City staff updated the public on the current state of planning for construction of traffic mitigation and safety measures for Powder House Blvd.

By Jim Clark

The City of Somerville held a community meeting at the West Somerville Neighborhood School where developments in the planning and implementation of construction plans for Powder House Blvd. were presented to the public.

Residents and city officials celebrated the reopening of the newly renovated Capuano Field last week by holding a ribbon cutting ceremony.

By Melissa Rosales

On Friday, August 9, Mayor Joseph Curtatone cut a red ribbon to celebrate the opening of the newly renovated Capuano Field, located at 150 Glen St. The project was carried out with the cooperation of the Office of Strategic Planning and Community Development (OSPCD), Ward 1 City Councilor Matthew McLaughlin, The Mayor’s Office, East Somerville Community School committee, and Somerville Youth Soccer League.

(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries and letters to the Editor of The Somerville Times belong solely to the authors and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville Times, its staff or publishers.)

I don’t know if 48 years of living on Powder House Blvd. constitutes a “study”. Traffic traveling from North Street along the boulevard in the evening, 25% of it turns left onto Curtis Street causing a back-up because cars traveling from Powder House Circle don’t allow them to turn. Traffic on Curtis Street, from Tufts, has to turn left or right but traffic from Teele Square mainly goes straight not allowing cars to turn left. If you change signals so the one lane of traffic is moving at a time, this would allow traffic to keep moving. You would have 3 lanes of traffic stopped at any one time. You would also have a pedestrian signal allowing safe crossing.

Somerville poet and State Representative Denise Provost will read from her new collection of poetry, Curious Peach, in the Central Library auditorium, 79 Highland Ave, Somerville, on Thursday, August 15, from 7:00 – 8:30 p.m.

By Marshall Collins

Last month, the Somerville Planning Board approved an application by US2, the city’s master developer partner for Union Square, to begin the revitalization of the area with its first LEED Gold project, a seven-story life science building. This week, US2 will come before the board once again as it determines whether to approve the proposed LEED Gold residential buildings and civic open space that will ensure equal access to Union Square’s future Green Line station.

Mr. Airplane Man guitarist and singer Margaret Garrett.

By JT Thompson

Margaret Garrett is the guitarist and singer of Mr. Airplane Man, a duo that she formed with her close friend Tara McManus, who plays the drums. Their website describes the band as blending “hypnotic blues, haunting slide guitar, and idiosyncratic rock and roll with dreamy girlgroup melodies.” Mr. Airplane Man got its start on the streets of Somerville and Cambridge and the duo has toured with nationally known bands like the White Stripes, Holly Golightly and Morphine.

It rises up from the ground and stands, an enigmatic and featureless monolith, vaguely suggestive of the one in the sci-fi classic 2001: A Space Odyssey. It seems to inform us of … something … but we’re not quite sure what.

Or perhaps as in another popular film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, where the main protagonist stares vacantly at a towering mound of mashed potatoes and utters in a state of profound bewilderment, “This means something.”

Eagle Feathers #185 – The Wesleys

By Bob (Monty) Doherty

Clergyman John Wesley was the founder of Methodism, an alternative movement from the Church of England. He was born in England on June 17, 1703, the same date of the future American Battle of Bunker Hill.

Former Somerville Ward 3 Alderman Bob McWatters is enjoying some vacation time in Furnas, a civil parish in the municipality of Povoação on the island of São Miguel in the Portuguese Azores. He is pictured here with with John Correia and Mario Riberio.

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A screening of The Last Sacred Place of Poetry and talk with Olivia Huang and Doug Holder will take place on September 3, 6:00 p.m., at the Cambridge Public Library.

When I first met Olivia Huang she was in the midst of making a documentary about the famed Grolier Poetry Book Shop in Harvard Square titled The Last Sacred Place of Poetry: Grolier Poetry Book Shop. And I was proud to be one of the talking heads in this film about the much-revered shop.