Tag: Beacon Hill Civic Association

  • For 60 Years, Hill House Remains a Hub of Beacon Hill

    Several families engage their children in athletic programs, such as indoor tennis, during the winter. Photo by Ryan Owens.

    Little footsteps patter across the hardwood floor, while instructors and volunteers attempt to get everyone in line. Toddlers yell with excitement, interrupted by the occasional anxious cry-turned-laughter.

    This is the regular symphony at Hill House, a nonprofit Beacon Hill community center that serves families throughout the downtown Boston area. Founded in 1966, Hill House – whose slogan is “Your backyard in the city” – has been providing families, particularly their children, with physical and intellectual enrichment through a variety of activities and weekly programs.

    “We were founded 60 years ago by the Beacon Hill Civic Association,” said the center’s chief executive officer, Katherine Snider.

    The association was a group of families concerned about their neighbors moving to the suburbs and abandoning downtown.

    “This group of parents said, ‘How are we going to make Boston more livable for families? What do we need to do?’” Snider explained.

    Hill House began at 74 Joy St., but the demand and needs from families continued to grow. The organization later expanded to 127 Mount Vernon St, a former firehouse near the Boston Public Garden where the main operations currently take place.

    Former Boston Mayor Thomas Menino sold the building to Hill House for a single dollar, and a group of families came together to have the former firehouse undertake the necessary renovations to make it safe for children.

    Jamie Kelly, programs director, said Hill House provides an opportunity for her to pursue a lifelong passion.

    “I have always enjoyed working with children, and I thought I would be a teacher at one point,” Kelly said. “Then I was looking to relocate to Boston, and Hill House is just an outstanding organization that really drew me in.”

    “I realized that there’s so much that I can learn and so much that I can give, and it’s been that way ever since,” Kelly said.

    Diana Fabbrucci, a South End parent of two and recent board member, said Hill House gives her ease of mind that her children will be in good hands.

    “I’m a very overprotective parent,” Fabbrucci said.  “[Hill House] is a safe place. There are no other adults in the building. That …makes me feel really comfortable.”

    From ninja warrior training to painting and from Dungeons and Dragons games to cooking, HIll House offers an array of programs and activities six days a week.

    Most of HIll House’s programs are designed for younger participants, particularly those anywhere between age 3 and 12. However, there are also programs targeting seniors and other groups, such as expecting and new mothers.

    Hill House has thrived through multiple generations. People who start as children become volunteers and then parents who bring their children to Hill House to engage in the same community that they once did. It’s “my community,’’ Fabbrucci explained.

    “I feel like I am part of the organization because I’m so invested and my kids are doing so many of their programs,” Fabbrucci said.

    People who use the center grow up familiar with Hill House’s mantra – give back to the community.

    “It’s a partnership,” Kelly said. “It’s families turning to us for something…and then they’re on our soccer field next week.”

    “A lot of families that will be part of those programs have lots of means,” Fabbrucci said. “They will be part of the programs, but they also will contribute to Hill House so that they can make programming accessible for everyone.”

    Hill House offers a scholarship fund for individual families and people from underserved communities, the officials said. It also promotes volunteer opportunities on its website.

    Snider said the center’s next focus will be on locating space to facilitate new programs and finding capital supporters to fund the project and maintain the buildings.

    On a recent day this month, several parents and children took refuge from the cold to test their swings in indoor tennis.

    In another area of the building, other children could be seen huddling with an instructor as they tapped into their artistic abilities, such as sketching, painting and crafting.

    Fabbrucci said that being at the Hill House is a “wonderful feeling.”

    “I’d hope it lasts for another 60 years,” Fabbrucci said of the center.

  • Beacon Hill Blows Up on Social Media with Halloween Decor, Draws Crowds

    On Beacon Hill, Halloween isn’t just a holiday — it’s a neighborhood-wide transformation. Cobblestone streets lined with gas lamps and historic brownstones are overtaken by ghosts, cobwebs and devilish inventions that turn The Hill into one of Boston’s most photographed spectacles.

    This year, Beacon Hill’s Halloween extravaganza has exploded on social media, turning the neighborhood into a pre-Halloween pilgrimage site for hoards of visitors – and that’s before the first trick-or-treater ever rings a doorbell.

    “It’s really become a tourist attraction,” said one resident on Mt. Vernon St., as he squeezed through a cluster of children blocking the gate to his house. “‘I’ve never seen it quite like this before.”

