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Acts of kindness and humor

Last week’s election produced fear and despair among most Massachusetts voters, who went for Hillary two to one.

But amidst the misery, some lightheartedness, humanity and kindness showed through.

Alecia told me making marijuana legal in Massachusetts was the best thing that happened on election day. “Anything to alter one’s state of mind for the next four years is an act of kindness in my book,” she said.

A friend whose son is living abroad told the story of his going to lunch in France on the day after the election. He had a grilled cheese and a beer. The waiter asked if he was American. When he acknowledged that he was, the waiter said, “I’m so sorry. Lunch is on me.”

Londoners are also sympathetic. Katharine wore a “I’m with Her” button as she bought an Oyster card. The dark-skinned London Transport man helping her said, “I’m so sorry. I love America. I’m sad for you.”

Rumor has it that the Boston Barber & Tattoo shop on Salem Street in the North End offered free Trump face profiles and “Make America Great” tattoos on the day after the election. This caused a ruckus, and they apparently had to close. It is unclear if they meant this to be funny, but it is. A Trump tattoo?

A Beacon Hill resident named Sharon wrote a piece entitled, “The United States Elects its First Clown as President.” The article begins: “As a continuation of the creepy clown phenomenon that swept the country this past Halloween, American voters last night elected the nation’s first clown to the oval office.  When asked to decide between a woman and a clown, there was no denying the huge turn out of white voters from America’s hinterlands of their choice.”

In the second paragraph, she reported that the British were relieved at the news of Trump’s victory. “Now the U.S. can take over the mantle of being the number one laughing stock in the world. We really took it on the bloody chin these past few months with BREXIT. It’s time England got its mojo back.”

I went to lunch in Harvard Square the day after the election. We ate 50-cent oysters in front of a fire. In the small restaurant were three white people, two black women, two Asian grad students, one Indian grad student and a female professor with a thick accent but uncertain lineage. Everyone was having a fine time. Mercifully, in this state we live harmoniously most of the time with everyone.

Two acts of kindness occurred on election day itself. The first was when Bostonians and those in 10 other communities voted overwhelmingly to impose a tax,—small, but nevertheless—on themselves to help fund affordable housing, open space and historic preservation. The second was when Massachusetts voters approved banning some regrettable farm animal practices. Voters decided that animals raised for food should be treated well even if it costs more.

The hardest thing, said parents, is explaining to children why a man who makes fun of people with a disability and uses bad words the children aren’t allowed to use has become the leader of our land.

One father, however, Kevin Maroni of Boston, wrote a thoughtful, encouraging message to his three children: “We have to have faith in America. This country was founded to be more than any individual person, and to have checks and balances which promote our founding concept —out of many, one.

“This is, for all of us, a shocking outcome. It is a good lesson in making assumptions and taking things for granted, since so much of our information was wrong (and possibly based on wishful thinking). It is a good lesson that you have to see the world as it is, and not as you hope it is.

“Ultimately, each of us now has to take on the only title more important than president: citizen. We have to be kind to those less fortunate, we have to be tolerant of difference, and we have to build the country we love.

“In life, it is normally never as bad as you think it is…..or as good as you think it is. Life ultimately rewards how resilient we are and how well we react, more than planning.

“You children are getting older, and America will be what you make it. Remember that. That each of us can make a difference and everyone should try. So with an election we didn’t support, let’s go forward making sure we try.

“Love you.  God Bless America.”

Amen.

A modest proposal

The noise is always a surprise. Your cab stops in the street to let you out. The driver can’t pull over because parked cars line both sides of the narrow street. A short time passes while you pay and get ready to climb out.

Before you have time to count out the money for the driver or swipe your credit card, the guy in the SUV behind you lays on his horn. With him, it’s me first, all the time. Who are you to stop in front of him? Who do you think you are to delay his trip?

You know who you are because you live here. You know that streets must be shared. This means sometimes we have to wait, and we usually do it willingly because we understand the situation.

The guy laying on his horn in his gas guzzler is probably from the suburbs and doesn’t know how to behave in a city, you think. That’s the most insulting thing—being from a suburb, the “S” word—that long-time city dwellers can think of. It’s obvious because we know in the city, we must share all kinds of things, including time on the streets.

But there has been good news recently on the sharing front, on the behavior that says, “not just me first, but everyone that is in this with me.”

Take the World’s Greatest University, as a Boston Globe writer used to call it and others still do. A couple of weeks ago Harvard said yes to its dining hall workers, agreeing that all should make at least $35,000 a year, that their health care costs will not go up and that the university will provide compensation for workers laid off in the summer months when fewer students need a dining hall. Whew.

Perhaps Harvard capitulated to its dining hall workers because it looked in its heart and saw it was the right thing to do. It is also possible that it couldn’t take the criticism after the world learned that its portfolio managers were earning from $5 million to $8 million a year for performances well under those of their counterparts at other wealthy universities. Whatever the reason, Harvard shared.

