 | TINGS ....HAPPENING IN KINGSTON JAMAICA Tings a Gwan in Eastern Kingston a Trip from The National Stadium area Past JCF patrol Down Mountain View Avenue below Beverley Hills and down Through Vineyard Town to Windward Road Site of The Famous West India Club known for its finger licking good Jamaican Style Chicken Rockfort Mineral Springs where fresh Ting Spring from de mountainside. Past The Carib Cement Factory a very grey area Harbour Head beach and Harbour View one of the first low cost housing areas where Houses started at 2000 jamaica pounds in 1960 Back in those days it was pretty hi class everyone competing to have the best garden and add on additions it was very tidy and well kept back then. Also (Dr. No The first James Bond movie was partially filmed on The Hill Behind Harbor View The JB in his Sunbeam Alpine car) Built by Matalon Company A real Deal and heading out to Norman Manley airport another Bond filming site past the Jamaica Gypsum Mountain and Heading towards Gunboat Beach http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eW1dpm8a7k |
 | Bloodbrothers - Native Americans (Pictures) c)Video by gewajega@yahoo.com 2008 Music: "Bloodbrothers" by Bruce Springsteen Lyrics: "We played king of the mountain out on the end The world come chargin' up the hill, and we were women and men Now there's so much that time, time and memory fade away We got our own roads to ride and chances we gotta take We stood side by side each one fightin' for the other We said until we died we'd always be blood brothers Now the hardness of this world slowly grinds your dreams away Makin' a fool's joke out of the promises we make And what once seemed black and white turns to so many shades of gray We lose ourselves in work to do and bills to pay And it's a ride, ride, ride, and there ain't much cover With no one runnin' by your side my blood brother On through the houses of the dead past those fallen in their tracks Always movin' ahead and never lookin' back Now I don't know how I feel, I don't know how I feel tonight If I've fallen 'neath the wheel, if I've lost or I've gained sight I don't even know why, I don't why I made this call Or if any of this matters anymore after all But the stars are burnin' bright like some mystery uncovered I'll keep movin' through the dark with you in my heart My blood brother ..." ************************* Alternate last verse as performed July 1, 2000, at Madison Square Garden, New York: "Now on out here on this road Out on this road tonight I close my eyes and feel so many friends around me In the early evening light And the miles we have come And the battles won and lost Are just so many roads travelled So many rivers crossed And I ask God for the strength And faith in one another 'Cause it's a good night for a ride Cross this river to the other side My blood brothers ..." |
 | Olana State Historic Site Transcript: Olana was the home and estate of 19th century Hudson River School artist Frederic Edwin Church. Now a New York State Historic Site and National Historic Landmark, Olana is situated high on a hill south of Hudson, NY. The 250 acre historic estate offers spectacular views of the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains and is one of the most popular cultural tourism destinations in the Hudson Valley. The Olana Partnership, a private not-for-profit organization, works cooperatively with New York State to support its restoration, development and improvement. Frederic Church first came to the Hudson Valley in 1844 to study with Thomas Cole, widely recognized as the founder of the Hudson River School. After two years under Coles tutelage in Catskill, Church launched what was to become an internationally successful career. After establishing a studio in New York City, Church was soon elected full member of the National Academy of Design. Shortly thereafter, Church made his first trip to South America, following German naturalist-explorer Alexander von Humbolts 1802 route from Columbia to Ecuador. Between 1857 and 1877, Church completed a few major paintings each year. Churchs collection at Olana contains sketches and studies for many of these great works. Amidst the success of Heart of the Andes in 1859, Church met Isabel Carnes, and in early 1860 the Boston Evening Transcript reported, Church has been successfully occupied by another Heart than that of the Andes. He and Isabel married later that same year, just three months after he purchased a 126 acre working farm south of Hudson on which to build their home. The couple moved into Cosy Cottage, designed by architect Richard Morris Hunt, in 1861. Although a working farm, expected to turn a profit, Church also wanted the property to be aesthetically pleasing. The farm consisted of orchards, vegetable gardens, fields of corn, hay, and rye and livestock. To this Church added thousands of trees. A swampy stream at the bottom of the hill was turned into a lake whose shoreline echoes a broadening of the Hudson River below. In 1867, Church was able to purchase an adjacent parcel of land atop the hill. The family, including one year old son Frederic Joseph, then left for an extended trip to Europe, Egypt, and