    It’s no surprise his yard is attracting some attention, given the three 12-foot skeletons that have taken residence among the hydrangeas, stirring a mysterious potion around a raised cauldron, their glowing eyes blinking beneath wigs and pointed black hats.

    Tracy Darabaris came all the way from Pepperell, Massachusetts, just to photograph the annual display. She’s returned each October since she stumbled across the neighborhood on Instagram a few years ago.

    The neighborhood’s profile leveled-up this year after being featured on widely circulated pages such as Boston.Com, Boston Design Guide and BucketListBoston.

    Given the chaos of current events and her hectic day job at a doctor’s office, Darabaris said capturing the neighborhood’s fun and creativity was a welcome escape. “It’s a great stress reliever,” she said.

    She stopped to photograph a home that has attracted attention on social media platforms for its whimsical take on the holiday.

    “I can’t believe what these people have done,” she said, gesturing to an army of golden skeletons hanging from trees, lampposts, and climbing up a brick facade with the aid of an ornate pulley system. “They must have hired someone.”

    Darabaris is on the money. While there is no official competition in the neighborhood, some residents go the lengths of hiring professional designers to outdo one another.

    Aaron Wight and his crew from Parterre are crouched below the gargantuan witches of Mt. Vernon St., adding finishing touches before moving on to transform a nearby home into a scene from Starwars. He said the project will be their most elaborate yet.

    Wight said word has spread that their company, a gardening service, started offering seasonal installations. This year he’s worked on five houses in the Beacon Hill area, with quotes ranging from $5,000 to as much as $20,000.

    “It just gets crazier and crazier every year,” he said.

    Wight said his team feels like “small celebrities” when they work, drawing curious neighbors, amateur photographers, and tourists who marvel at the displays in languages from around the world.

    An anthropologist from England, Anastasia Piliavsky, is visiting her mother in Boston. They were paying respects to her father’s grave when they came across Beacon Hill. Having never seen the neighborhood around Halloween before, they were in for a bit of a shock. 

    “I’m surprised by the ostentation,” said Piliavsky. “Beacon Hill is a place of old money and reserve and elegance and this is the kind of thing I imagine they must have resisted for a while.”

    On the contrary, residents embrace the occasionally quirky, intentionally excessive decorating tradition that has been an element of Beacon Hill’s identity for decades.

    “People go all in,” said longtime resident Lisa Mullan Perkins. “It’s way bigger than Christmas around here.”

    Exploring a different theme each year, from Barbie to the Boston Celtics, Mullan Perkins’ home stands out from the usual assembly of witches and skeletons. This year she followed her kids’’ requests for something spookier, riffing on what she sees as “the scariest thing on Beacon Hill” – the Boston rat.

    An inflatable rodent twice her height with glowing red eyes greets passersby in her driveway. Her entryway is covered in tiny toy rodents, toothy cutouts, and a desiccated rubber rat carcass hanging by its tail on her door.

    Mullan Perkins is cooking dinner for her kids, in a baseball cap that reads, “rat exterminator.” While a pot boils away on the stove, she says the family has had to replace their entire car twice on account of rodents chewing through the wires.

    “We don’t welcome them, we don’t want them here,” she said, but “on Halloween, you put all sorts of things you’re scared of outside your house.”

    While she’s wishing the worst for her furry, beady eyed neighbors this holiday, Perkins said she will be welcoming the costumed throngs of candy seekers on Friday.

    “It’s insane,” she said. “There’ll be thousands of trick-or-treaters.” Sitting in her foyer is over $1,000 worth of Halloween candy. She predicts she’ll run out by 8 p.m.

    With Halloween landing on a Friday night this year, the Beacon Hill Civic Association is expecting a record-breaking turnout. Neighborhood streets will be blocked by police barricades as usual,  with roads from Charles Street to Joy Street closing from 4 to 7:30 pm.

    “I just love how our neighborhood really welcomes people from all walks of life,” said Mullan Perkins. “It’s just a very friendly, open time.”

    She said she’s even seen former U.S. State Senator and presidential candidate John Kerry handing out candy on his Lewisburg square doorstep just like everyone else.

  • Rats! Boston Battles Rising Rodent Population in Beacon Hill

    Diego Osorno, executive chef at a Beacon Hill restaurant, The Paramount, says he isn’t afraid of anything, but the countless rats he’s seen scurrying throughout Beacon Hill are starting to get on his nerves. 