The MBTA isn’t doing so well at sharing. Janitors at its stations have faced reduced hours, which not only means lower pay but also reduced health and other benefits. Privatization may reduce costs for government, but it can also end up making life miserable for employees.

I’m not defending the MBTA’s counting house privatization, since it seems as if workers there were not up to the job. But the janitors seemed to be doing their jobs just fine.

When we cut spending, does it have to be on those most vulnerable? What if we simply took a lesson from Harvard and shared more?

For example, that playspaces on the Esplanade are beautiful. The Esplanade Association and other local people raised the money to have those places built, and they were sorely needed. Good for them.

Wouldn’t it have been nice, however, if, as they raised funds for the Esplanade, they also raised funds for a playground in some park in the DCR system that is not surrounded by wealthy residents who can build their own playgrounds?

The Friends of the Public Garden could also afford to share. They have done a superb job of supplementing the city’s efforts to keep the Common, the Public Garden and the Commonwealth Avenue Mall in fine shape. They are a lovable organization. Taking care of other parks is not their mission. A newer organization, the Friends of Christopher Columbus Park, is also a lovable, successful organization that has become good at raising funds and caring for a park.

But there are 157 park friends’ groups and 331 public green spaces in Boston, according to parks spokesman Ryan Woods. What if the more successful friends groups partnered with a friends’ group with fewer resources? It might be in work days. It might be sharing funds. If contributors knew their checks would be going, not only to the park next door to them but also to a needier Boston park, it might increase fund-raising for the more successful friends’ groups. Some people probably don’t write the biggest check they could, figuring that downtown friends’ groups have many resources already.

The idea of pairing an entity with more resources with one with lesser came from a series of meetings a couple of years ago with local parents who were trying, still unsuccessfully, to get a new school for downtown kids.

They seemed excited about mixing it up with kids of all races, ethnic origins and income levels. They asked, why not pair a successful school with an unsuccessful one and see if the two together could make headway in giving all children a fine education? They were ready to give it a chance, putting kids together and busing them between schools because they thought that kind of busing would be worth it. So far nothing has happened.

This could be Pollyanna talking. But after today, when this hate-filled election will be over, we should reach for something more, something that speaks to our better selves. Sharing is a good place to start.

Thanks, Donald, for the big reveal

One good thing Donald has done for America is that the regrettable frequency of sexual assault is now out in the open, and it’s not just a bunch of drunk college sophomores committing the crimes.

I had read that women were revealing their own experiences with it to their mates and to other women. Then I landed with several women friends I see a two or three times a year. They started talking and talking and talking. I was observing the disclosures first-hand.

At first two themes emerged. One was that the men who had perpetrated these acts were pathetic, creepy creatures, and we suspected they had small “hands.” Another was that the women felt humiliation years after the acts had taken place.

Then one woman described an attempted rape. C. said that a busboy who’d been serving in her college sorority offered to walk her home, and she was happy for the company. But when they got to her place, he pushed her into her room and tried to rape her. Terrified, she could think of only one thing to do—she made herself throw up, all over him.

Disgusted and distracted, he paused, and she was out of there.

That set me to thinking: how many women have been threatened with sexual assault and prevailed? After a unscientific poll of my friends, it turns out that due to luck, height and clever thinking, many have done so.

Take S.’s experience:

“Some years ago, I was living with a large, chocolate point Siamese cat named Harvey and dating a professor from a local university. One evening after dinner at a lovely restaurant, we came back to my apartment for coffee and conversation. We were standing in the hallway leading from the living room to the bedroom when the professor began playfully backing me toward the open door of the bedroom. Before I realized this was not a game, the professor had pinned me down on the bed and was trying to disrobe me. I virtually bellowed my objection to no avail.

“In response, Harvey, issuing his great hoarse Siamese meows, leapt on the prof’s back and clawed him vigorously. Prof ran out the door with Harvey at his heels.”

Another story that may be more common than anyone realized was P.’s. She said her doctor pushed her against the wall as he was leaving the exam room and kissed her on the lips before slipping out the door. She retaliated by getting a new doctor.

Cleverness sometimes helps, although it’s hard to be clever when you are scared.

One woman told of being in grad school when a young teen approached her on the sidewalk. He was tall and skinny with a sweet baby face. She thought he was going to ask for change, but instead he knocked her books to the ground and tried to grope her. Astonished, she asked, “What would your mother say if she knew what you were doing?”

He stood back, looking really scared, and asked, “Do you know my mother?”

She replied, “Of course I do!!”

He disappeared down the street at record speed.

Having a weapon helps. In one tall woman’s case it was her elbows. She was married to a professor. As she came out of the bathroom at a department party, the head of her husband’s department pushed her back in and tried to disrobe her. This woman is about five-eleven, and she made use of her size, elbowing him and fighting him. She managed to get out. He came out soon after, continued having a good time at the party and never seemed embarrassed at subsequent social encounters with her. She wondered if he even remembered. She certainly did.

