The Littlest Bar

Monday, October 13, 2008

Making way for progress, The Abbey Group's luxury condominiums at 45 Province St., The Littlest Bar closed just over two years ago.

But it'll be back this month. On Broad Street, near The Times Irish Pub & Restaurant, owned by Frank Delaney.

"We'll open up for Halloween, hell or high water," said Delaney, who is now partners with Paddy Grace, owner of The Littlest Bar for more than 15 years. The two sat at a booth in The Times recently, as interior work continued a couple of doors away.

The Littlest Bar, in business going back to World War II, had about 20 seats in the below-grade, former shoeshine shop location it occupied on historic Province Street, near the Restaurant Marliave, which had been closed but reopened on Aug. 15.

"We used to get 120 in the other place," said Grace, studying the newly issued liquor license.

"Now we can do it legally," said Frank.

Yes. the new version will be more spacious.

The old bar had two beers on draft. "We'll have 10 drafts," said Grace.

There were negotiations about the bar staying in some form at the fancy new condos, but nothing materialized.

The Times is doing well. A local society magazine showed the outdoor space packed for business on one recent night. The building -- part of it razed for the Central Artery highway in the '50s -- is now right on the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway.

Rory Delaney snoozed by the booth in her stroller, as The Littlest Bar owners schemed to get its doors open for business.

She's four months old. "That's the littlest bartender," said Delaney.





WalkBoston's John McQueen in front of The Littlest Bar



MAYOR'S TASK FORCE

With a successful Greenway gala and a well-attended inauguration day under its belt, the Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy moves ahead to look after and ensure the success of the city's new corridor of parks.

Less certain is the fate of the Mayor's Central Artery Completion Task Force, which for almost a decade committed itself to contributing public input to the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority and the parks' designers, with a goal of making them the best they could be.

It was an informal group of about three dozen people, unpaid of course, who gathered scores of times -- some of the members hundreds of times -- on Thursday mornings to envision and shape the future.

They gathered again last week, perhaps for the last time, to celebrate success. There's an advisory group called for in the legislation that secured the existence of and funding for the Greenway conservancy, but it's still unclear whether the task force will morph into that advisory group, or what form it will take.

Rob Tuchmann, the indefatigable cochairman (effectively the chairman) of the task force, told the group gathered for wine and beer and excellent cheeses at Wilmer Hale (his day job) that the group had started out with two goals.

One had been to create an organization that woke up every morning thinking about nothing other than the Greenway for which it was responsible. The other was "to coordinate creation of parks that were going to reflect the interests of the neighborhoods and communities that were going to use them."

Job largely accomplished, he said.

"I think we have some wonderful parks, in the North End and Chinatown," Tuchmann said, from the 26th floor of 60 State St. As the sun began to cast long shadows, everybody had a great bird's-eye view of the North End parks and some blocks of the Greenway to the south, including part of the Wharf District.

"We can all quibble now whether the Wharf District parks are as good as they should be," Tuchmann said, repeating a common assessment among the group.

"But we created the infrastructure for what can become a new Commonwealth Mall. We should be pleased and proud of what we accomplished."

Tuchmann thanked Mayor Menino, who stopped by the party, "for having created this entity."

The fading history of the task force is that then-Turnpike chairman Jim Kerasiotes, who was taking flak for not getting the parks in production, ordered a master-planning process be started. Not to be outdone, or allow the city to be usurped, Menino responded by creating the task force.

It ended up having enormously more influence in shaping the Greenway than did the bland master plan. But it had smart and independent members on it, and before long it parted with the mayor on key issues -- such as whether creation of a trust was a good method for ensuring the Greenway's success.

"We knew when you appointed us you didn't want us to be 'yes' men," said Tuchmann.

"You weren't," said Menino.

Despite lots of city and state political support, that trust idea went down in flames, and Sen. Edward Kennedy and his family and allies whipped the conservancy idea up just before the Democrats came to town for the 2004 convention.

So, reminiscing high above the city's new green and public space were:

Tuchmann and Menino and Genie Beal, Skip McCormack, and former Globie Bob Turner.

And Larry Rosenbloom, the knowledgeable Anne Fanton, Chris and Blanca Fincham, Anne Hershfang, conservancy chief Nancy Brennan, Suzanne Lavoie, and Tom Powers, Sy Mintz, David Seeley, the BRA's Dick Garver and Kairos Shen and John Palmieri, Vivien Li, city parks' Toni Pollack, the state's Dierdre Buckley, Erik Lund, Nancy Caruso, Valerie Burns, Camilla Chavez, John McQueen, Dan Wilson, Patrice Todesco, and some we surely failed to jot down.

Tuchmann recalled a number who contributed but weren't present: Peter Meade, Jim Hunt, Jeff Mullan, Bennet Heart, Rick Dimino, Bob O'Brien, Beatrice Nessen, Julie Meservy, Rebecca Barnes, Jim Rooney, Fred Yalouris, Stephanie Fan, Ed Toomey, Sarah Peskin, Bill Tuttle, Steve Hines, Mark Maloney, Wendy Landman, Shirley Kressel, and J.P. Shadley.

We remembered Anne Lusk, who hammered the task force to make room for power walkers and bicyclists on the strip, for their health benefits.

Tuchmann mentioned the eloquent historians, who urged that the city's rich maritime history be reflected in the Greenway -- which, after all, was largely the location of the water's edge itself in many places when Boston was being settled.

"The dream of open space in the middle of the city has been realized," said Menino. "We won't realize the beauty of this Greenway for a couple of years."



North End's Nancy Caruso and Chairman Rob Tuchmann



GREEN IS GOOD

Developer Ron Druker of The Druker Company, Ltd. sent us a nicely designed card announcing that his Atelier|505 condominiums in the South End have won the award for excellence for 2008 from the Urban Land Institute.

Like Druker's The Heritage on The Garden residences in 1996, Atelier was recognized for financial viability, resourceful use of land, design, relevance to contemporary issues and sensitivity for the community and environment.

Atelier was one of 10 recipients in North America for this year.



THE MORE THINGS CHANGE

We were researching some old newspapers from the postwar years, and on Aug. 17, 1948, The Boston Herald carried this banner headline: Babe Ruth, Greatest Hitter of Baseball, Beloved by Millions, Dies of Cancer.

Under that was another banner: TRUMAN SIGNS CREDIT CURB.

News of the Babe's death at 53 dominated the front page. It was a shock to most people, who back in the day didn't have (the curse of?) 24/7 information about everything.

On the left of the page, an article elaborated on the country's economic troubles, and President Truman's response: CHARGES GOP LEADERS LET RICH BENEFIT.