parts of what is now Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Palestine and Syria. During an extended period in Rome, where Church established a studio, the couple welcomed another son, Theodore Winthrop. Upon their return in 1870, Church hired Calvert Vaux as architect of a new house, but it was Churchs vision of a Persian design that guided the construction of the home. Church was also deeply involved in decorating the house at Olana, choosing furnishings and paintings, even mixing paint colors himself. Over the next two years, two more children were born, Louis Palmer and Isabel Charlotte, nicknamed Downie. In 1872 the family moved into the second story of the incomplete new home, but it would be four years before the elaborately stenciled main floor rooms were completed. The attention to detail apparent in Olanas intricate stencils extends to the development of the landscape, with a focus on building views both of it and from it. Church used the Hudson River and mountains in the distance as a background to a composition with carefully planned foreground and middle ground elements. In his final years, Church continued to travel regularly. Although he spent the bulk of his time at Olana, he wintered each year in Mexico, seeking relief from the New York cold that aggravated the symptoms of his arthritis. Isabel died in 1899, and in 1900 Church returned from Mexico for the last time and, too ill to make it back to his beloved Olana, died at the home of a friend in New York City. Olana State Historic Site is now owned and operated by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, Taconic Region and receives extensive support from The Olana Partnership. The main house is open to the public for guided tours. A visitor center offers a film and panel exhibit as well as a Museum Shop, operated by The Olana Partnership, offering books and many items inspired by the exotic locales of Churchs travels and paintings. The grounds are open year-round, 8am-sunset, for hiking, picnicking, snowshoeing or just enjoying the view. |
 | Lawnboy - Phish cover with theerion Lawnboy - Phish cover with theerion on rythym and vocals and strat2caster improvising some acoustic lead...another Sunday at Strats Place Phish was an American rock band noted for their extended jam sessions and musical improvisation. Formed at the University of Vermont in 1983, the band's four members performed together for the better part of 21 years until their breakup in August 2004. Their music had elements of a wide variety of genres[1], including, but not limited to, rock, jazz, and funk sounds. Each of their concerts was original in terms of the songs performed, the order in which they appeared, and the way in which they were performed. Although the group received little radio play or MTV exposure, Phish developed a large and dedicated following by word of mouth, via Phish.net (originally a mailing list, then a Usenet newsgroup, now a website), and the exchange of live recordings. The beginning (1983-1992) Phish was formed at University of Vermont in 1983 by guitarists Trey Anastasio and Jeff Holdsworth, bassist Mike Gordon and drummer Jon Fishman. For their first gig, a Halloween dance in the basement of the ROTC dormitory, the band was billed as Blackwood Convention, a reference to a bidding convention in contract bridge. Their second gig — and their first billed as Phish — was November 3 in the basement of Slade Hall at UVM,[2] though another source gives the date as December 2.[3] The band was joined by percussionist Marc Daubert in the fall of 1984;[4] he left the band early in 1985,[5] and Page McConnell joined on keyboards in September. Holdsworth left the group after graduation in 1986, solidifying the band's lineup of "Trey, Page, Mike, and Fish" — the lineup that would remain for the rest of the band's lifespan.[5] Following a prank at UVM with his friend and former bandmate Steve Pollak — also known as "The Dude of Life" — Anastasio decided to leave the college. With the encouragement of McConnell (who received $50 for each transferee), Anastasio and Fishman relocated in mid-1986 to Goddard College, a small school in the hills of Plainfield, Vermont.[5] Phish distributed at least six different experimental self-titled cassettes during this era, including The White Tape.[6] This first studio recording was circulated in two variations: the first, mixed in a dorm room as late as 1985, received a higher distribution than the second studio remix of the original four tracks, circa 1987. The older version was officially released as The White Tape in 1998.[7] By 1985, the group had encountered Burlington, Vermont, luthier Paul Languedoc, who would eventually design two guitars for Anastasio and two basses for Gordon. In October 1986, he began working as their sound engineer. Since then, Languedoc built exclusively for the two, and his designs and traditional wood choices have given Phish a unique instrumental identity.