An intense game of jump rope at Conway Park. There is no date on the photo but I would place this in the early eighties.
A Poem for the Friends of the Somerville Public Library on the Weekend of their book sale.
The Desk Attendant
See the gleeful Desk Attendants ever dealing While they can
The un-inspected canned beef of the intellect of man;
Dealing out the brains of sages and the poet’s heart divine
(Receiving for said poet’s heart ofttimes a two-cent fine);
Serene amid the tumult for new novels manifold, —
For new novels out this afternoon but thirty minutes old;—
Calm and cool amid the tumult see the Desk Attendant stand
With contentment on her features and a date stamp in her hand.
As they feed beasts at the circus to appease their hungering rage,
So she throws this man a poets and she drops that man a sage,
And her wild beasts growl in fury when they do not like her meat,__
When the sage is tough and fibrous and the bard not over-sweet:
And some retire in frenzy, lashing wrathfully about,
When the intellecutal spare-rib that they most affect is out.
But she feeds ‘em, and she leads ‘em and beguiles ‘em with sweet guile,
And wounds ‘em with her two-cent fine and heals ‘em with her smile.
Oh, the gleesome Desk Attendant — who shall estimate her glee?
Get some mightier — ‘tis a theme two big for me!
Sam Walter Foss “The Song of The Librarian”
95 years later, we want you to keep chickens, too. We want you to keep chickens so badly that we have passed the first Urban Agriculture Ordinance in the Northeast. AND, as if that is not enough, we even made a video for you to watch when you come get your permit.
Have a look:
“C” is for Chicken: Chicken Keeping in Somerville, MA
You can find all the rules and helpful tips for all urban ag practices in the easy-to-understand document: The ABC’s of Urban Agriculture in SomervilleThank you to SomervilleArchives for the fantastic photo!
What’s old is new again!
This photo was donated to the fire department, who kindly lent the archives copies. Unfotunately we do not have a lot of information about it. When dating photographs an archivist uses clues like the format of the film, or the printing of the image to help date the photo, as well as the image itself, but this image was donated on a disc.
We know the image was from Engine One in Somerville.
Any guesses on a date?
In 1913, at the end of April, Somerville experienced two serious fires that changed fire regulations. Both fires took place in hay and grain storage buildings. The first was on Friday at Alpine and Cedar. The second fire happened in Union Square on Sunday afternoon.
Click on the newspaper clippings to read more.
