The City will now prioritize the sale of the property for private development, focusing on mixed-use residential development with ground floor retail space–including both affordable and market rate units–that aligns with the community vision outlined by the 90 Washington Street Civic Advisory Committee. Staff will also explore the possibility of integrating Engine 3 into private development, an approach that faces hurdles but could follow the private-public model used to build Somerville’s new Assembly Row Fire Station, which is expected to open this spring.

Life in the Ville by Jimmy Del Ponte

In the 60’s and 70’s a lot of Somerville kids were starting rock groups. Many were self-taught but others took lessons. The city was cultivating a fine array of talented musicians.

In 1968 I started taking guitar lessons like a lot of kids around that age. We found a guitar teacher named Mr. Cuneo in Bow St. in Medford. He was a pipe smoker. The whole house smelled like pipe smoke. Mrs. Cuneo gave piano lessons in another room.

Somerville city leaders are taking steps to both inform and protect vulnerable resident populations and let them know that they stand with them.

By Harry Kane

Many residents in Somerville expressed concerns regarding President Donald Trump’s order to target undocumented immigrants, and while federal authorities are cracking down on high-risk individuals who pose a threat to national security or public safety in sanctuary cities, the new policy raises the specter of persistent raids by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who have been tasked with implementing the presidential mass deportation directive amid a slew of executive orders.

The “Care to the People” mural at CHA.

By Jeffrey Shwom

The Times caught up with Iaritza Menjivar, Events Manager with Somerville Art Council (SAC), to discuss two upcoming street art and outdoor public art projects they are planning for spring and summer 2025.

After months of intensive work to identify ways to improve affordability for residents, small businesses, nonprofits, and artists in Somerville, the city’s Anti-Displacement Task Force (ADTF) is ready to share their recommendations with the community. Mayor Katjana Ballantyne and the Mayor’s Office of Strategic Planning and Community Development (OSPCD) invite all to join an online community meeting presenting ADTF reports on Thursday, January 30, at 7 p.m., as well as to an in-person event this spring. For the link to the online meeting, online access to the reports, or to visit the ADTF SomerVoice web page, please visit www.voice.somervillema.gov/adtf.

Community invited to review and share their questions for task force members and city staff ahead of public discussion of report findings on Tuesday, February 4

Three critical task force reports addressing community safety, police oversight, and anti-violence strategies in Somerville are now available for public review. Mayor Katjana Ballantyne and the city’s Office of Racial and Social Justice (RSJ) invite the community to both share their questions in advance online and to join a public discussion on February 4. 

By Erica Voolich

Many teachers have great ideas on how to make their classrooms a better place for their students to learn math. The teachers’ ideas frequently outrun the budget schools have for supplies and their own ability to subsidize their classroom. The Somerville Mathematics Fund tries to fill this need through the generosity of their donors with grants up to $500.

Eagle Feathers #321 – The Packers

By Bob (Monty) Doherty                                                                                                                                                                                         

The John P. Squire Company was established in 1842, the year the Bunker Hill monument was capped and the year Somerville broke away from Charlestown. Along with the North Packing  & Provision Company, and the New England Dressed Meat and Wool Company, they made up the “Big Three.”  The first packing company specialized in beef products, the second in pork, and the third in lamb products.  Their presence caused other spin-off companies to be born in the Union Square area which, when combined, made Somerville the undisputed meatpacking capital of New England.  She was known as the Chicago of the east.  In the 1890’s, the most modern of the three packing plants was Charles North’s Packing & Provision Company.  Its buildings, one of them rising to nine stories high, covered over thirteen acres along lower Medford Street, opposite today’s Target store.  It extended from Somerville Avenue to the Miller River, where it abutted the Squire Company on the Cambridge side.  The livestock would arrive at the Boynton Yards by rail, followed by processing, and then the product was marketed worldwide.  After a destructive fire in 1878, the North Company was rebuilt to become the most complete packinghouse constructed in the country.  It was also the largest Somerville employer, with over 1,200 workers at that time.

The quaint old custom of looking to an oversized rodent every February 2 for a generalized weather forecast for the following immediate future is warmly amusing to some, irksome to others.

Groundhog Day is a popular North American tradition observed in the United States and Canada. Its origins are traced to the Pennsylvania Dutch superstition that if a groundhog emerges from its burrow on the given day and sees its shadow due to clear weather, it will go back into to its den and winter weather will continue for six more weeks. If it fails to see its shadow because of cloudiness, then spring will invariably arrive early.