[8] Recently, however, Languedoc has begun crafting guitars on custom order and, on a very limited basis, to the general public through local music shops. Phish in the fall of 1986.As his senior project, Anastasio penned The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday, a nine-song concept album that would become their second studio experiment. Recorded between 1987 and 1988, it was submitted in July of that year, accompanied by a written thesis. Elements of the story — known as Gamehendge — grew to include an additional eight songs. The band performed the suite in concert on five occasions: in 1988, 1991, 1993, and twice in 1994 without replicating the song list.[9] Beginning in the spring of 1988, the band began practicing in earnest, sometimes locking themselves in a room and jamming for hours on end. Dubbed "Okipa Ceremonies" (also spelled Oh Kee Pa), one such jam took place at Anastasio's apartment, and a second was at Paul Languedoc's house in August 1989.[10] The band attributes the sessions to Anastasio, who discovered the concept in the films A Man Called Horse and Modern Primitives.[11] As a result of this dedication, the band issued their first mass-released recording, a double album called Junta, later that year. On January 26, 1989, Phish played the Paradise Rock Club in Boston, Massachusetts. The owners of the club had never heard of Phish and refused to book them, so the band rented the club for the night. The show sold out due to the caravan of fans that had traveled to see the band.[12] By late 1990, Phish's concerts were becoming more and more intricate, often making a consistent effort to involve the audience in the performance. In a special "secret language,"[13] the audience would react in a certain manner based on a particular musical cue from the band. For instance, if Anastasio "teased" a motif from The Simpsons theme song, the audience would yell, "D'oh!" in imitation of Homer Simpson. (help·info) In 1992, Phish introduced collaboration between audience and band called the "Big Ball Jam" in which each band member would throw a large beach ball into the audience and play a note each time his ball was hit. In so doing, the audience was helping to create an original composition. In an experiment known as "The Rotation Jam", each member would switch instruments with the musician on his left. On occasion, a performance of "You Enjoy Myself" involved Gordon and Anastasio performing synchronized maneuvers on mini-trampolines while playing their instruments.[14] Phish, along with Bob Dylan, The Grateful Dead, and The Beatles, was one of the first bands to have a Usenet newsgroup (rec.music.phish), which launched in 1991. Aware of the band's growing popularity, Elektra Records signed them that year. The following year A Picture of Nectar was complete: their first major studio release, enjoying far more extensive production than either 1988's Junta or 1990s Lawn Boy. These albums were eventually re-released on Elektra, as well. The first annual H.O.R.D.E. festival in 1992 provided Phish with their first national tour of major amphitheaters. The lineup, among others, included Phish, Blues Traveler, The Spin Doctors, and Widespread Panic. That summer, the band toured Europe with the Violent Femmes and later toured Europe and the U.S. with Carlos Santana. Rise in popularity (1993-1995) Phish began headlining major amphitheaters in the summer of 1993. That year, the group released Rift packaged as a concept album and with heavy promotion from Elektra. In 1994, the band released Hoist. To promote the album, the band made their only video for MTV, "Down With Disease", airing in June of that year. On Halloween of that year, the group promised to don a fan-selected "musical costume" by playing an entire album from another band. After an extensive mail-based poll, Phish performed the 30-song, self-titled Beatles classic — better known as The White Album — as the second of their three sets at the Glens Falls Civic Center in upstate New York. Following the death of Grateful Dead frontman Jerry Garcia in the summer of 1995 and the appearance of "Down With Disease" on Beavis and Butthead, the band experienced a surge in the growth of their fan base and an increased awareness in popular culture. Poster for Phish's 1995 Halloween extravaganzaIn their tradition of playing a well-known album by another band for Halloween, Phish contracted a full horn section for their performance of The Who's Quadrophenia in 1995. Their first live album — A Live One — which was released during the summer of 1995 became Phish's first RIAA certified gold album in November 1995.[15] During this fall tour, the band challenged their audience to two games of chess, with each show of the tour consisting of a pair of moves. The band made their move during the first set, and, during the break between sets, the audience members could vote on their collective move at the Greenpeace table. The audience conceded the first game at the November 15 show in Florida, and the band conceded the second at their New Year's Eve concert at Madison Square Garden. Having played only two games, the score remains tied at 1-1.[16] This year-end concert would later be named as one of the greatest concerts of the 1990s by Rolling Stone magazine.