CAPTION: 49 Pleasant St.

A small number of abutters raised their concerns regarding the proposed remodeling of the three-story, one-family home at 49 Pleasant St. during a meeting mediated by Charlestown Neighborhood Council Precinct 3 representative Bill Galvin last week.
Homeowner Jason Costello and Steve Robinson of Dedham-based All American Building and Design outlined plans to raise the roof by 4½ feet and to install two decks at the rear of the house – one built into the roof, the other at the second story. The second-story deck would be accessible via French doors and would be connected to the roof deck by a spiral staircase.
Costello said that the family had renovated the first two floors, since moving into the home five years ago. This last stage of the rehabilitation would allow for the installation of a new heating system and serve to make the house, especially its roof, more structurally sound, Costello said.
Costello said that the original remodeling plans were modified twice following two meeting with abutters and Bill Lamb, a Pleasant Street Court resident and chair of the Charlestown Preservation Committee Design Review Committee. Among the revisions made were lowering the roofline from its original height of 7½ feet and not setting the upper deck atop the roof to lessen its impact on neighbors. “We lose our city views, but [the deck] will be below the roofline,” Costello said.
Lamb commended the revised plans, adding that the homeowners had made “significant improvements.”
“My concern as a neighbor is what it looks like from the street,” Lamb. “I’m happy with it at this point. I think it’s a reasonable proposal.”
Neighbor Linda Buhay also supported the new design, dismissing concerns that the renovated home would be intrusive to neighbors’ privacy.
“If you want privacy, you shouldn’t move to the city,” Buhay said. “They’re great people, they’re great neighbors, and they deserve a chance.”
Meanwhile, Mel and Sissy Upton, the direct abutters who requested the meeting, opposed the renovations, which they believe will negatively affect the value of their and a neighboring family’s homes.
“We presently have 14 windows on the side of the house facing the Costellos. Ten of the windows presently receive sunlight during the day,” Sissy read from a prepared statement at the meeting. “The proposed construction will completely deprive us…of sunlight in several of the windows and block and/or impede sunlight from the remaining windows.”
Michael Ward, a Monument Square resident and direct abutter to the Costello residence, said the existing building historically fit the neighborhood and that the proposed renovations would pose a fire hazard for nearby homes.
The Costellos said they had yet to set a new hearing date with the City of Boston’s Zoning Commission and that they would take all comments from the meeting into consideration before resubmitting their new plans to the city.

CAPTION: State Rep. Eugene O’Flaherty in his State House office.

As he enters his seventh term, State Rep. Eugene O’Flaherty looks forward to tackling many pressing issues, including tightening criminal penalties for ethical improprieties, identifying state facilities and courts in need of immediate structural improvements and addressing the ongoing transportation concerns of his constituents.
O’Flaherty was recently assigned to the state’s Special House Committee on Ethics by Speaker of the House Salvatore DiMasi and given the arduous task of reevaluating the criminal penalties for bribery and other ethical violations in the wake of the scandals that have recently entangled former State Sen. Dianne Wilkerson and City Councilor Chuck Turner. In anticipation of the Jan. 26 committee hearing at the State House, O’Flaherty said he is currently reviewing the criminal penalties associated with ethical violations in New York and California, among other states, in anticipation of recommending harsher sentences for Massachusetts.
A recent appointee to the state’s Special Committee on State Facilities & Courts, O’Flaherty is also reviewing approximately 900 projects throughout the Commonwealth that are need of immediate maintenance following President Barack Obama’s recommendation for an economic stimulus package to this end. O’Flaherty said while it is unclear how much money will ultimately be allocated for this purpose, his goal is to find projects where construction could be underway in the next 180 days.
Among the projects that O’Flaherty believes are in need of immediate attention are East Boston Courthouse, which he said has long been in a state of disrepair, and the Charlestown Court because of its historical significance.
“[The Charlestown Court] is an incredible asset to the community,” O’Flaherty said, adding that the court was the site of sitting of the state’s first Supreme Court.
As the longstanding Judiciary Chairman, O’Flaherty recently filed bills for legislation for the upcoming fiscal year and hopes to address transportation, a concern that directly affects his constituents in Charlestown and Chelsea.
“I have received several phone calls from my constituents regarding the increase in tolls,” O’Flaherty said, adding that he is committed to keeping the toll discount in place for Charlestown and Chelsea residents who use the Tobin Bridge that he helped implement, along with former Senate President Tom Birmingham, in 2000.
O’Flaherty said he believes his constituents are entitled to this discount, since Charlestown residents are inconvenienced every time the bridge is painted and Chelsea “deals with the constant flow of traffic.”
In regard to the proposed reconfiguration of Rutherford Avenue and Sullivan Square, O’Flaherty said he looks forward to being involved in the process.
“It’s the gateway to Boston,” he said. “It could be a beautiful corridor.”

