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Boston Athenaeum, a remnant of the city’s Brahmin past, looks to engage an increasingly diverse population – The Boston Globe

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Boston Athenaeum, a remnant of the city’s Brahmin past, looks to engage an increasingly diverse population – The Boston Globe


Following a 16-month building challenge that just about doubled its measurement, the Athenaeum is reenvisioning “what we show, how we show, and the way we use our collections extra absolutely,” stated Leah Rosovsky, the director. “It’s been a very long time since we’ve thought in a different way about programming.”

The Athenaeum, rocked a number of years in the past by inside turmoil, is scheduled to reopen Tuesday with an outward-looking face — together with 15,000 sq. toes of extra house, extra rooms and nooks for studying and research, a lighter atmosphere, and a dedication to introduce newcomers to a cultural potpourri of audio system, music, lectures, and world-class holdings, its leaders stated.

A view on the fifth ground of the silent studying room contained in the Boston Athenaeum.David L. Ryan/Globe Workers

“We’ll clarify to the world that everybody is welcome to be a member. The Athenaeum isn’t a non-public membership,” stated Timothy Diggins, its president. “What’s the level of getting all these great collections if we’re not able of determining share them.”

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A brand new kids’s library has been constructed, packages about girls artists and artists of colour are deliberate, and reveals will use the Athenaeum’s huge trove of fabric to attach the previous and current, officers stated.

“The emphasis that has modified is not only preserving issues, however making them accessible,” stated John Buchtel, curator of uncommon books and head of particular collections.

The Athenaeum’s targets coincide with efforts by many different native cultural establishments — museums, arts teams, and historic websites — to be extra inclusive.

Ola Akinwumi, deputy director at nonprofit ArtsBoston, praised these efforts.

“Boston Athenaeum is setting a tone and bridging all varieties of inventive practices for representatives of numerous teams to expertise a famend establishment that desires its mission to be extra accessible and extra welcoming to communities of colour,” Akinwumi stated.

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The Athenaeum is supported by about 3,000 members whose annual charges for people and households with dependents vary from $310 to $525. The general public can entry the primary ground for a small charge, purchase a day cross, and take a tour. Members have entry to the higher 4 flooring, however anybody could make an appointment to view the particular collections.

The Athenaeum’s shift happens within the aftermath of a putting, pre-pandemic turnover. Between 2014 and early 2018, almost half of its roughly 55 workers departed after new management arrived.

Subcontractors Chris Burr (left ) and Chris Fendt ran electrical wires behind the Venus de Medici sculpture on the Boston Athenaeum.David L. Ryan/Globe Workers

Staff, board members, and longtime supporters of the Athenaeum advised the Globe in 2018 that new management had disregarded the establishment’s character and knowledgeable workers.

Rosovsky, who turned director in Could 2020, stated she couldn’t talk about what transpired earlier than her arrival. Nevertheless, each she and Diggins stated the Athenaeum is now on stable footing, each in membership and concerning the office.

“We’re in an excellent place and shifting ahead in an excellent route,” Diggins stated.

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For an establishment that could be a mixture of library, museum, and cultural heart, the deliberate adjustments are yet one more milestone in its evolution as one of many nation’s oldest impartial libraries. Created in 1807, the Athenaeum was designed to meld what its founders described as “the benefits of a public library … containing the nice works of studying and science in all languages.”

From these lofty ambitions, the Athenaeum rapidly grew to turn out to be a preeminent cultural establishment, though it didn’t discover a everlasting house till 1849 on Beacon Avenue. Earlier than then, it had moved from Congress Avenue, to Tremont Avenue close to present-day Authorities Middle, to a home adjoining to King’s Chapel, and to a mansion on Pearl Avenue.

The Pearl Avenue location had been owned by the brother of Thomas Handasyd Perkins, a fabulously rich Boston Brahmin who had engaged within the slave commerce as a younger man and have become a serious benefactor to the Athenaeum.

George Washington statues on the fourth ground bow room on the Boston Athenaeum.David L. Ryan/Globe Workers

Amid the renovation, the Athenaeum moved a big portrait of Perkins, which had hung for a few years within the grand Lengthy Room, to a smaller house overlooking the Granary Burying Floor. Perkins’s previous will probably be famous right here, and hangings and interpretation additionally will contact on his household’s relationship with a Black home servant named Deyaha, a local of Haiti whose obituary appeared in The Liberator, the influential abolitionist newspaper in Boston.

“We felt it was essential to inform not solely the Perkins’s story, however Deyaha’s story as nicely,” assistant curator Christina Michelon stated.

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After its reopening, the Athenaeum’s first musical occasion will probably be a Nov. 17 program by “Fortress of our Skins,” a Black arts group from Boston that seeks to foster cultural curiosity and rejoice Black artistry, in keeping with its web site.