[17] Cultural icons (1996-2000) Phish retreated to their Vermont recording studio and recorded hours and hours of improvisations, sometimes overlaying them on one another, and used those tracks as a basis to write most of the songs on the second half of Billy Breathes, which they released in the fall of 1996. Alongside traditional rock-based crescendos, the album has more acoustic guitar than their previous records, and was regarded by the band and some fans[18] as their crowning studio achievement. That summer, they mounted their first two-day festival — The Clifford Ball — at a decommissioned Air Force base in Plattsburgh, New York. Between 70,000 and 80,000 people were in attendance; MTV was on-hand to document the experience. In Phish's own makeshift city, Great Northeast Productions created an amusement park, restaurants, a post office, playgrounds, arcades, and movie theaters, and for two days Plattsburg AFB was the ninth largest city in New York. Aside from six "traditional" sets, the band rode a flatbed truck through the campground, serenading the audience at 3 a.m.[19] The concert's production company went on to host six more Phish festivals. Jams were becoming so long that several 1997 sets contained only four songs; their improvisational ventures were developing into a new funk-inspired jamming style. Vermont-based ice cream conglomerate Ben & Jerry's launched "Phish Food" that year and proceeds from the flavor are donated to the Lake Champlain Initiative. Part of Phish's new non-profit foundation, The WaterWheel Foundation was also comprised of two other now-defunct branches: The Touring Branch and the Vermont Giving Program.[20] The Great Went, Phish's second large-scale festival, was held that summer at Loring Air Force Base in Limestone, Maine, just miles from the Canadian border. The band drew 65,000 people, qualifying the festival to be the largest city in Maine.[21] Band and audience collaborated yet again in a colossal work of art: individual pieces of art by fans were connected to a large piece of art by the band. A giant matchstick was lit, burning the resultant tower to the ground.[22] The Story of the GhostPhish headlined Farm Aid in the summer of 1998, sharing the stage with Willie Nelson, Neil Young, and Paul Shaffer. Again, altering their approach to studio releases, the band recorded hours of improvisational jams over a period of several days and took the highlights of those jams and wrote songs around them. The result was The Story of the Ghost and the instrumental The Siket Disc in 1999. Phish returned to Limestone for the Lemonwheel festival, and 70,000 fans again made the event the largest city in Maine. On Halloween in Las Vegas, Nevada, the group performed Loaded by The Velvet Underground; two nights later they played Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety to an audience of 4,000 in Utah. The following year, the band decided to forego the annual summer festival to prepare for the New Year's Eve millennium celebration. However, at the eleventh hour, Camp Oswego was held in July in Volney, New York, with 65,000 in attendance. For the Millennium Celebration, Phish traveled to the Big Cypress Indian Reservation in the Florida Everglades. Of the major New Years Eve concerts around the globe — Sting, Barbra Streisand, Billy Joel — at 85,000, Phish had the largest attendance of any paid concert event that night.[23] During ABC's millennium coverage, Peter Jennings and World News Tonight reported on the massive audience and featured the band's performance of "Heavy Things". Called "Big Cypress", the enormous festival culminated with an extended seven-and-a-half hour set that began at midnight and ended at sunrise. 2000 saw no Halloween show, no summer festival and no new songs: May's Farmhouse contained material dating from 1997. That summer, the band announced that they would take their first "extended time-out" following their upcoming fall tour.[24] During the tour's last concert on October 7, 2000 at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, California, they played a regular show and left without saying a word as The Beatles' Let It Be played over the sound system. The hiatus allowed the members of Phish to explore more deeply their musical side projects. Anastasio continued the solo career he'd begun two years earlier, formed the group Oysterhead, and began conducting an orchestral composition with the Vermont Youth Orchestra. Gordon made an album with acoustic guitar legend Leo Kottke and two films before launching his own solo career. Fishman alternated between Jazz Mandolin Project and his band Pork Tornado, while McConnell formed the trio Vida Blue. One more time (2002-2004) Over two years after the hiatus began, Phish announced that they were getting back on the road with a New Year's Eve 2002 concert at Madison Square Garden. They also recorded Round Room in only three days. In their return concert, McConnell's brother was introduced as actor Tom Hanks. The doppelgänger sang a line of the song "Wilson", prompting several media outlets to report that the actor had "jammed with Phish." At the end of the 2003 summer tour, Phish held their first summer festival in four years, returning to Limestone for It. The festival drew crowds of over 60,000 fans, once