Through a unique partnership between the National Park Service and the Charlestown Working Theater, local kids will have an opportunity to interpret the history of their neighborhood and subsequently present their findings in a series of “podcasts” that will be available worldwide on the NPS Web site.
“The thing about a historic record is it’s not objective, but this is a way to use history in a creative way,” said Kristin Johnson, co-director of the non-profit Working Theater. “The kids would in fact become interpreters for their peers across the nation and the world.”
The first offering of its kind, the Kidcastic in the Park program allows groups of third- through eighth-graders to write and produce a series of podcasts of between five and seven minutes each in length. Participating kids will spend approximately the first part of the 14-week program researching the history before meeting with a professional videographer who will give them the hands-on training necessary to make the short films. Johnson said that the kids would have complete control over all content and hopes that each group will eventually produce three or four podcasts.
“There’s too much information for one podcast,” Johnson said. “In fact, there’s so much [material] that the kids could make 50 of them.”
Beginning Monday, Jan. 26, Johnson will begin working with kids from the Working Theater and Charlestown Community Center on the first podcast, which will focus on the history of the Bunker Hill Monument.
Beth Burton, cluster administrator for the Charlestown Community Center, has high expectations for the program. “I am expecting that the participants will have the unique opportunity to use their creativity and acquired knowledge and skills to create and share an informational, multi-dimensional and educational lessons about American history, while developing a deeper understanding of the subject and having fun, too,” she said.
On Feb. 6, Johnson will begin working with a second group of kids from the Clarence R. Edwards Middle School. The NPS has also applied for a grant that will enable them to launch “Patriots of Color,” which would allow sixth-graders from Edwards School’s Citizen School program to produce a series of podcasts focusing on the role of African-Americans and Native Americans who fought in the Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775.
Johnson also hopes that students from Warren-Prescott School who took part in “Decisive Day” will mentor younger children in the podcast program. (“Decisive Day” was a three-act play written and produced by Johnson that interpreted the history of Charlestown and premiered during the opening ceremonies of the Battle of Bunker Hill Museum in April of 2007).
Park Service ranger Julia Mize, who will wok closely with Johnson on the podcast program, believes that the neighborhood’s history will be more meaningful for kids when presented in this innovative light.
“The kids choose what they want to learn,” she said. “With something fun like this, they’re going to retain the history, they’re going to remember it.”
Mize added that the Park Service also hopes to replicate the program in Roxbury.
And if the program is successful in Charlestown, Johnson also hopes to expand it next year to include more students from the Warren-Prescott School, as well as members of the Charlestown Boys & Girls Club.
"Charlestown is so rich in history, and this program reflects this by creating a historic partnership with the NPS," Johnson said.
A few spaces are still available for the podcast program that begins Monday. For more information, call Kristin Johnson of the Charlestown Working Theater at 617-242-3285.

Registration is now open for the latest round of programming at the Charlestown Community Center, which is scheduled to kick of on Saturday, Feb. 7.
A membership for the swimming program, which includes a 12-week program for three skill levels with a water-safety certified instructor, costs $50. Annual members of the Community Center are eligible for a 50-percent discount, however. (Annual memberships rates for City of Boston residents are $5 for children under 18, $25 for adults and $50 for families; individuals 55 and older receive free membership).
A three-month membership to the weight room costs $50 for adults. Annual members of the Community Center are eligible for a 50-percent discount, and a certified weight instructor will be on hand at the 255 Medford St. facility.
An annual membership for the tennis program, which is also under the guidance of a certified instructor, costs $200 for families, $100 for adults and $25 for children. Tennis membership includes access to all Community Center programming and facilities.
“These programs provide affordable opportunities with skilled instructors,” said Community Center Cluster Administrator Beth Burton, “but space is limited.”
For more information, call the Charlestown Community Center at 617-635-5170.

The Charlestown State Prison was built between 1804 and 1805 at a cost of $170,000, with the belief that “it would promote the happiness of the town.” Prisoners were first received on Dec.12, 1805, and the number of inmates gradually increased. By 1816, there were 260 prisoners who were guarded by 15 officers. By the year of “Custer’s Last Stand,” the facility was condemned as being unfit for human habitation.
The cells were 4 by 6 feet and had no running water, and the first-floor tier of cells had dirt floors. I once knew a man who was incarcerated in the “big house,” as he called it, and he described the conditions at the prison as “absolutely horrible.”
“Although I could look out my cell window and see my mother cooking dinner through the window across the street,” he said with a smile, “so, it really wasn’t like going to jail.”
The first successful mass jail break at the state prison happened on July 8,1892, by nine convicts: J M Bradley, serving five years; Dennis O’ Hearn, 25 years; Daniel Coffey, 10 years; Michael O’ Connor, 15 years; John Lynch, 6 years; John Booth, 15 years; Stephen McCall, 20 years; Felix Golding, 10 years; and Daniel Mullen, five years.
At the rear of the prison yard was a small plot of land, with a low fence running around it. Inside the fence, prisoners would dump their daily refuse, which, in turn, would go into the sewer that ran eight 800 feet from the prison to the Miller River.
On the afternoon of July 8,1892, three of the convicts slipped over the fence, with hacksaws hidden beneath the shirts. They started to cut the four bars over the manhole. After the completion of this task, all nine men lowered themselves into the sewer-line, which measured 3 feet in diameter. The men had a dark and dangerous passage. Three had made their exit out a manhole that they spotted earlier along the sewer-line.
When the six reached the end of the line they noticed that they would have to swim across the river to one of the wharfs — an action that would surely be noticed. They all crawled back up the sewer-line to a cave, which had a manhole with sunlight shinning through. They placed a ladder against the sewer wall, climbed up to the manhole and squeezed their way to freedom.
A railroad worker saw the men as they were getting out of the sewer later said, “They were covered with mud and slime.” He added, “Some young men gave them coveralls to cover up their prison uniforms.” In the end, only one of the nine who went into the sewer was apprehended.
It had been thought that Michael O’Connor had planned the escape, and when some women called the prison to see the inmate, O’Connor was nowhere to be found. Warden Lovering then sounded the alarm. After the bold escape, the men were known through out New England as the “Sewer Gang.”