawer. But I buy a *lot* of stamps so I figure I’ve earned those few extra minutes at the post office counter.
My latest haul at the post office filled me with joy. Now these are good stamps!
I had stopped by the post office because of a Cambridge-postal stamp connection. Botanist Asa Gray, whose 1810 Cambridge house at 88 Garden Street sold for $3,400,000 earlier this year, is one of the four scientists featured on the American Scientists stamps from the post office.
While I was picking up the Asa Gray stamps I couldn’t help myself. I also bought:
The new Mark Twain stamps. If you’ve never been to Mark Twain’s house in Hartford CT you are in for a treat. It’s magnificent.
The new Pioneers of American Industrial Design stamps. These stamps are so cool. Designers responsible for such signature pieces as the Selectric typewriter, the Brownie camera and Fiestaware are featured. Designers honored on the stamps include Russel Wright, Norman Bel Geddes and Raymond Loewy.
The new Go Green stamps. I love what these stamps depict – actual environmentally friendly, simple practices as opposed to “green” (as in the color of money) marketing efforts. The stamps promote:
- Composting
- Turning off lights when not in use
- Fixing water leaks
- Buying local produce and reusing bags
- Insulating your house
- Adjusting the thermostat
- Using public transportation
- Sharing rides
- Hanging your clothes out to dry
- Choosing to walk, not drive
- Planting trees
- Maintaining tire pressure on your car
All of these stamps, like all the new USPS regular rate stamps, are “forever” stamps. Let’s hope the USPS is around for years to come – I’ve got a lot of stamps!
Skateboard House
PAS House - Skateboard Dream
PAS House, aka the Skateboard House, is a fantasy made real for any teenage skateboarder or former skateboarder.
But you’ve got to grow up and make a lot of money to make your dreams come true if your dream is to have one of the world’s most unusual houses designed for you.
Pierre-Andre Senizergues, formerly a professional skateboarder and now the owner of Etnies, a sportswear company, commissioned architect Francois Perrin to create a house in which every surface is skateable.
PAS House (the name uses the owner-to-be’s initials) is a skatepark of a house. The walls are curved, the kitchen counters can be skated on, even the furniture is designed to be used by skateboarders.
This summer a full-scale prototype of the inside of the house was on display in Paris. The skateboard house will be built in Malibu, California.
The Etnies website has amazing videos of skateboarders and cyclists in the PAS House prototype. A recent New York Times article includes an article with architect Francois Perrin about the skateboard house.
Senizergues’ current house, filled with skateboard art and artifacts, is pretty fabulous as well. In fact, the LA Times called it the “ultimate skateboarder’s place”. It’s almost as though Senizergues thought “I’ll show you the ultimate skateboarder’s place” – and commissioned Francois Perrin to create it.
Emergency Preparedness for Your Pets and Your Family
Make sure your pets and family are safe in an emergency
I picked up a flyer at the Watertown Mall for a lecture on Emergency Preparedness for Your Pets and Your Family. (Note to self – avoid the Registry of Motor Vehicles anytime around September 1st – the line just to sign in snaked through the mall, filled with students and others who had just moved to town.)
In this season of earthquakes, floods, tropical storms and more this seems like a timely topic.
The lecture will be presented by Watertown Public Health Nurse, Patricia Moran, and Animal Control Officer, Karen O’Reilly.
The lecture, Emergency Preparedness: Your Family and Your Pet, is scheduled for Friday, September 9, 2011 at 10 a.m. at the Old Country Buffet at the Watertown Mall at 550 Arsenal Street, Watertown. It’s an-all ages event – kids are invited to bring their teddy bear for a Teddy Bear Clinic and free blood pressure screenings will be available from 11 to noon.
Move Gone Wrong – Sprinklers Flood Condo Building
Broken sprinkler floods condo building in Boston
Moving is never easy. If you were joining the masses moving into Cambridge and Boston this weekend I hope your move went smoothly.
One move went terribly wrong this week.
The Boston Globe reported that it was a mattress strapped atop a car that broke off a sprinkler head in the garage of the Metropolitan condo building at 1 Nassau Street in Boston. The fire protection system then pushed additional water through the system, eventually causing a sprinkler to burst on the 23rd floor of the high rise. Water flowed through a number of floors, damaging multiple condos. Ouch!
The Metropolitan was built in 2004. Penthouse condos in the building sold for $1M+.
