News

News from... Friends of the South End Library

Wednesday Sep 26, 2018

Friends of the South End Library (FOSEL) is pleased to share the fall/winter South End Writes fall calendar

Tuesday, October 9, 6:30 PM

Acclaimed artistic director and outstanding opera conductor, Gil Rose, will return to the South End branch Tuesday, October 9, at 6:30 PM to talk about the 2018/19 season of Odyssey Opera, the critically acclaimed company he founded in 2013 with South End philanthropist and opera buff, Randolph Fuller. Two fall 2018 performances celebrate the 200-year anniversary of the birth of the 19th-century French composer, Charles Gounod. The first one,The Queen of Saba, received a glowing write-up from Boston Classic Review; the next,The Doctor In Spite of Himself will be at the Huntington Theatre on November 9 and 11. Odyssey's three spring 2019 operas are inspired by "the face that launched a thousand ships," Helen of Troy: Paris and Helen by Christoph Willibald Gluck (2/15 and 2/17); The Egyptian Helen by Richard Strauss (4/19); and The Beautiful Helen by Jacques Offenbach (6/14 and 6/16). Each year, Rose and Fuller come up with a new theme to carry their eclectic and adventurous programming: Last year's Trial by Fire, saw five operas by different composers inspired by the life and times of Joan of Arc. What's up for the next season, or how that is decided, is one of the questions you may want to ask Gil Rose.

Tuesday, October 30, 6:30 PM

Award-winning playwright Melinda Lopez (Sonia Flew; Becoming Cuba; Yerma)

Tuesday, November 13, 6:30 PM

Bestselling novelist Jessica Keener (Strangers in Budapest; Women in Bed

Tuesday, November 27, 6:30 PM

Prize-winning novelist and Boston Globe Columnist Joan Wickersham (The News from Spain; The Suicide Index: Putting My Father's Death in Order)

Tuesday, December 11, 6:30 PM

The incisive foreign policy journalist, former NY Times bureau chief and Boston Globe columnist, Stephen Kinzer (Iran and Syria: Enemies or Potential Partners?)

January 8, 2019, 6:30 PM

Award-winning theatre director, David Miller (From Page to Stage: a discussion of the new play Trigger Warning).

Local/Focus

The displays are installed regularly, depending on time and availability of participants and volunteers. Timelines are flexible.

This month, the library's Tremont Street window features an installation about the 19th-century Ayer Mansion on Commonwealth Avenue, the only surviving building designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany. Yes, he of the fantastic stained-glass windows, many of which are on view in this architectural gem of a building. South End historic preservation buff and former FOSEL board member, Jeanne Pelletier, Esq., has been the moving force behind its restoration.

Next Exhibits

Odyssey Opera will showcase its remarkable opera company, including a slideshow on the flat screen in the window. The exhibit will coincide with the October 9 talk at the branch by musical director, Gil Rose. Massachusetts Book Awards: The Massachusetts Center for the Book , gives annual awards for "significant works of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and children's/young adult literature" by Massachusetts authors, or those who write about the Bay State. The 2017 winners were announced earlier this year; We'll hear about the 2018 awards very soon. MCB is an affiliate of the Center for the Book of the Library of Congress, and funded in part by the MA Legislature.

Piano Factory resident artist Eric Grau, to accompany a show of his latest work inside the library

Thrillers, Mysteries, and Suspense, a window display of suggested titles for dark winter days.

Library Renovation

Mayor Marty Walsh spent more than an hour at the SouthEnd branch on September 11 for a South End Forum neighborhood meeting to talk about a range of issues, including the opioid crisis, homelessness, lack of affordable housing, parking issues and rising sea levels. FOSEL thanked Walsh for his extraordinary support earlier this year to fund short-term and long-term library and park renovation plans, for which he received a round of applause.

Walsh commented the South End library's long-term renovation might not take as long as the seven to ten years that are anticipated. The Mayor has committed $145.5 million in capital dollars for Boston public library renovation over the next five years, as per this link. Among earlier such outlays by the Walsh administration are more than $80 million for the Central Library's transformative renovation and $10 million for the Jamaica Plain branch, which reopened two years ago.

Renovation of Library Park

The Parks Department is still waiting for back-ordered furniture to be installed; this includes several rounded benches and some cafe tables. The park's oak trees are still awaiting pruning.

Thanks to Boston voters approving the property-tax based one-percent surcharge under the Community Preservation Act (CPA)in 2016, there now is money available for the landscaping of, among other places, Library Park. FOSEL is applying for a CPA grant to do just that, with support from BPL President, David Leonard and Parks Commissioner, Chris Cook. We welcome suggestions from all. Contact Anne Smart, at asmart@bpl.org, or FOSEL at info@friendsofsouthendlibrary.org.The South End Stakeholders Report, published seasonally by the Steven Cohen Team, features in its Fall 2018 issue an excellent report about the unique public/private partnership between the BPL, the Mayor's Office and FOSEL to renovate the South End Library, he realty group has been very supportive of FOSEL over the years; Steven Cohen himself is a member of the Honorary Fundraising Committee for the Capital Campaign.

More information at www.friendsofsouthendlibrary.org. The South End Branch of the Boston Public Library is located at 685 Tremont Street