Another woman described using her door as a weapon. Some years ago a neighbor joined her as she was walking home through the colorful fall leaves in the Back Bay. He helped carry some of her heavy books. At her door, he returned her books and began to grope her. She pushed him away, but he still had one hand on the door frame. So she shut the door on his hand and kept it there, pushing against the door, as he wailed in pain. When she finally let up, he sprinted away. She laughed, then shook and cried.

Unfortunately, other stories of assault were less satisfying because the women could not get away.

The best news, however, is not that predatory men can be vanquished. It’s that so many men are dignified, caring, loving, respectful, and real friends and partners of women. Those kinds are the real men.

Make America Grope Again

First, thank you to my friend Alecia for the title of this column. It’s the sign her daughter’s roommate held at the second presidential candidates’ debate at Washington University in St. Louis.

We have to endure only two more weeks. Then this toxic election will be over. Let’s be clear: there is one sinister person—the orange predator—who has made it toxic. No more false equivalencies.

Friends tell me how they are coping. Some refuse to watch the debates. Others are foregoing newspapers. Some shut off the radio. They never go to Twitter. Others, like the Washington University student, are turning their disgust into great word play.

I have a strategy for getting through. First I explore all the possible names I can call that repellant braggart. Then I collect the ironies. Some are delicious.

For example, a Bush finally prevailed over that dirty old man who’s running for president. It wasn’t Jeb, but Billy, his apparently low-life cousin.

It’s juicy to follow the creepy bully’s sycophantic male hypocrites, who continually remind us about Bill Clinton’s sexual exploits, and in doing so, remind us also of theirs. Here’s a partial list: toady Rudy Giuliani, known for dumping wife two for wife three without telling wife two; repulsive Newt Gingrich, famous for carrying on with a congressional aide while his second wife was in the hospital battling cancer and he was impeaching Bill Clinton for an extra-marital affair. There is rich fodder here.

Poor, clueless Melania. She doesn’t have an ironic bone in her body. Yet she gets pulled out from time to time to undergo humiliation and show us what irony is. She copied Michelle Obama’s words. After her husband’s remarks about his success in “grabbing pussy,” she sported a pussy bow. She traded a good career for a boring life in the Trump Tower ghetto. Just because you’re young and hook up with an old, serial bankruptee doesn’t mean you should be put at risk of plagiarizing a first lady’s words or wearing clothing that emphasizes that bankruptee’s sordid sexual behavior. Melania is not up to the task, and the campaign is cruel to use her.

Locker rooms have also become ironic. How wonderful that the menacing 70-year-old trash talker managed to victimize men as well as women when he chalked up his degrading remarks to the locker room.

Ridiculously, when the slimeball criticizes his opponent, he is actually describing himself. After people suggested a cocaine habit might be causing his snuffles, he said Hillary should have a drug test before the next debate. He has no insight into what his remarks reveal about him. It is so weird.

So many ironies. So little time.

A more serious irony involves Republican dogma for the last 30 years.

What happens when you pass state laws restricting the right to vote, falsely claiming American elections are fraudulent? You get a narcissistic blowhard as a candidate who shouts “rigged” because he’s losing an election.

What happens when you reduce government spending and initiatives? You get a rotting America—bad roads and bridges, declining public universities that bleed students dry, messy health care that can’t be fixed because Congressional leaders would rather see Americans die or go bankrupt instead of giving their fellow citizens an affordable health care system that works.

Americans, you get no paid parental leave, no gun control, no government-subsidized day care, no speedy trains, no affordable colleges and no universal pre-K, unlike the rest of the developed world. Live with it, McConnell and Ryan say, and don’t complain since we are keeping government out of your lives—except, of course, when it involves women, who aren’t smart enough to manage their own reproductive systems. That’s where we’ll let government intrude.

No wonder people want to make America great again. I do too. And we’re groping for ways to do that.

Maybe it has less to do with nostalgia for an America that was more white and more to do with remembering when America dreamed and spent big. We built the interstate highway system, put men on the moon, fueled the fastest-expanding economy ever while the richest paid 90 percent of their income in taxes, declared war on poverty and passed some of the most important civil rights legislation ever. We funded public universities so well that in 1965, when my husband, who had graduated from two of those distinguished public universities, arrived at the law school of the “World’s Greatest University,” we looked around and said, “This is kind of shabby.” Those were the days.

Best of all the ironies will be on November 8 if that insulting, misogynist, blubbery sexual predator loses. A woman will be the one to take him down.

Poligrip Ad: Is This Us?

Some pundits investigate the culture of America though our political system, which shows us as basically nuts.

