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Finding a home for Rocky
Posted on May 15, 2008 by dseiffert
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With Jose Sulaiman, president of the World Boxing Council, set to visit next month to discuss the statue of Brockton Blockbuster Rocky Mariciano proposed for the city, Brocktonians have a deadline to decide where to put it.
The main contenders so far have ranged from downtown, near City Hall Plaza, to the main concourse of Campanelli Stadium, near Brockton High School (although effort for this is waning because powers-that-be want something at least close to downtown).
Other suggested spots include:
– The Courthouse, where the downtown Christmas tree has gone every year, because it overlooks Main Street and would be a great spot to launch a Brockton historical path.
– The post office on Commercial Street, which will be renamed soon after Rocky.
– James Edgar Park, near Rocky’s home on Dover Street.
– The library on Main Street (although this is seen as a long-shot).
– The Historical Society on North Pearl Street, which already has a Rocky display, including a pair of his boxing shoes.
Wherever it ends up, the city needs to come together soon or risk suffering a knockout blow. Lawrence Siskind, president of the Brockton Historical Society who sits on a siting committee chaired by Mayor James E. Harrington, says that if a decision isn’t made before Sulaiman comes to town, the City of Champions could end up the loser in this fight.
Where would you like to see the statue located?
(The photo shown here, incidentally, is of Brockton resident Fred McDermott, Jr., standing next to the Rocky statue in in Ripa Teatina, Italy.)
The snowbank has melted!
Posted on May 6, 2008 by dseiffert
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As of yesterday, May 5 (Cinco de Mayo), the Enterprise snowbank research team determined that the huge pile of snow we chose more than a month ago as our own signal of spring has officially melted. That determination was not as easy to make as it sounds — for weeks now, the snowbank has been covered in dirt. There is still a huge pile of dirt behine Sears Auto, but after researchers dug several holes and found no snow beneath, we decided to make the announcement.
Admittedly, the contest has been frought with problems from the beginning. Our original plan — to choose a huge pile of snow in the parking lot of the Westgate Mall and ask readers to guess when it would melt — sounds simple enough, but when the snow was moved by the mall maintenance workers days after the contest began, we had to change tack. Still, more than 200 people participated both before and after the March 23 deadline we set to guess.
There are three winners who guessed May 5 before March 23: Julie, Stephen and Kay Dougan. The Enterprise will contact the winners by e-mail to get information for the prizes, but if any of the three is reading the blog, please e-mail me at dseiffert@enterprisenews.com to claim a prize.
Brockton gets mention in NYT’s Coughlin story
Posted on May 6, 2008 by jmurphy
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The New York Times recently did an interesting write-up on Giants coach and renowned disciplinarian Tom Coughlin’s “playful” side. And in the story, it gives a quick mention of Coughlin’s charity, the Jay Fund, which raised money for the families of children with leukemia. The fund is named after Brockton High School football star Jay McGillis, whom Coughlin coached at Boston College in 1991.
If you want to read the whole story, check it out here.
What kinds of stores would you like to see at the mall?
Posted on May 3, 2008 by dseiffert
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It’s good news that a 12-screen, stadium-seated National Amusement movie theater, as well as a free-standing restaurant and other retail stores, is coming to the Westgate Mall in Brockton next year. And it seems to be having the desired effect of breathing new life into the nearby vacant buildings, as evidenced by the news that Circuit City is coming to the old Office Max spot.
But with Best Buy already situated in the mall (and apparantly thriving, if the number of cars parked there most days is any indication), another big box electronics outlet frankly seems a little redundant.
What I’d like to see is a good book store move in. The Waldenbooks that’s already inside the mall is fine to stop and get whatever’s current, but the place doesn’t exactly encourage browsing. I usually head up to the Barnes & Noble in Braintree when I want a new book but don’t have a particular title in mind. It would be great to have one that’s actually in the city.
The mall now has about 80 different stores, at least if you count the booths in the middle of the halls. With the coming movie theater, it could soon have a few more. What businesses would you like to see move in?
Still more bad news for power plant
Posted on May 2, 2008 by dseiffert
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While a desperate-seeming attempt to stop the power plant in Brockton failed at the State House Thursday, the prospects for the plant look worse and worse. This week, the German technology company Siemens bought a sizable stake in the plant on the same day it acknowledged corruption elsewhere in the company.
Through it all, those in charge of Advanced Power, the Swiss company proposing the plant in Brockton, continue to offer only canned, arrogant-sounding responses through it’s spokeswoman, Amy Lambiaso, to the completely valid criticism and concern of residents. If the company has any hope to become a part of this community, it needs to stop talking down to us, and start addressing the concerns and showing compassion for us. So far, it has failed.
Spring a slooooow time coming in Brockton
Posted on April 29, 2008 by dseiffert
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Here is the snow pile as of last week. Despite the weeks of warm weather, it’s still a mass of dense snow and ice beneath the layer of dirt (See the spot of white in the middle of the photo above? That’s snow.)
Of the more than 200 people who guessed when this pile would melt before the March 23 deadline, about 35 guessed May or later and hence are still in the game. But it’s seeming less and less outrageous that the one person who guessed July 31 may be the untimate winner.
