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Dog eats groom’s passport, putting South Boston couple’s Italian wedding in jeopardy

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Dog eats groom’s passport, putting South Boston couple’s Italian wedding in jeopardy


Donato Frattaroli and his fiance Magda Mazri went to City Hall to fill out Intention of Marriage forms on Thursday, just days away from flying out to Italy where the couple is set to tie the knot in two weeks.

Hours later, a worst nightmare unfolded at their South Boston home.

“Our extremely cute 1.5-year-old Golden Retriever decided that maybe she doesn’t want us to go away to get married, so she hopped up on the counter and decided my passport was a nice new toy to play with,” Frattaroli told the Herald on Friday.

“Chickie,” short for chicken cutlet, bit out the first four pages of Frattaroli’s passport as well as a few in the back, including a stamp from Mexico where he and his bride got engaged over a year and a half ago.

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Frattaroli’s reaction to the chaos: “I don’t think I was that polite, but I mean, she’s a 1.5-year-old Golden Retriever puppy, couldn’t be a cuter culprit.”

Instead of putting her soon-to-be hubby in the dog house, Mazri stayed even-keeled during the catastrophe, Frattaroli said. She contacted U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch’s office to see what the congressman could do to help out in a pinch.

Lynch and U.S. Sen. Ed Markey’s offices had been in contact with Frattaroli throughout the day Friday, but the North End native said nothing has been set in stone.

“Had she not gotten at those and just left me with the bite marks on the outside, which are pretty minimal, I would’ve been pretty confident in just leaving,” Frattaroli said. “Shame on me for not putting it in a drawer.”

Frattaroli filled out a privacy form and sent proof of travel and the destroyed passport as well as a copy of the wedding invitation to Markey and Lynch, “to show a sense of urgency so that the State Department could prioritize the request.”

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The earliest he could be seen for a passport appointment is Thursday in Atlanta. If it can’t be rearranged to earlier in the week at an office closer to home, Frattaroli said he’d fly down and then come back to Boston, just in time to board a plane to Italy.

It takes about 8 to 11 weeks for a passport to be processed and delivered on routine service, and 5 to 7 if expedited. Arrangements could be made for it to be obtained sooner as long as it’s within a 14-day window of the travel date, according to the Fulton County Clerk of Superior & Magistrate Courts, which partners with the State Department to assist customers with processing passport applications in Atlanta.

“I’ve heard in some instances that you could walk out the door with a passport. To be perfectly honest, I don’t think I would leave that office without one,” Frattaroli said. “The most important day of my life is coming up, I’ve got to make sure I’m there for it. It’s almost like the ‘Dog ate my homework’ excuse but with slightly bigger ramifications.”

Frattaroli and Mazri have been together for four years, meeting through mutual friends via work. Frattalori and his family own several restaurants across Boston, and his fiancee is in medical device sales.

The couple plans on getting married Aug. 31 outside at the picturesque La Torre di San Marco, an old watch tower overlooking Lake Garda in Gardone Riviera, in northern Italy. Frattaroli’s father was born and raised there before coming to the states at age 14.

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One way or the other, it is a destination wedding, with 86 people flying out from the U.S., four from Australia, four from Italy and another four from Morocco.

“I am fine dealing with the costs spent for the event itself, but all of those people that are traveling, that’s an expense in itself,” Frattaroli said. “To me, it’s 1.) I want to make sure I’m standing at the end of the aisle getting to see my fiancee come down it in her dress, and 2.) If worst comes to worst, and that doesn’t happen, all of the people making the trip for us, is not wanting to disappoint them.”

As for Chickie, “She’s been kind of curling up right next to us, maybe it’s her way of saying that she either wants to come with us or if she can’t come with us, then we can’t go,” Frattaroli said.

Will the golden pooch end up going? “No, we can’t take her that long on a flight.”

Donato Frattaroli’s destroyed passport. The culprit: Chickie, his 1.5-year-old golden retriever. (Reba Saldanha/Boston Herald)
Boston MA - Magda Mazri's engagement ring sits atop her fiance's chewed up passport just days before they leave for their wedding in Italy outside of their South Boston home August 18, 2023 in Boston Massachusetts. (Photo by Reba Saldanha/Boston Herald)
Magda Mazri’s engagement ring sits atop her fiance’s chewed up passport just days before they leave for their wedding in Italy. (Reba Saldanha/Boston Herald)
Chickie, a 1.5-year-old golden retriever, bites into owner Donato Frattalori’s passport, jeopardizing he and his fiance’s wedding in Italy scheduled for Aug. 31. (Reba Saldanha/Boston Herald)



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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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