I prefer advertisements—television advertisements during the 6:30 evening news to be exact. I watch those shows because I expect them to be fairly neutral in coverage. Fox News is out of the question—all those people yelling conspiracy theories at one another leaves me profoundly fatigued. Although I admire Rachel Maddow’s intelligence and humor, she can go too long on one subject, and after the first 15 minutes too many ads make my attention falter.

So the 6:30 news is my choice for television watching and advertisements. This program offers sociological evidence for what companies or their ad agencies think about us, the American people. It also makes you wonder if those companies understand the messages they convey.

For example, they think we’re lazy—too lazy to take four pills a day of ibuprofen, which my friend calls Vitamin I, when one Aleve will do. How hard is it to take four pills? Who knows which one is best?

They think we want to look like zombies. Check out the characters in a Restasis eye drops ad. All the eyes—ghoulish, fish-eyed, creepy—would fit perfectly on aliens from outer space. No way will I ever put Restasis into my eyes. I might come out looking like those people in the ad. This ad claims that people have a “disease” called “dry-eye syndrome.” Maybe some people have irritating eye problems, but doctors say there is a cheaper way to handle it.. Dip a wash cloth into hot water and hold it against your eyes for 20 seconds twice a day. You’ll be amazed.

Advertisers think we like seeing people who are either drunk or on opioids. The disheveled, bleary-eyed Poligrip woman looks like she needs to go into rehab. Poligrip holds false teeth in place. Who has false teeth these days, especially women of the actress’s age? That was a condition, before fluoride, before regular dental care, in which older people’s teeth became so diseased they had to come out.

But this woman looks as if she’s in her fifties, maybe even forties. Are the advertisers thinking that people whose teeth fall out look like that wobbly woman? It’s insulting. There are good reasons some people still need false teeth, but if they look at the woman in the ad, they’ll need more than false teeth.

According to the nightly news, many healthy men are impotent, or at least have low amounts of testosterone. I doubt it. Maybe because of fracking fluids, air-borne chemicals and other polluting factors, men’s sperm count is decreasing. But there is no way the men shown in the ads—handsome, fortyish guys with beautiful women at their side—can’t perform. These, however, are my favorite ads because at least the couples are cuddly, happy and looking forward to a nice activity rather than sporting creepy eyes or a drug-induced look.

And then these companies think we can be hoodwinked over the environment, another indication of how dumb they think the American people are. “Clean” coal—now there’s a curious concept. Urging you to become an “energy voter” because fossil fuels create jobs? Of course, so do wind and solar power, but why bring that up? I guess these advertisers believe you can fool all people enough of the time.

The ad-makers believe Americans have no friends. Otherwise why would a woman named Angie tell us that for a fee we can find out from her list which local plumber or electrician is a good one in our small neighborhoods in Boston? Don’t people have friends? I bet that’s where you get your recommendations.

Some advertisers notice that we’re so stupid that we’ll pay multiples for medicines that cost little if they are in generic form.

Advertisers believe you will help sell their products, because you’re so dumb. They instruct you to ask your doctor. Why would you insult him or her to ask about a pill advertised on television? We’re not that stupid.

The election is bearing down on us. Maybe it will prove that we’re stupid, we don’t have any friends, that most men, except for one overweight 70-year-old, are impotent, that people who need false teeth or eye treatments look like freaks of nature and that we’re too lazy to take four pills instead of one.

I just hope it proves we are still smart, well informed, able to distinguish between right and rot, and not what the advertisers think we are.

A look at the library

Summer has ended. We’re back. The renovations to the 1972 Johnson building at the Central Library are finished. You must see the results. They are scrumptious.

It was the former library president, Amy Ryan, whose experience in other parts of the country helped her envision a happier and more serviceable space in the building named after its architect, Philip Johnson. She initiated a strategic planning effort, consulting with users all over Boston. The result was the Compass Plan, adopted in 2011, that set forth eight principles for a new type of urban library. Those principles guided the renovations. She then oversaw the project from the start to more than halfway finished. The current BPL president, David Leonard, was in on the project from the beginning.

William Rawn’s architecture firm, one of Boston’s best, designed the rebuild. Well-versed city representatives were also involved since Boston’s capital budget provided the $78 million for the construction, which took place in two phases.

I served on the library’s citizens’ advisory committee with other downtown neighbors. I saw plans before the construction started and enjoyed working with the impressive team. I thought I might be biased in judging the outcome. So I asked my friend Sally Hinkle, a librarian trained at Columbia University, to visit the library with me and comment on the renovations.

She loved it. She pointed out that it now looks like a library. Amazing.

As we walked in, we saw another amazing sight—activity. People sit at counters along the newly-revealed windows, playing or studying on their computers. The formerly cavernous, sterile entryway now contains books, all at hand or wheelchair height. Newspapers are near the door. Drop in on your way to work, have a read, and get out quickly. Sally, ever the librarian, picked up a misplaced book and put it back on the shelf in the right place.

No longer must you walk halfway through the building to find the information desk. It is only a few steps from the front door, so you can quickly get directions.

