CREDIT: Cecile Gilchrest

CAPTION: Cecilia Viveiros and Maranda Allen are seen in Guest Perry’s garden holding a sign that local resident Annette Tecce designed for the site.

Kristin Johnson admired Guest Perry’s Monument Avenue garden so much that she would clip the occasional flower to take home with her.
In the late, ‘80s, Johnson, a lifelong Charlestown resident, would walk by the pocket garden located behind the current sire of the Battle of Bunker Hill Museum on her way home from work each night. She thought no one would notice if she picked a hydrangea from time to time. One day, however, Perry, a longtime resident of the neighborhood whom Johnson barely knew, had some unexpected words for her. “If you’re going to take my flowers, the least you could do is help in the garden,” Perry replied when Johnson greeted her on the street.
Johnson sheepishly agreed and soon recruited her husband, comedian Tony” Tony V” Viveiros, to help tend to the garden that Perry had planted on National Park Service property. “Guest took the space on her own and made it this beautiful, hidden treasure,” Kristin recalled.
In 2000, Johnson and Viveiros had their second child, Cecilia Viveiros. From nearly the time of the child’s birth, Cecilia was inseparable from Maranda Allen, the granddaughter of Kristin and Viveiros’ Monument Avenue neighbors, Byron and Cecile Gilchrest. Kristin and Cecile soon learned they had something in common besides Cecile and Maranda’s friendship, a shared love of gardening. Soon afterwards, the Gilchrests were working alongside Johnson and Viveiros in Perry’s garden.
When Guest died in January of 2003, Johnson, Viveiros and the Gilchrests were determined to continue the garden in her memory. But they soon learned that the Park Service had plans to convert the adjacent building into a museum, leaving the garden’s future uncertain. Kristin and Cecile subsequently moved many of the flowers from Guest’s garden to their own backyards. Meanwhile, the gardeners found a friend in Ruth Raphael of the National Park Service, who allowed them to continue looking after the garden when the museum opened in June of 2007.
On May 17 of this year, Raphael joined Johnson, Viveiros, the Gilchrests, local designer Annette Tecce, Tecce’s business partner Dan Kovacevic and a few other neighborhood residents for what Cecile called “planting day.” (Tecce also designed a sign for the garden in Guest’s honor at no cost).
Cecile pointed out that much of the credit for this day and the garden belongs to her daughter and son-in-law, Monique and Chris Allen, the owners of Milton-based The Garden Continuum who designed the garden and provided plantings pro bono. Besides “amending the soil” to improve the growing conditions, Monique also “studied the microclimate” to determine which varieties of plants would prosper in the garden, Cecile said. Among the plants that the Allens selected were Boston Ivy, pulmonaria, honeysuckle, peony and morning glory.
Next May, Kristin and Cecile are planning another planting day ceremony and intend to invite Perry’s children as the guests of honor. They hope to add window boxes and a historic marker in Perry’s name to the garden.
“The plaque would remind people of Guest Perry and the wonderful thing she did for the town for which she received no accolades,” Kristin said.
Still, Kristin is reluctant to look too far into the garden’s future.
“You can’t make too many plans because you have to see where the garden goes,” Kristin said.
Cecile, meanwhile, is confident that the garden will continue to be a bright spot in the neighborhood that attracts neighbors and tourists alike.
“With care, this garden is only going to get more beautiful over time,” Cecile said.

CAPTION: Joe Mulligan, director of operations for the capital construction division of the city’s Public Facilities Department, adjust one of the vintage police lamps in the station. The lamps, previously used in the long-defunct City Square police station, were given to the new station by Charlestown residents Rosemary Kverek and Carol Bratley and former resident Fran Fleck.

Last Thursday, I accompanied Joe Mulligan, deputy director for the capital construction division of the city’s Public Facilities Department; his assistant director of operations, Pat Brophy; Jack Kelly, Mayor Thomas M. Menino’s Charlestown liaison; and Menino spokesman Nick Martin, on a tour of the new police station in Hayes Square.
The two-story, 19,000 square-foot station is set to open in late September or early October and expected to come in on time and within its $9.8 million budget, Mulligan said. The building, which was designed by Somerville-based HKT Architects Inc. and is located adjacent to the newly completed Charlestown Recovery House, is built largely of red brick, cast stone and glass in an effort to maintain the architectural flavor of the neighborhood while offering state-of-the-art features.
“The building design incorporates traditional materials and detailing to reflect the historical context of Charlestown, yet integrates some contemporary and progressive features,” Mulligan said.
Besides a service area where all cars from Area A-1 will refuel and two detainment cells, the facility offers what Mulligan said is one of the biggest community rooms of any station in the city. The second-story room will be available for residents’ use by arrangement with the Boston Police Area A-1 community service office, he said.
Two yet-to-be-determined Boston Police units will also be housed in the building. “The facility accommodates flexibility for the user agency to put in whatever units they deem appropriate,” Mulligan said.
The building design also incorporates several innovations in “green” technology that will help cut down on the cost of its day-to-day operations, including a solar panel on the southwest side of the building to help mitigate fuel and heating expenses.
Another eco-friendly feature is an underground “rain harvesting system” located towards the rear of the facility, which Mulligan said will draw rainwater from the roof for use in the building’s toilets.
An underground “rain garden” is located in front of the building that will both reduce rain runoff to the city’s storm drains and water plantings on the premises.
“It’s an enhanced landscaping system that serves not only to beautify the streetscape but also to enhance on-site water retention that mitigates water runoff to the storm drains,” Mulligan said.
Besides providing a more visible police presence in Charlestown, Mulligan points to the new station as yet another example of Menino using the city’s capital program to enhance neighborhoods throughout Boston.
“It’s happening in just about every neighborhood in the city,” Mulligan said. “There are so many projects that it will leave quite a legacy for this administration.”

