Al fresco pairs well with Europe’s narrow streets. Why not here?
As a nearly 20-year resident of the North End, I was pleased to see the Globe’s appeal for a better approach to outdoor dining in our neighborhood (“Fairness demands a better solution to North End outdoor dining,” Editorial, March 3). We live in the North End for its history, its friendly culture, its proximity to Boston Harbor, its “walk score,” and, of course, its food. Of all places in the city, this is where we should make outdoor dining work successfully, as has been done in many other great cities with narrow streets and tight urban spaces, such as Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Paris, and Florence. Can we not learn from their experience to create something really wonderful here?
Bud Ris
Boston
The writer is chairman of Boston Harbor Now and senior adviser to the Boston Green Ribbon Commission. The views expressed here are his own.
What about the quality of life for the neighborhood’s residents?
The Globe boosts on-street outdoor dining in the North End. As a 33-year resident of the neighborhood, I can say that this would make the North End’s bottlenecks utter chaos. Goodbye to a historic enclave. Forget the special qualities of the Freedom Trail.
The editorial fails to mention that the North End is home to about 10,000 residents. Is their quality of life of no interest? Making accommodations to restaurants during the coronavirus pandemic has turned the neighborhood’s main streets into a mess. Narrow streets where cars used to park were packed with tables and chairs, sidewalks filled with serving tables, waiters scrambling back and forth, pedestrians forced off sidewalks, crowds blocking paths, barriers all around, traffic jams, lines outside restaurants, late-night noise. City regulations, such as they were, were a joke.
The editorial briefly mentions that the North End has about 95 restaurants that would be affected by the city’s virtual ban on outdoor dining in the neighborhood. In addition, there are eateries that do not have pouring licenses. The North End’s one-third square-mile area may be among the most restaurant-dense residential neighborhoods in New England. These places thrived long before the COVID-19-related street dining concession.
In 2016 I wrote a commentary in our local newsletter, NorthEndWaterfront.com, in which I already feared a tipping point for the neighborhood. I concluded by paraphrasing Yogi Berra’s famous line “Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.” Restaurateurs, city tourism officials, elected leaders, and the Globe editorial board should think twice about killing the golden goose.
Robert Skole
Boston
What does the mayor have against the North End?
Thank you for your March 3 editorial regarding outdoor dining in the North End.
Many of us agree with the editorial’s suggestion that Mayor Michelle Wu has been discriminating against the neighborhood and its many restaurateurs. The city took in a total of hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees from North End restaurateurs last year, with Hanover Street limited to one-way traffic. If the mayor must collect such outrageous fees from the neighborhood, then what is wrong with doing that again this season?
Why is the mayor finding fault with this, and only this, section of town? Wu needs to rethink the new policy for the coming season — and maybe acknowledge that she is signaling bias against the North End by treating it unfairly. She should extend this iconic neighborhood the same courtesy she extends to the rest of the city when it comes to outdoor dining. Enough is enough.
Laurel A. Florio
Boston
The writer lives part of the year in Roswell, Ga.
It’s not hard to picture the trouble ahead
If you look closely at the photo of Hanover Street that ran online with the editorial “Fairness demands a better solution to North End outdoor dining,” in which the Globe advocated for on-street dining in the North End, here’s what you’ll see: a family and its two small children, avoiding the crush of humanity funneled into the sidewalk seating areas, forced to walk into the street beyond the jersey barriers. Behind them, a commercial van attempts to maneuver around a parked FedEx truck blocking one of the two vehicle lanes.
A picture is worth 1,000 editorials.
Thomas F. SchiavonI
Boston
The writer is a 48-year North End resident.