The interiors are warm, colorful and curvy—as different as possible from its predecessor. The cold granite floor has been replaced with extra-durable Hungarian limestone. The ceiling’s repetitive arches of wooden slats embrace the space. Orangey-red comfortable chairs will need cleaning and maintenance, but taking care of them should be worth it. Hard-cover books depicting the Boston skyline adorn one wall.

We visited before the Newsfeed Café and WGBH’s studio opened to the right of the entrance, but we could see that their activity will be visible from all sides. A broadcast studio is a fitting activity to incorporate into a contemporary library, the name of which now signals learning more than just books.

During the design phase I worried that the large entry space would be undifferentiated, with one part oozing into another. But the curves solve that problem, moving visitors through and defining spaces.

The bright, warm, cheerfulness continued—mostly—throughout the other rooms and is clearly attracting a following. The building was full of people. The computer room has expanded, offering 105 computers, twice the number in the old place. Almost every space was occupied. People had taken over most of the orangey chairs upstairs. At tables upstairs, many toiled on their own computers. The atmosphere was quiet but busy, companionable but focused, up-to-date but comfortable.

Sally felt the money had been spent wisely on the most important needs, and she was thrilled at how many people were using the space. “Remember when people said we didn’t need libraries—that we didn’t need books?” she asked, as if she had known the answer for a long time.

A Bay Village resident, Rick Weaver, 23, said he came to the Central Library once or twice a week to get caught up on his accounting work because the surroundings were so nice.

The only jarring note was the one room left from the original design. Deferrari Hall is the square, grey, tall room in the center with the double staircases. It was landmarked by the Boston Landmarks Commission, as was the building itself, who apparently were dazzled by the celebrity of the architect, Philip Johnson. Celebrity, yes. Good architect? A couple of his buildings might be interesting, but this Boston Public Library addition isn’t one of them.

The hall is cold, and the stairs are overwhelming rather than majestic. We noticed people avoided the hall if they could, walking around the outside to get to the elevators rather than crossing through it. Someone had tried to warm up the place with a circle of plants, but it wasn’t working. No one was using the stairs, although some people must. Certainly few will want to get married in Deferrari Hall as they do in the garden next door in the McKim building, but the hall is the architect’s failed attempt to reflect that beautiful space.

The Landmarks Commission did allow the architects to do away with Johnson’s bizarre granite slabs that blocked light and vistas from the first floor windows, which were also replaced. Supposedly these were incorporated because city people were afraid of the street in the 1970s. But I was living here then, and no one I knew was afraid. Instead we occupied those streets.

The building still is a thud on the landscape, but inside it is considerably better than it was. Thank goodness for the vision and leadership that brought this new space into being.

Cities and the art of books

Two things you may not know much about—book arts and sister cities. I had little idea about these activities until friends introduced me, proving true the words, “I get by with a little help from my friends.”

These somewhat obscure subjects are coming together, however, on Friday, October 7, at the French Library. Entitled “The Ex-Libris Exchange,” this exhibit features books designed by 25 artists, thirteen from Boston and twelve from one of Boston’s sister cities, Strasbourg, France. It is sponsored by the Boston/Strasbourg Sister City Association or the BSSCA.

Let’s take book arts first. Artist’s books are growing in popularity with collectors. The Smithsonian and Harvard’s Houghton Library already have interesting collections. But don’t think Crime and Punishment when you think of book arts. Instead imagine beautiful paper, quirky shapes and sizes, inventive bindings, new ways of telling stories and many surprises when you open the book.

A friend of mine in Maine introduced me to these objects because she became a book artist. Her creations tell stories through phrases, lines, fabrics, collages, maps and other media and techniques. When you open one of her books, it might fold out into big shapes. Turn over the book, and it folds out in a different way. The books beg to be handled and manipulated, but that sometimes can’t happen because they are too fragile. Some of the artist’s books in the French Library’s exhibit can be handled, however, adding to your pleasure.

Watertown artist Ann Forbush got the idea for this show when she was in Strasbourg at an earlier artist’s exchange, sponsored by the BSSCA, called Par Avion, in which one artist would create an image, mail it to his or her colleague in the other city who would add to the image, and then they would mail it back and forth until the piece was complete.

While in Strasbourg, Ann and her fellow artists were treated to several behind-the-scenes tours. One visit was to a library with an impressive collection of rare manuscripts.

There Ann saw a journal of the Revolutionary War period in America created by Georg Daniel Flohr who fought with French soldiers in that war and returned home to the area around Strasbourg, which at that time was part of Germany. Rather than a description of military life, his journal presented the daily life of America. Handwritten and lavishly illustrated, it was unique and gorgeous. Ann believed it would inspire present-day Bostonians and Strasbourgians to create their own books. So she and a colleague in Strasbourg got the effort going. Check out http://exlibrisproject.com for a flavor of how varied the responses to one historic artifact can be.