CAPTION: The Soldiers and Sailors Monument in the Training Field.

The newly cleaned and repaired Soldiers and Sailors Monument in the Training Field will be rededicated in a colorful ceremony that will include Mayor Thomas M. Menino at on Saturday, Sept. 20, at 11 a.m. Refreshments will be served following the ceremony at the American Legion Hall, 23 Adams St.
The Bunker Hill Pipe Band, Charlestown Militia Company 1775, Colonel Thomas Gardner Regiment, Chelsea Soldiers’ Home, Korean War Veterans of Massachusetts and Sons of Union Veterans will all participate in a review and presentation of colors, followed by a brief address by the statue’s conservator, Ivan Myjer of Building and Monument Conservation.
The eight-week conservation effort, completed just last month, was begun by the Charlestown Preservation Society, with contributions from the George B. Henderson Foundation, the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority Community Partnership Fund, the City of Boston Small Changes Program, the Charlestown Preservation Society and more than 70 generous Charlestown residents and businesses.
The funds will be used for the restoration as well as the long-term care of the historic statue. In addition to the actual conservation work, the grants also covered the hiring of an arborist to clear obstructive branches and increase sunlight to the sculpture to minimize future biological growth. Sufficient funds remained at completion of the project to endow an Adopt-a-Statue fund for future maintenance.
The conservation treatment plan for the granite Monument followed a professional assessment done in June 2007. This treatment plan conformed to the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Preservation (National Park Service Technical Preservation Service Standards). The result was a clean sculpture readied for another 100 years and more.
“Thanks to the work of the Charlestown Preservation Society, an endowment has now been established ensuring that this important memorial to those who have served our country will be here for future generations to view and contemplate,” noted Boston Parks Commissioner Antonia M. Pollak.

The statue was constructed by Martin Milmore, a leading Victorian sculptor who established the prototype of countless commemorative statues erected just after the Civil War. Milmore’s work can be seen at Boston Common and in the Forest Hills and Mt. Auburn Cemeteries
In case of rain, the rededication ceremony will take place at the Battle of Bunker Hill Museum on Monument Square.
More information about CPS programs, including the Training Field statue conservation, is available at www.charlestownpreservation.org.

PHOTO 1 CAPTION: Jeanne Finnerty.

No project is too big or too small for interior designer Jeanne Finnerty as she has proven by tackling projects ranging from plans for a multi-million dollar English manor-style home in the Chicago area to the rehabilitation of the 50 square-foot bathroom in her Chestnut Street home.
“Every project is really different, and I’ve worked on all sizes of project,” Finnerty said. “Spaces can always be improved, and it doesn’t have to cost that much money.”
A Milton native, Finnerty studied graphic design at Massachusetts College of Art and later attended New England School of Design. Before earning a certificate of interior design from New England School of Design in 1990, she then took her first design job with Albert Columbro Interiors, a Boston interior design firm founded by an instructor at the school.
Finnerty acknowledges that her graphics background, which includes drawing, gave her an edge in the interior design field.
“Drawing gives an idea of scale and helps sell ideas,” said Finnerty, who taught evening courses at New England School of Design in residential design, furniture design, color and hand-drafting in the mid ’90s. “It’s all about getting your ideas across.”
Between 1990 and 1994, Finnerty worked at the renowned Boston-based residential design firm, William Hodgins Inc. “This is where I learned the basics of proportion, scale and furnishings,” she said. Finnerty, meanwhile, was working towards a bachelor’s degree in fine art at Suffolk University, which she earned in 1995.
Following a stint as a design consultant at Judith Ross and Co. of Boston from 1994 to 1996, Finnerty started her own firm that counted Heather Wells, Ltd. among its more than 15 residential design-firm clients.
Finnerty took a part-time position as a senior interior designer and project manager with Heather Wells in 2002, designing architectural interiors for large residential projects in Boston and Chicago.
In 2003, Finnerty and her husband, architect William Finnerty, moved to their Chestnut Street home, and she soon launched Jeanne Finnerty Interior Design from a small home office.
Finnerty completed a major project under her own name in 2005 — the bedroom of a Canton, Mass., designer show house for the Junior League of Boston, which promotes volunteerism and opportunities for women throughout the city.
In late 2006, Finnerty and her husband combined their interior design and architectural expertise and opened Finnerty Design at the StoveFactory building on Medford Street. The couple went on to renovate the space at their own expense and eventually unveiled it to the public at a launch party in February of 2007.
Finnerty and her husband recently completed work on their biggest collaborative project to date: a 20,000 square-foot office renovation for the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine in Wakefield, Mass.
“The benefit is we can offer full services,” William said. “I didn’t have interior-design experience. Our business is expanding, and we’re getting more jobs because of our combined design skills.”
Besides continuing work on a “green house” in Marblehead, which is expected to be the first home certified by the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design on the North Shore, Finnerty also recently joined the Artists Group of Charlestown and the Map Team of the Charlestown Business Climate Improvement Committee. She also hopes to find more projects, big and small, in her own neighborhood.
“I just try to be open to all types of interiors and people,” Finnerty said.
For more information about Finnerty Design, visit http://www.finnertydesign.com.