again making Limestone the most populous city in Maine. In December, the band celebrated its 20th anniversary with a 4 show mini-tour culminating at Boston's Fleet Center. During the Albany date on this tour, Phish invited founding member Jeff Holdsworth onstage for the first time since 1986. In order to avoid the exhaustion and pitfalls of previous years' high-paced touring, Phish played sporadically after the reunion, with tours lasting about two weeks. After an April 2004 run of shows in Las Vegas, Anastasio announced on Phish.com that after a small summer tour the band was breaking up. Their final album, Undermind, was released in late spring. The band jammed with rapper Jay-Z at their second Brooklyn show in the summer of 2004, and performed a seven-song set atop the marquee of the Ed Sullivan Theater during The Late Show with David Letterman to fans who had gathered on the street, a move reminiscent of The Beatles' final performance on the rooftop of the Apple building in London. Their final show was also the last Phish summer festival — Coventry — named for the town in Vermont that hosted the event. 100,000 people were expected to attend, and it was simulcast to thousands more in movie theaters across America. Phish's final bow, August 15, 2004After a week of rain that prompted rumors of a sinking stage, Gordon announced on the local radio station that attendees should turn around, no more cars were being allowed in. As only about 20,000 people had been admitted, many concert-goers abandoned their vehicles on highway roadsides, shoulders and medians and hiked to the site, some as far as thirty miles. With the amount of people that walked in, the crowd grew to an estimated 65,000 in attendance. The band broke down crying onstage several times during the final concert, most notably when McConnell choked up during the ballad "Wading in the Velvet Sea" and elicited Anastasio to say a few words of farewell. Their final encore consisted of one song — "The Curtain" — which contains the now-meaningful repeated line "Please, me, have no regrets." Coventry was an emotional goodbye for Phish and for its audience; an end to Phish's chapter in rock music. Without any help from radio, music television channels or album sales, Phish became one of the biggest live acts of all time. As Rolling Stone put it:[25] " Given their sense of community, their ambition and their challenging, generous performances, Phish have become the most important band of the Nineties. " |
 | SA Gunzel Diary 2 Part 2 of SA Gunzel diary taken on Thursday, October 4th 2007. This time, on the southline through the Adelaide Hills around Belair and the Belair National Park. Plenty of motive power as NR, DL, C, GL and XRB classes are featured (with the first in one train alone). There is also one shot of the empty stonie running north through Parafield Gardens but that is all from the north line. |
 | Rivington Pike 'Virtual Tour' Join me and my two dogs, Gina and Rosie on our journey to Lancashire's very own 'mini Everest'. Rivington Pike and its tower can be seen from miles around. It is 361m (1200 feet) above sea level, and is reached through the Terraced Gardens. In clear conditions from the tower you can see the Cumbrian Fells in the Lake District 80km (50 miles) distant, Blackpool Tower 40km (25 miles), the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea 150km (93 miles), Ashurst's Beacon 15km (9 miles), and the Welsh Mountains 110km (68 miles). Rivington Pike was the site of a beacon, a bonfire built and lit at night used to send warning messages in times of danger. Another such beacon is Ashurst's Beacon, south west of Rivington. This chain of signals was put in place by the Earl of Chester Ranulph de Blundeville around 1139. A recorded lighting of the beacon is on the 19th of July 1588 when the Spanish Armada was first engaged in the English Channel. More recently, the beacon has been used in times of national celebration, the Coronation of King George V in 1910, the end of the First World War in 1918. Recently, Winter Hill itself has been used, and has been lit on the occasion of Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee on 7th June 1977, and the eve of the Royal Wedding in 1981. You can also see Jodrell Bank Radio Telescope on a clear day. Hope you enjoy it folks! |
 | Mission '07 After much trial and tribulation the video of our latest mission trip is finished! A lot of blood, sweat, and tears went into the making of this video, and I mean that literally... The video features our (First Congregational Church of Hanover, MA) most recent youth mission trip with our friends from North Community Church of Marshfield, in the city of Hartford, CT. The first part of the week we were part of our denomination's (UCC) 50th Birthday bash, and hundreds of youth from around the nation. The second half of the week we departed from the celebrations to do mission work within the city of Hartford. Working out of Asylum Hill Church, we cleared a Lot for community gardens and did cosmetic work around the Mark Twain house and museum (including painting fences). I didn't get a lot of footage of the celebrations due to reasons I'll not get into, but I got plenty of the mission work which is what these trips are all about, enjoy! Music: Amazing Because It Is - The Almost |