The exhibit includes a facsimile of Flohr’s journal. When the exhibit moves to Strasbourg next spring, the real journal will be on display.

What about sister cities? You may not have realized Boston has ten of them plus three cities with which it has a “partnership relationship.” The BSSCA is the second oldest such alliance in Boston, established in 1960 at the urging of Charles Munch, a Strasbourg native who was then conductor of the Boston Symphony, according to Mary Louise Burke, president of the BSSCA.

Burke said the concept of sister cities was initiated by General Eisenhower at the end of World War II to foster understanding with foreign lands.

Different sister city relationships have different levels of commitment and activity. The Boston/Strasbourg connection is one of the most active, said Burke. Run by volunteers with no office or staff, the BSSCA has sponsored not only artist exchanges, but also exchanges of civic and cultural leaders, musicians, teachers, school kids, fire fighters, chefs and even a curator of wallpaper in partnership with Historic New England. Strasbourg’s cuurent mayor has been to Boston four times, Burke said, and several Boston mayors have visited Strasbourg. “We promote the culture of Alsace [the region of Strasbourg] to enrich Boston residents,” she said.

The organization raises money through dues and a few fund-raising events. One recent party was a “diner en blanc,” in which gourmands dressed in white as the French do to dine at Les Zygomates in the Leather District.

The late deputy mayor under Kevin White, Katharine Kane, was a strong supporter of sister cities, especially the alliance with Strasbourg, and her sister-in-law, Ann Collier, a Back Bay resident fluent in French, was president of BSSCA for 11 years and is still involved as treasurer.

The friendships formed are real and lasting, said Burke. The most moving moment for her was after the Boston Marathon bombings, when Strasbourg sent condolences and followed up with an invitation for a Boston runner to come to Strasbourg to run in its marathon. It also raised more than $15,000 from Strasbourg residents for Boston’s One Fund. Two Strasbourg runners who were unable to finish in 2013 because they were not allowed to proceed past Kenmore Square returned to Boston at the Strasbourg sister city organizations expense to run and finally cross the finish line in the 2016 Boston Marathon.

The exhibit is free and runs through October. The French Library is at 53 Marlborough Street.

Infrastructure. Investment. Interesting.

Throughout the 1990s and into the early 2000s, Boston boldly invested in itself. It cleaned up the harbor, spending $3.8 billion on the Deer Island Treatment Plant alone. It spent from $650 to $850 million, depending on how you count, in state money for the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, said spokesman Nate Little. Fifteen billion dollars of federal and state money went to the CA/T project, aka Big Dig, which buried the Central Artery and created the Ted Williams Tunnel.

These efforts, mostly completed by 2004, have paid off in improving Bostonians’ quality of life. We can swim in Boston Harbor without worrying about the “floatables” that sailed past when a friend of mine finished first in the 1977 Boston Light Swim. While our underground automobile trip through the Financial District is little faster than when we took the overhead road, neighbors no longer have to see or hear the stalled traffic. Instead we can take a beautiful walk through a maturing Greenway. Boston turned around and became the waterfront city it had been and was meant to be

Charlestown gained two lovely parks instead of the overhead tangle where I-93 and I-95 once met in possibly the most difficult intersection ever of two interstate highways. (We taught a daughter to drive by guiding her there from Leverett Circle, theorizing that she’d better know how to drive like a Boston driver.)

North End and Waterfront residents are no longer cut off from the rest of the city by an overhead road. And the rest of the city can now get to those neighborhoods with pleasure.

In anticipation of the Big Dig, utility companies relocated and upgraded underground connections, giving Boston a competitive edge over other older cities, recalls Bob O’Brien, who lived through it all when he served as executive director of the Downtown North Association.

The whole thing has provided an astounding boost to Boston’s economy. The Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, along with the Back Bay’s renovated Hynes, will contribute $750 million in benefits in fiscal 2017, said Little. The BRA calculates that projects approved since 2005 in the Seaport District total more than $6 billion in investment.

I’ve made my own calculations along the Big Dig with O’Brien’s help. In the dozen or so years since public projects were completed, private real estate investment totaling about $15 billion has built buildings or has them under construction or planned around the buried Central Artery. (If you want my list, email me at Karen@bostoncolumn.com, and I’ll send it to you.) That figure includes such projects as the InterContinental Hotel, built around a tunnel vent tower, the proposed Haymarket Hotel, and the condominiums at Boulevard. That project, which adds the phrase, “on the Greenway” to its name and famously incorporates one standing wall from an original Bulfinch building is one of several projects not starting from scratch. Minor changes—cutting windows into the side of buildings that once lay next to the highway, changing doorways so outdoor restaurants now spill out toward the Greenway—are small contributions to the economy that I’ve not included in my tally.