    The rats don’t seem to be afraid of anything either. 

    “They’re not scared of people anymore,” he said. When he goes out to the back stoop for a cigarette, he said his presence doesn’t deter the dusty brown Norway rats from racing to and fro in front of him, even during the day.

    Rats may have resided in Boston since the 1700s but it has only been a year since Mayor Michelle Wu launched the Boston Rodent Action Plan (BRAP), a cross-departmental effort to track and measurably decrease the rat population. 

    Now the plan is beginning to roll out in Beacon Hill, which is designated as a priority neighborhood due to its high call volume of rodent-related complaints.

    “Citywide data suggests the population is on the rise, which is why this coordinated, cross-departmental effort from the city is so important,” Councilor Sharon Durkan said in a recent statement.  

    Since BRAP’s launch in the summer of 2024, Boston’s Inspectional Services Department has responded to at least 2,639 rodent-related 311 calls.

    What prompts all the calls? The answer may not surprise anyone who’s lived in a big city. In addition to warming climates and rats’ rapid breeding rate, the city’s rodent report, written in coordination with New York City’s renowned rodentologist Bobby Corrigan, narrows in on one key factor: food waste. 

    “Improperly stored trash, overflowing barrels, and open bags create a buffet for rodents,” said Durkan. 

    Due to its density, aging infrastructure, and limited alley access, city officials say waste management poses a greater challenge in Beacon Hill than in other neighborhoods.

    “We do not have trash cans because people don’t have a driveway or garage to store them,” said Patricia Tully, executive director of the Beacon Hill Civic Association. 

    Monday and Friday are trash days in Beacon Hill. The afternoon before, many residents put their rubbish on the street in plastic bags, where it is vulnerable to overnight rat rampages until trash pickup the next day. 

    Tully said the ideal solution, if not the practical one, is for residents to separate their food waste and drop it off at one of two compost centers near Beacon Hill. Otherwise, she urges residents to put their trash out as close to pickup time as possible, although she said getting up before 6am to take out the trash is a tall order, especially in the winter months.

    “The Civic Association has always hoped to change the trash pickup time,” Tully said.

    To address the issue, Durkan sponsored a public hearing at City Hall to hear resident testimony and explore the possibility of same-day put-out and pickup of residential waste and sealed bins for commercial trash. 

    One strategy underway began as a suggestion from a Beacon Hill resident, Durkan said. Working with Beacon Hill’s tree warden to ensure greenery remains healthy in the process, the pilot program layers a wire mesh fabric on tree beds to prevent rats from entering and burrowing. 

    Over the past year, Durkan said she has also partnered with the Beacon Hill Civic Association and the city’s neighborhood services to walk Charles Street and survey missing bricks, which have nearly all been fixed. The team is also working with the city to eliminate every documented rat nest. 

    John Ulrich, assistant commissioner of the inspections department, said the city’s campaign to control rats has recently finished collecting baseline data on rodent activity using new technologies such as sewer traps. While the project is at too early a stage to draw conclusions, he said the coordination of all city departments on rat mitigation is “promising.”

    “This is a quality-of-life issue,” Ulrich said. “Rats cause damage to infrastructure, tree beds. They live in our sewers and burrow in breaches in the sewer lines.”

    “Their teeth constantly grow, so they’re gonna constantly chew,” he said, explaining that adult rat teeth never stop growing, an adaptation that once allowed them to gnaw through nuts and roots in the wild, but now allows them to chew through electrical wires and damage  vehicles. 

    In addition to their supernatural teeth, rats can be difficult to manage due to their prolific breeding abilities. According to a Facebook post the inspections department made as part of a public awareness campaign, “A single pair of rats can produce up to 2,000 offspring in just one year.” 

    Beyond physical damage, Durkan said there’s an “ick” factor that influences how people feel about their neighborhood. “If residents regularly see rats running across sidewalks or near their homes,” she said, “it takes away from the sense of cleanliness.” 

    Durkan said the city will continue to do its part, but it’s important residents stay vigilant in eliminating food sources for rodents. She recommends the use of heavy-duty trash bags if people do not have space for closed-top bins, and putting out trash as close to the collection time as possible. Refraining from feeding birds and cleaning up dog waste is also critical, she said. 

    “With everyone working together, including residents and community groups,” she said, “I’m confident we’re moving in the right direction.” 

    Rodent activity can be reported to 311.