A brand new mural by Ekua Holmes of Roxbury, a visible artist and award-winning illustrator of youngsters’s books, will probably be displayed within the kids’s library.

As well as, the Athenaeum just lately acquired a uncommon portray by Nineteenth-century artist Robert S. Duncanson, who was born in upstate New York in 1821 to free Black mother and father and have become a number one American panorama painter within the years earlier than and after the Civil Struggle.

Yvonne Chang, a lighting designer with Accessible Gentle Firm, arrange final minute lighting on two Alexander Hamilton busts sculptured by artists John Dixey and Louisa Castelvecchi on the Boston Athenaeum. David L. Ryan/Globe Workers

Ann Beha, founding father of Ann Beha Architects, now Annum Architects, stated her purpose for the $17 million renovation and enlargement was to honor the Athenaeum’s previous whereas positioning it for the longer term.

“It’s all in regards to the preliminary concept and bringing it by way of to succeeding generations,” Beha stated. “We’re able to make this historical past extra related.”

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Robert Carroll, senior supervisor for the challenge, stated the adjustments additionally intention to facilitate dialog and interplay amongst members in a snug environment. Massive, colourful, inviting chairs adorn a brand new house referred to as the Residing Room, full with a water-vapor hearth. Extra objects from the collections will probably be displayed in circumstances there.

In a lot of the renewed Athenaeum, he stated, “it’s simply not going right into a nook and finding out an outdated manuscript.”

Maybe nowhere is the brand new symbolism extra obvious than within the longtime foyer at 10½ Beacon St. The entry space beforehand had little penetrating gentle. Now, behind the Athenaeum’s iconic crimson doorways, a vibrant room will greet members and guests, and enlarged home windows will permit interplay with the surface.

“That could be a metaphor for us,” Rosovsky stated with a smile, nodding on the doorways. “We are attempting to say to folks, ‘Come on in.’ ”

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The enduring crimson doorways are being arrange on the Boston Athenaeum.David L. Ryan/Globe Workers

Brian MacQuarrie may be reached at brian.macquarrie@globe.com.



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Boston, MA

Constantine Manos, photographer for landmark ‘Where’s Boston?’ exhibit, dies at 90 – The Boston Globe

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Constantine Manos, photographer for landmark ‘Where’s Boston?’ exhibit, dies at 90 – The Boston Globe


Constantine Manos, “Los Angeles, California,” 2001. (Constantine Manos/Magnum Photos)Courtesy Boston Symphony Orchestra Archives, Constantine Manos/Magnum Photos

Among Mr. Manos’s books were “A Greek Portfolio” (1972; updated 1999), “Bostonians” (1975), “American Color” 1995) and ”American Color 2″ (2010). Mr. Manos’s work with color was notably expressive and influential.

“Color was a four-letter word in art photography,” the photographer Lou Jones, who worked with Mr. Manos on “Where’s Boston?,” said in a telephone interview. “But he was making wonderful, complex photographs with color, and that meant so much.”

Yet for all his formal skill, Mr. Manos always emphasized the human element in his work. “I am a people photographer and have always been interested in people,” he once said.

That interest extended beyond the photographs he took. He was a celebrated teacher. Among the students he taught in his photo workshops was Stella Johnson.

“He’d go through a hundred of my photographs,” she said in a telephone interview, “and maybe he’d like two. ‘No, no, no, no, yes, no.’ Costa really taught me how to see. I remember him looking at one picture and saying, “You were standing in the wrong spot.’ Something like that was invaluable to me as a young photographer.

“He was a very, very kind man, very generous. But he was very strict. ‘How could you do that?’ He was adored by his students and by his friends, absolutely. We were all lucky to have been in his orbit.”

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Cellist Samuel Mayes and conductor Charles Munch during a Boston Symphony Orchestra rehearsal at Tanglewood, July 25, 1959. (Constantine Manos/Magnum Photos)Courtesy Boston Symphony Orchestra Archives, Constantine Manos/Magnum Photos

Mr. Manos, who moved to Provincetown in 2008, lived in the South End for four decades. The South Carolina native’s association with the Boston area began when the Boston Symphony Orchestra hired him as a photographer at Tanglewood. He was 19. This led to Mr. Manos’s first book, “Portrait of a Symphony” (1961; updated 2000).

Constantine Manos was born in Columbia, S.C., on Oct. 12, 1934. His parents, Dimitri and Aphrodite (Vaporiotou) Manos, were Greek immigrants. They ran a café in the city’s Black section. That experience gave Mr. Manos a sympathy for marginalized people that would stay with him throughout his life. As a student at the University of South Carolina, he wrote editorials in the school paper opposing segregation. Later, he would do extensive work chronicling the LGBTQ+ community with his camera.

