Gerry Doherty Getting Award
The Friends of the Charlestown Branch Library will be honoring
author, politician and political advisor Gerry Doherty with its 2019
Friend of the Year Award on Thursday, May 16, at 6 p.m. at the library. Doherty was a longtime state rep who always knew and followed the Number One rule of Charlestown politics, which is loyalty. I always have thought the Charlestown was the REAL Kennedy School of Politics. If you can do politics in Town, you can do it anywhere else.
Walsh Has a Five-year Plan for Charlestown
Mayor Marty Walsh announced last week that City Hall will be putting multi million-dollar investments toward affordable housing in Charlestown, detailing his fiscal 2020-2024 capital plan. As the mayor stood outside the Bunker Hill projects, he said, “It’s going to be beautiful for the residents here.
I hate to say this, but I won’t believe it until I see something actually happening up on Bunker Hill Street. Fixing the projects has been an ongoing saga filled with hope and then nothing happens.
Peoples Firehouse Anniversary
It seems amazing that on May 8, the Town will be celebrating the 38th anniversary of the People’s Firehouse. It is right up there with
Bunker Hill Day, showing how hard Townies fight for what they believe In.
Back in April 1981, City Hall decided to save money because of Prop 2½, they would shutter firehouses across the entire city. Slated to be closed was the Winthrop Street Firehouse, which housed the Engine 50 apparatus. In the early hours of April 10, the neighborhood got wind that they were coming to take Engine 50 away. A group of Townies decided enough was enough and we stormed the firehouse (actually just walked right in) and began a month-long siege of the place holding the apparatus hostage. We made national headlines, the city relented, and on May 8, 1981, the city reopened the firehouse and reactivated Engine 50. It was a victory for the people and now the People’s Firehouse has become a part of Charlestown’s history and a legacy to the power of the people who refused to give up and walk away from communal responsibility.
Our motto should always be: Never Surrender, Keep on Keeping on. If anything the fact that Engine 50 still lives says it all. Back on April 10, 1981, we could all have been passive bystanders but we chose to fight the system and we won for all of Charlestown