How much can be attributed to the Big Dig? A good economy and the fact that Boston’s industries are the ones thriving everywhere today have helped. Nevertheless, O’Brien said, in the Downtown North area, alone he calculates that the Big Dig is directly responsible for more than $5 billion of investment. This includes parcels built on land freed by removing the elevated highway’s underpinning—the rental apartments on Canal Street, The Victor, Related Beal’s affordable housing on Beverly Street. Larger development sites at the Nashua Street Residences and the Boston Garden would have been less appealing if the overhead road had remained, he said.

“The depression of the Central Artery, which created the Rose Kennedy Greenway, was a major factor in the revitalization and redevelopment of the downtown waterfront district from the North End though South Station and it was unquestionably a major catalyst for renewal and redevelopment of both Downtown Boston and the West End,” O’Brien wrote in an email.

Not even the Great Recession slowed investment much.

Don Chiofaro said his team bought the Harbor Garage because of its location between the harbor and the Greenway. Tom O’Brien said HYM’s project from Cambridge Street to the Greenway was based on the aftereffects of the Big Dig. “It is absolutely true that the Big Dig made projects like ours conceivable,” he wrote in an email. “In fact, I would say the Big Dig helped turn the entire Downtown into a residential neighborhood.”

Other projects along the Greenway may have gotten built whether or not the road was buried. Perhaps the Seaport District would have occurred without the Ted Williams tunnel and the other two public investments, but I doubt it, and so does Chiofaro.

Chiofaro has been around a long time and sees the Seaport’s growth, in particular, as directly related to them.

Everyone is impressed with the speed at which the Seaport has developed, but it wasn’t speedy at all, he contends. “The fact is when I got out of high school in 1963, someone took me to Pier 4 and said this is the next great real estate opportunity,” he said. “I looked at the steel nets and asked, ‘What are those?’ They were the nets we used to close Boston Harbor during World War II.

“In 1968 when I got out of college, I was told that district was the next great real estate opportunity. Five years later I got out of business school and was told it was the next great real estate opportunity.

“Long story short is it didn’t happen fast. It took the momentum of the depression of the Central Artery and the cleanup of the harbor,” he said.

So now, when we’re complaining we don’t have enough money to build the Green Line extension, the train to the South Shore, the North-South Rail Link and other big projects, maybe we should look back at the 1980s leadership that got Boston into its happy situation today.

We’re a richer city and state than we were then. To say we can’t afford to make big investments in infrastructure is to not notice where it has gotten us before.

How to succeed in downtown Boston

You moved in a couple of weeks ago. Welcome. You’ll love it here. You can walk to everything—work, concerts, shopping, the dentist, the river, the harbor. It’s easy to meet new people because all the downtown neighborhoods have plenty of organizations that are sure to tap into some interest you have.          Neighborhood associations attract the civic-minded. These associations often have special organizations for young people. Gardeners have garden clubs. Old folks have Beacon Hill Village, which is active in several downtown neighborhoods, not just Beacon Hill. Museums attract volunteers and board members who are interested in architecture or history. The restaurants, local bars and small businesses draw in regulars you’ll get to know. Dogs bring people together as do children. It’s a companionable life.

Boston’s downtown neighborhoods are no longer tribal. Even in the North End, which still revels in its past and entertains us with it, only a third of the residents identify as Italian (while still being able to enjoy the good restaurants.) It doesn’t matter what color your skin is, what sexual orientation you come with, or what nationality you are. You’ll be welcome in all the downtown neighborhoods.

Experience will introduce you to the downsides. You already know that downtown living spaces are typically small and expensive. If you rent in an older building, you are likely to have a neglectful landlord who lives somewhere else, so don’t expect much for your money. Having a car is a pain unless you have a parking space, and even then why would you want to drive around the city when there is no parking at your destination? Take a cab, the T or an Uber.

If you’re a parent, you may have noticed there are only a few public schools—Charlestown, the North End and Chinatown have them—but in the rest of the downtown—zilch. Even in neighborhoods with a public school, local children aren’t assured of getting into one they can walk to. Private nursery schools abound, but only a few private elementary schools exist, and they are expensive and competitive.

You’ll also find that some of your neighbors don’t get it. They are ignorant of a special condition we have here—we must share and be kind to one another. Hallways, side walls, shade, parking, streets, sidewalks, ceilings and floors—we share everything. We’re all in this together.

It is easy to find happiness here, though. Learn when to put out your trash and recyclables and do it properly. Always pick up after your dog, and don’t dispose of the bag on the sidewalk or in a tree pit. Take it home to your own trash. Your neighbors will admire you.

Join your neighborhood association. Patronize local retail shops and restaurants often enough so the proprietors and employees know you. Join an athletic club and gather some of its patrons to go running or walking together. Practice tolerance when your neighbor cooks bacon, and you smell it. Thank the neighbor who sweeps the sidewalk, and do it yourself sometimes. Keep your tree watered.