 | 4bd, 3ba, 3258sq.ft., privacy yard. http://www.tourfactory.com/s386371/r_www.youtube.com **SHORT SALE - ALL OFFERS SUBJECT TO LIEN HOLDER APPROVAL** Country like setting and minutes from the City. Conveniently located close the entrance of Stoneybrook Hills. This 2006 two story home features 4 bedrooms and 3 full baths with a total living space of 3258 sq.ft. The first floor features a grand foyer entrance with formal living and dining areas; family room open to the kitchen; ceramic tile from entrance through to kitchen and family room. Wood floors in the living & dining areas. Kitchen features new appliances with warranties still in place; Corian countertops; kitchen island and breakfast bar; medium oak cabinets feature crown molding & hardware; closet style pantry. Also on first floor is a bedroom and full bathroom. On the second floor is a Master Suite fit for a King & Queen. The whole west side of the home is devoted to the Master Suite. Enter the Master through double doors and have access to the 40 balcony, Master Bathroom and extremely large closet. Bathroom features garden tub, separate shower and double vanities; closet is a room in itself. Second floor offers the third full bathroom, laundry room, two more bedrooms and a fantastic bonus room with access to the 40 balcony. The rear of property has no neighbors and is completely fenced in with a 6 white PVC privacy fence. The front of property is beautifully landscaped; features red brick curbing and an open porch. WOW what a house a located in the gated community of Stoneybrook Hills. Community offers, clubhouse, fitness center, bicycling & jogging paths, baseball field, basketball courts, playground, and swimming pool. Short sale negotiations and processing are being handled by a national loss mitigation firm. All offers on an "as-is" contract and with a pre-qualification letter. |
 | A lovely drive in the massachusetts countryside My wife and I take a ride with her family in Massachsetts. Beverly is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 39,862 at the 2000 census. A resort, residential and manufacturing community, Beverly includes Beverly Farms and Prides Crossing. Beverly is located on the North Shore, 17 miles northeast of Boston, and is home to Endicott College and Montserrat College of Art. Originally part of Salem and the Naumkeag Territory, the area was first settled in 1626 by Roger Conant. Because of religious differences with Governor John Endicott, Beverly would be set off and officially incorporated in 1668, when it was named after Beverley in Yorkshire, England. Surviving from the settlement's early history is the Balch House, built (according to recent testing) about 1679. The first ship commissioned by the United States military (actually the US Army, as the US Navy did not yet exist), was the armed schooner Hannah. It was outfitted at Glover's Wharf, and first sailed from Beverly Harbor on September 5, 1775. For this reason Beverly calls itself the "Birthplace of America's Navy" -- a claim disputed by other towns, including nearby Marblehead. The Hannah can be found on the patch of the city's police department. Beverly is also the site of the first cotton mill in 1787,[2] as well as one of the first Sunday schools in the country in 1810. Beverly would be incorporated as a city in 1894. In 1902, the United Shoe Machinery Corporation built at Beverly a quarter-mile stretch of factory buildings, which in 1906 went into production. Closed in 1987, the complex was bought by Cummings Properties in 1996, and developed into a campus of hi-tech companies and medical offices. Cherry Hill Industrial Park, straddling the boundary with Danvers, is home to many businesses and offices. Parker Brothers, makers of Monopoly and other games, has offices in Beverly. The city is also home to the Landmark School, known world-wide for the education it provides to learning disabled students. President William Howard Taft maintained a summer home in Beverly; in the summers of 1909 and 1910, he lived in a house located at what is now the site of the Rose Garden in Lynch Park, the city's principal public park. Beverly has a former Nike missile site on L. P. Henderson Road, right near the Beverly Municipal Airport. This site was in operation from March of 1957 until August 1959, when the Army handed it over to the National Guard. It is now used by Beverly as a storage site and is under the scrutiny of many environmental organizations, as it and the surrounding areas such as Casco Chemical have polluted the ground water, which could be potentially hazardous to the nearby Wenham Lake water supply. |