As promised, a prize will be awarded to the winner of the contest.
Yunits headed to Middleboro?
Posted on April 25, 2008 by dseiffert
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Middleboro selectmen could decide as soon as Saturday whether former Brockton Mayor Jack Yunits will be the next town manager. At $130,000 a year, it would be another lucrative move for a man who has already, in the three years since he left Brockton City Hall, become president of the Brockton Rox baseball team, opened his own consulting firm and became a consultant for the Liberty Square Group, the firm that handles public relations for the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe and their bid to open a casino in Middleboro.
Of course, that’s that fact which will be on everyone’s minds if Yunits gets the job. Although Amy Lambiaso, senior vice president for Liberty Square, says that Yunits has not been involved in anything relating to either Middleboro nor the casino, it will be hard for him to shake the perception that he’s just one more way that the tribe is taking control of all aspects of the town.
Playground survey continued: An old-school option
Posted on April 24, 2008 by dseiffert
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This Monday, the second stop on a brief playground tour of Brockton was O’Donnell Playground at the corner or Centre (Rt. 123) and Manchester streets, across from the cemetery. Here we found one that harks back to those of decades ago: all metal, slightly rusted structures including a giant spider, tall monkey bars, a truck-shaped thingy, really high swings, and the only set of seesaws I have seen yet in this state:
This is the kind of playground which will probably get ripped down someday once somebody realized it’s a potential lawsuit. And it did indeed make me a little nervous to see my 4-year-old (who has not yet learned the concept of fear) climbing up high on metal bars. But I have to admit, it was fun to see the style of playground I grew up with. Definitely good, especially for older kids, as long as no one reports its existance to the city law department. (FYI, across a baseball field, there is a more modern structure, dated 1998, which is good for younger kids).
I’d rate this one a five on a 1-to-10 scale — while the structures were fun, there is no shade so it’s not the kind of place you can spend an afternoon.
Where’s your favorite playground in Brockton? Respond to this post and let me know as we continue our occassional series on Brockton’s playgrounds. Below is a map to O’Donnell Playground in Brockton.
BrockBlog’s first annual playground survey
Posted on April 22, 2008 by dseiffert
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Warm weather is here, and for parents with kids ages 2 to 12, that means it’s playground season again. On Monday, Patriot’s Day, my 4-year-old son and I went on a tour of Brockton’s playgrounds to determine what’s the best playground in the City of Champions. Truth be told, we only lasted through two this first outing, but we hope to visit all of them in coming weeks, and invite blog participants to let us know where they all are so we can report back on how they compare.
We began at the one at Harold Bent Park near the corner of Ash and West Elm streets, a fairly new one built in a single day last year using money from Build-A-Bear, expertise from playground company KaBOOM and children’s drawings from the Boys and Girls Club. It was a trip (literally). Off to one side were the remnants of an obviously older playground, with a real metal slide (the kind you burn your legs on when wearing shorts) and really high swings (my son injured himself there within a few minutes).
But the new part made it all worthwhile: The best rock-climbing wall I’ve seen (for free) in the area, a couple slides, a half-dome (sadly, only about four feet tall), a little telescope for spying on enemies and a thingy called the “GroundZero U-Bounce” which you’ll just have to see for yourself. On a nearby blacktop area were markings for four-square, hopscotch and basketball. Exhausted parents, meanwhile, could sit and enjoy a shaded pavilion. My son and I made a day of it, bringing a peanut butter and Fluff picnic. It was a great way to burn off that springtime energy so as to let the kid fall asleep a little easier later that night.
All told, Harold Bent Park rated a 7 on a scale of 1 to 10 — above average, for sure, but missing those key components which have since been deemed “unsafe,” like see-saws and merry-go-rounds. For those people like me who miss the “dangerous” style, metal playgounds, watch this blog for upcoming reports, including where in Brockton one can find real see-saws! I promise I’ll let you know withing a couple days.
Do you know of a great place to play in the city? Share it with the rest of us by leaving a comment on this blog. Below is a map to the Harold Bent Playground.
A new face of Catholic education in Brockton
Posted on April 18, 2008 by dseiffert
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The frenzy around Pope Benedict’s first visit to the United States has turned widespread attention toward the changing times in the Catholic church (when was the last time you heard the pope mention the priest sex abuse scandal as many times as Benedict has since he arrived? Or seen so many headlines using both the words “pope” and “sex” in the same sentence?)
Interesting to note a story recently broadcast on WBUR FM 90.9 about changes in Catholic education under the so called 2010 Initiative which is making schools like Trinity Catholic Academy in Brockton look ever more like public schools. According to the text of the broadcast, the three-year-old initiative “changes the parochial school management model from oversight by the parish priest and the Archdiocese to seasoned educators.” In Brockton, former deputy superintendent of Brockton public schools Anthony Luizzi is the new regional director for Trinity, and he says, “If this change movement did not occur these schools would have eventually fallen off the vine, they were withering as many Catholic schools are because they can’t keep up the finances.”
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