Local Post Offices Threatened With Closure
Massachusetts Post Offices May Be Closed
As a Cambridge real estate agent I tend to do more mailings than most people – doing my part to keep the post office running. I have my favorite post office branches and was dismayed to learn that several of my favorite local post offices are threatened with closure.
The USPS is deciding whether or not to close some 3,700 post office branches that don’t do enough business by their estimation. Forty-three Massachusetts post offices are on the list of post offices that may be closed. Half a dozen branches in Centers and Squares territory are threatened with closure. If you do any mailing, believe me, these are the branches you don’t want to see closed – you can usually get in and out in less than 20 minutes – not the case in other post offices.
You can help by patronizing these post offices before it’s too late – post office traffic will be studied through the end of the year. So head on out – buy some stamps, send some letters, mail some packages – or the next time you do it’s likely to be a long wait. Here are the nearby post offices that may be closed:
- Arlington Heights at 1347 Mass Ave Arlington 02476
- East Arlington at 240 Mass Ave Arlington 02474
- Inman Square at 1311 Cambridge St Cambridge 02139
- West Medford 485 High Street Medford MA 02155
- East Watertown Watertown MA 02472
- New Town 123 Galen St Watertown 02472
Additionally, the post office branches at MIT and at Tufts may be closed.
The lines at the main post offices are unconscionably long. I can’t bear the thought of having to devote a morning to mail a package. I’ll be making my rounds, doing my part at my favorite local post offices. See you in the short line!
Medford Trees Succumb to Hurricane Irene
Maple Tree Takes Out an SUV as Its Last Act - Hurricane Irene, Medford MA
Medford Trees Take A Hit from Hurricane Irene. My dad and I were checking out this downed tree on West Street in Medford when the policeman told us that “you can’t count the number of trees down in Medford”. We decided to go for a drive around West Medford to see the damage. Check out the Hurricane Irene in Medford slide show below.
The damage caused by Hurricane Irene in Medford certainly could have been much worse. But it was terrible to see so many trees and large branches come down. The winds weren’t as bad as anticipated and from what we observed, in almost every case, the trees that came down were compromised in some way – most with root systems that had been cut for sidewalks, landscaping, or who knows what.
One sad exception was the largest tree we saw – a beautiful tree on Laurel Street that fell across the street towards Hasting Park in West Medford. It had a huge root system that had ripped from the ground. My father guessed that the slightly higher elevation here meant that the wind gusts were just that much stronger.
We were lucky I guess. A more powerful storm than Hurricane Irene would have wreaked havoc in Medford. My dad remembers the trees coming down in the Hurricane of ’38 in Cambridge. Just minutes after he and his friends went inside, the supermarket sign nearby came flying off, nearly hitting a policeman standing on the corner. Trees went down all over his Cambridgeport neighborhood.
The first house I ever owned had a Hurricane of ’38 story too. I bought a small book in an antique store called “It Happened Here” about the hurricane in Keene, NH. I was flipping through the pages and there was my house. A tree had crushed the second floor taking out the chimney. The house across the street was pictured too – it had been split in half. Huge numbers of enormous trees came down all over Keene and New England. The lady I bought my house from, Kay Adams, recalled huddling in the pantry with her parents as the hurricane roared. I thought of her more than once today as Irene’s winds whistled for hours.
It pains me to think that an unusual event like today’s storm gives fodder to the tree-haters among us. Many seem to see a damaged vehicle as a bigger deal than the loss of a tree. I’m not suggesting, of course, that unhealthy trees shouldn’t be addressed. But it strikes me that a car or SUV is inherently a lot more dangerous than any tree. We all need to do everything we can to preserve the trees we have and to replenish our all too spotty city tree canopy – if not for us to enjoy – for our neighbors years from now.
Here are more photos of the hurricane damage in Medford MA:
Houses by Julia Baum Photography – Website Wednesday
In Cambridge, our matching houses are often triple deckers
This portfolio, Houses, by photographer Julia Baum documents the wonderfully varied appearances of tract houses in a Santa Clara California development. The houses were initially quite similar when built in the 1950s but now are showcases for their owners’ personal, sometimes quirky, choices. It’s great fun to scroll through Baum’s 13 images.
Copyright © 2008 - 2011 Centers And Squares Agent Login Design by Real Estate Tomato Powered by Tomato Real Estate Blogs