 | Boston Harbor's Nut Island blooms in summer (This is Sue Scheible's 'A Good Age' column for June 26, 2007.) The third annual Nut Island Wildflower Festival takes place in Quincy -- an event that would have been considered a nutty idea 20 years ago before the closing of the former sewage treatment plant. The event celebrates the start of a long season of beautiful wildflowers and other native plants and grasses at the site, which reopened in 1999 as a park and headworks. The new building pumps the sewage through a pipe to Deer Island for treatment, after screening out debris. "In the late '80s, there was a huge treatment plant at Nut Island with open sewage pools and it looked like a place you'd film a Clint Eastwood movie," recalls Mary Smith of Quincy, a landscape architect who designed the renovation of the 14-acre property at the tip of Houghs Neck. In the mid-1980s, Mary Smith Associates won the contract to grade, shape the hills and lay out pathways around the new headworks. Smith paid a visit to the site to see the possibilities. "I went down there with one of my children in a stroller and thought, 'This is really awful. No one would want to go here on purpose,'" she said. Smith, now a Quincy city planner, was inspired by Frederick Law Olmsted, the 19th-century landscape architect who designed many well-known urban parks, including the Emerald Necklace in Boston and World's End in Hingham. "Nut Island is a large area and to try to maintain it as a lawn didn't make sense," she said. "Looking at a map, I thought that Houghs Neck is at the southern end of what Olmsted had envisioned as the complete Emerald Necklace. We cooked up the idea for the wildflowers and it fit in with what Olmsted did at World's End." She chose a mixture native to the region -- 20 species including Queen Anne's lace, lupine, coreopsis, dianthus, Indian paint brush, and gaillardia. "I remember thinking, 'This is going to be gorgeous,'" she said. The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, created as part of a court-ordered cleanup of Boston Harbor, dismantled the old Nut Island treatment plant, which had discharged sewage wastewater into Quincy Bay. In July 1998, the new headworks opened and in September 1999, the park opened to the public. Part of the Harbor Islands National Park, it is owned and managed by the state water authority. In 2004, Houghs Neck residents, Lois Murphy and Norma Jane Langford started the wildflower festival. It is a fundraiser for the Houghs Neck Garden Club, which does community beautification. At 9:30 a.m. Saturday, June 30, there will be a breakfast in the community room at the headworks with casseroles and homemade baked goods, followed by a slide show at 10:30 a.m. on the different wildflowers. At 11 a.m., naturalist Tom Palmer will lead a walking tour of the island. Photographs by Joe Poggi will be on display. Murphy, 75, works from June through September for the water resources authority as a summer intern, caring for the landscape. It is a natural fit. Her association with Nut Island and her love for its natural beauty run deep. She grew up just around the corner, on Great Hill, and now she lives a stone's throw away in a converted summer cottage where she and her late husband, former Quincy Police Capt. William Murphy, raised their four children. From her spacious yard, family room and rear deck, she looks out on the island and keeps watch over the wildlife. "The birds absolutely love it -- the finches nest on Peddocks Island and come here to feed and feed and go back to their nests," she said. A friendly and vigorous senior, Murphy is often at work by 7 a.m. raking, pruning, edging and hauling branches to the trash bin. This is her seventh year on the job, and Smith describes her as "truly altruistic -- so determined to make a place really beautiful for everyone." In the 1980s, Murphy and other neighborhood activists played a key role in preserving the site as a park with the Nut Island Citizens Advisory Commitee. Langford, 74, moved to Houghs Neck from Whitman in the early 1990s because she wanted "a garden and a view." She still teaches an online communications course at Northeastern University. They turned their mutual passion for the park into a festival. The first year, 41 members of the West Bridgewater Garden Club arrived by bus. "Lois and her crew are instrumental in keeping the island the way we designed it," Smith says. "If it weren't for her, I think the men who like to mow might have flattened it." Eight years after the reopening, Smith likes to walk the island pathways and watch people enjoying it. "I feel a bit as if I wrote a play and now all the people coming here to enjoy the park are in it," she said. Murphy finds solace in the setting and the work. Her husband died in 2005 and two of her four children -- Kevin and Pamela -- also have died. There is a memorial bench dedicated to Kevin in the park. Her other daughter, Laura, lives in New York, and son William III lives in New Zealand. "The giving back to the community keeps my spirits up," she said. "The Bible has a saying, 'Bloom where you are planted.' I walk down there at 7 a.m. and say, 'What more could I ask for than to have the opportunity to do this at this point in my life?" Tickets to the festival cost $10, including breakfast, and can be purchased from Gay Carbonneau at 617-472-2800 or at the park on Saturday. |
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![Daily flights from NYC to Mont Tremblant\](images/articles/thumbs/nytremblantthumb.jpg "Daily flights from NYC to Mont Tremblant\")