Mr. Manos became interested in photography at 13, joining the school camera club and building a darkroom in his parents’ basement. After graduating from college, Mr. Manos did two years of Army service in Germany, working as a photographer for Stars and Stripes. He joined Magnum in 1963. This had special meaning for him. Mr. Manos’s chief inspiration as a young photographer had been Henri Cartier-Bresson, one of Magnum’s founders. He was such an admirer he made a point of using the same equipment that Cartier-Bresson did.

That same year, Mr. Manos entered a seafood restaurant in Rome that was around the corner from the Pantheon. Prodanou, his future husband, was dining with friends. Noticing Mr. Manos, he gestured to him. “Would you join us for coffee?” The couple spent the next 61 years together, marrying in 2011.

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“Lining Up for the Shriner’s Parade, South End, Boston,” 1974. (Constantine Manos/Magnum Photos)Courtesy Boston Symphony Orchestra Archives, Constantine Manos/Magnum Photos

Mr. Manos lived in Greece for three years, which led to “A Greek Portfolio.” He undertook a very different project in the Athens of America. Part of the city’s Bicentennial tribute, “Where’s Boston?” was a slice-of-many-lives view of contemporary Boston.

Located in a red-white-and-blue striped pavilion at the Prudential Center, it became a local sensation. The installation involved 42 computerized projectors and 3,097 color slides (most of them taken by Mr. Manos), shown on eight 10 feet by 10 feet screens. Outside the pavilion was a set of murals, consisting of 152 black-and-white photographs of Boston scenes, all shot by Mr. Manos.

“The most important thing I had to do was to keep my picture ideas simple,” he said in a 1975 Globe interview. “Viewers are treated to a veritable avalanche of color slides in exactly one hour’s time.”

In that same interview, he made an observation about his work generally. “I prefer to stay in close to my subjects. I let them see me and my camera and when they become bored they forget about me and then I get my best pictures.”

Among institutions that own Mr. Manos’s photographs are the Museum of Fine Arts; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Art Institute of Chicago; the High Museum of Art, Atlanta; the Library of Congress; and the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.

In addition to his husband, Mr. Manos leaves a sister, Irene Constantinides, of Atlanta, and a brother, Theofanis Manos, of Greenville, S.C.

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A memorial service will be held later this year.


Mark Feeney can be reached at mark.feeney@globe.com.





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Boston, MA

Below freezing temperatures again today

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Below freezing temperatures again today


The winds are still going Wednesday, but the air temperatures remain at respectable levels. Highs will manage to weasel up to 30 in most spots. It’s too bad we’re not going to feel them at face value. Instead, we’re dressing for temps in the teens all day today.

Thursday and Friday are the picks of the week.

There will be a lot less wind, reasonable winter temperatures in the 30s and a decent amount of sun. We’ll be quiet into the weekend, as our next weather system approaches.

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With mild air expected to come north on southerly winds, highs will bounce back to the low and mid-40s both days of the weekend.

Showers will be delayed until late day/evening on Saturday and into the night. There may be a few early on Sunday too, but the focus on that day will be to bring in the cold.

Highs will briefly sneak into the 40s, then fall late day.

We’ll also watch a batch of snow late Sunday night as it moves up the Eastern Seaboard.

Right now, there is a potential for some accumulation as it moves overhead Sunday night and early Monday morning.

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It appears to be a weak, speedy system, so we’re not expecting it to pull any punches.

Enjoy the quieter spell of weather!



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Boston, MA

Boston City Councilor will introduce

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Boston City Councilor will introduce


BOSTON – It could cost you more to get a soda soon. The Boston City Council is proposing a tax on sugary drinks, saying the money on unhealthy beverages can be put to good use.

A benefit for public health?

“I’ve heard from a lot of residents in my district who are supportive of a tax on sugary beverages, but they want to make sure that these funds are used for public health,” said City Councilor Sharon Durkan, who is introducing the “Sugar Tax,” modeled on Philadelphia and Seattle. She said it’s a great way to introduce and fund health initiatives and slowly improve public health.

A study from Boston University found that cities that implemented a tax on sugary drinks saw a 33% decrease in sales.

“What it does is it creates an environment where we are discouraging the use of something that we know, over time, causes cancer, causes diet-related diseases, causes obesity and other diet-related illnesses,” she said.

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Soda drinkers say no to “Sugar Tax”

Soda drinkers don’t see the benefit.

Delaney Doidge stopped by the store to get a mid-day pick-me-up on Tuesday.

“I wasn’t planning on getting anything, but we needed toilet paper, and I wanted a Diet Coke, so I got a Diet Coke,” she said, adding that a tax on sugary drinks is an overreach, forcing her to ask: What’s next?

“Then we’d have to tax everything else that brings people enjoyment,” Doidge said. “If somebody wants a sweet treat, they deserve it, no tax.”

Store owners said they’re worried about how an additional tax would impact their businesses.

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Durkan plans to bring the tax idea before the City Council on Wednesday to start the conversation about what rates would look like.

Massachusetts considered a similar tax in 2017.

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