Enjoy especially those random moments city life fosters—when you realize a man from India and one from Rhode Island are getting married in the middle of your street. Or when you catch sight of a young woman with pink boots and a lime green jacket driving down the street on a pink and lime green motor scooter. Or saying hello to the guys who are always hanging out on the stoop of a building a block away. Or listening to the talented flutist whose songs come from a nearby open window. Or the fact that if you are lonely, you can go out and talk with a neighbor who sits in a chair on the sidewalk on most good days. I’ve had two neighbors who do that, and it is comforting to know their eyes are on the street.

Living successfully in a crowded city is a product of an existential attitude. It requires tolerance, a sense of irony, an enjoyment of the human condition and an appreciation of others’ moods and behavior. It is one of the most satisfying of human conditions.

Can O’Malley cut it?

Forty-year-old Faneuil Hall Marketplace has recently had a tough time, especially since the New York-based Ashkenazy Acquisition Corporation took over the ground lease and became the manager of the retail and restaurant businesses five years ago.

Although it is Boston’s top destination for tourists, it is less popular with residents, who reportedly flocked to the refurbished BRA-owned historic structures when they first opened.

Although it was envisioned as a “festival” mall with local vendors, over the years its spaces have been filled with an increasing number of national mall chains, including the most recent addition, Uniqlo, and coming soon, make-up giant Sephora, making for a lesser “Boston” experience for some.

Marketplace managers and local marketplace vendors have clashed, with vendors complaining that Ashkenazy won’t give the locals long-term leases, that some have been pre-emptively kicked out, and others have been moved to lesser locations to make room for chains in more visible areas of the marketplace.

Finally, proposed renovations have met with complaint from both vendors and neighbors.

Enter Joe O’Malley, Ashkenazy’s new general manager. Aged 34, Dorchester-born, Dorchester-bred, South Boston-bred too, cousin of Marty Walsh—who was like a big brother to him, charming, friendly, optimistic, and determined to succeed. He’s had a background in retail, starting at Patty’s Pantry in Dorchester as a teen and working up to the convention center for the last ten years. O’Malley started at the marketplace in April. Will he be able to work through the difficulties?

“I want to bring it up to where it should be,” O’Malley said of the marketplace. “I’m working to be the conduit among all parties.”

O’Malley said one objective is to give the market a facelift by power washing and by replacing the rough, cobbled bricks with a smooth granite surface for easier walking. He wants to also complete the new glass building on the Congress Street corner that replaces the smaller, Ben Thompson-designed structure, which was not winter-proofed.

He said he wants to attract more Boston-area residents, which now comprise only 25 percent of the 20 million annual visitors at last count. He has installed tables and chairs for families. He said he wants the merchants’ association to help determine what type of crowd the vendors want. This summer, the market successfully hosted book readings, chess tournaments, dance classes, outdoor yoga and other offerings to attract the college-age and after-work crowd.

O’Malley doesn’t buy the fact that some people think national chains are boring, are better patronized on the internet and make Faneuil Hall look like every mall in the country. “I want a good mix of local versus national,” he said. He did not, however, spell out what that mix is.

He has reached out to a Dorchester non-profit, the Bird Street Community Center, to sell from a pushcart the blown glass its students produce in its glass-blowing program. He has also approached a Somerville non-profit to discuss how its members might participate. He has focused on these non-profit consortiums because he said he understands that individual artists and crafts people have trouble finding the time to both make their products and sell them.

Then there is the matter of long-term leases. Jeff Allen of Boston Pewter Company, which has been at the marketplace for 39 years, has had no lease for many months. O’Malley said he offered Allen a longer lease. Allen said the terms offered were not acceptable, especially where they said that after one year Ashkenazy could either relocate or terminate him with 90-days’ notice and wanted him to sign a confidentiality clause. The two are still battling it out.

Other leases? Unclear, said Carol Troxell, president of the market’s merchant’s association. She said vendors understand the need during construction to relocate a business or gain access to utilities within an individual space and are trying to be patient. But putting merchants on hold for too long disrupts their ability to get financing or make bulk purchases.

Nevertheless, she said the local merchants welcome O’Malley. “He’s new, young and very likable and understands the need for leases,” she said. “We’re hoping for the best.”

.        O’Malley is vague about the renovations Ashkenazy proposed many months ago. He won’t be pinned down on either the type of renovations or their timetable. He said everything is in the concept phase, except for having “shovels in the ground” for the new paving by October, 2017.

Right now, there is little to worry about profit-wise. Faneuil Hall Marketplace is enjoying its best year out of the last five with an increase of more than $1 million in sales so far over last year.

Profits are one thing. Resolving the conflicts are another. At least it will be easy to measure O’Malley’s effectiveness if by next year enough local merchants have signed long leases, if tempers have simmered down, and if the renovations are supported by both vendors and neighbors. If O’Malley, with his charming ways and optimistic outlook doesn’t succeed, who can?