Watertown News (https://www.watertownmanews.com/author/cbreitro/page/444/)
Watertown residents will soon be able to grab a Cherry Garcia or Chunky Monkey right in their own backyard. Arsenal Yards announced on its Instagram feed that Ben & Jerry’s will be coming to the redeveloped Arsenal Mall. View this post on Instagram We’ve got a sweet, sweet surprise for you… Guess who’s opening in this gorgeous building later this year?! {yes, you’re going to want to tell your friends 🙌} .
Fire blazed on the side of a home on Robert Ford Road Friday. The four alarm blaze damaged 12 units in the Watertown Housing Authority complex. A four-alarm blaze broke out on Robert Ford Road in Watertown Friday morning, which took more than an hour to extinguish. The Fire Department received numerous calls about smoke coming from the area just after 11 a.m. Friday, said Watertown Deputy Fire Chief Tom McManus. The fire was extinguished by 12:45 p.m. The cause of the fire is remains under investigation, McManus said.
A mural created by Watertown High School students for the 20th annual Unity Breakfast. The Watertown Unity Breakfast celebrated the life and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. for the 20th time on Monday with a record crowd. World in Watertown hosted the first Unity Breakfast in 2001 at the then Phillips Congregational Church (now the Redeemer Fellowship Church) and about 150 people attended, said Susan Kuder, chair of World in Watertown. The idea for Watertown having an event to honor Dr. King came from the Rev. Mark Harris, who recently retired as minister of the First Parish Church of Watertown. The Unity Breakfast reminded retired Watertown Police Officer Tony Physic of MLK Day celebrations he attended growing up in Boston.
See the properties having open houses around Watertown this week. $575,000 – 764 Belmont St., Single Family – Detached Ranch, 1,344 Living Area Sq. Ft., 7 Room, 3 Bedroom, 1 Full & 1 Half Bathroom, Open House: Sunday 12-1:30
$449,000 – 105 Evans St. Unit 1, Condo – Detached, 1,018 Living Area Sq. Ft., 6 Room, 2 Bedroom, 1 Full Bathroom, Open Houses: Saturday 12:00-1:30 Sunday 12-1:30
$719,000 – 30 Longfellow Road, Single Family – Detached Colonial, 1,719 Living Area Sq.
The Town of Watertown has some protection from having dense residential projects allowed under the Chapter 40B law after being certified by the state that the Town meets a rarely used qualification. Under Chapter 40B, communities in Massachusetts have to meet certain level of affordable housing or else they must allow the construction of housing projects with 25 percent affordable housing. Watertown currently requires 15 percent of units to be affordable new apartment complexes. To qualify to avoid a Chapter 40B project, communities can get “Safe Harbor” by having 10 percent or more of its housing units sold or rented at affordable rates. Some communities have met that criteria, but Watertown does not (it has just over 7 percent).
An illustration of how a new high school building with a four story academic wing could fit on the current WHS site. Architect Scott Dunlap stressed this is just a mock up to see if it would fit, not a design. Residents attending Tuesday’s Community Forum about the new Watertown High School project could not agree on which of the locations they would like to see the new school built.
The two most likely spots are the current WHS location on Columbia Street or building a school on part of the Victory Field complex on Orchard Street. Designers have eliminated the possibility of building on the Moxley Field site because it is too small, and said renovating the current building would be more costly than erecting a new school. Also, the design of the school, which dates back to the 1920s, would not work for modern teaching techniques.
The Watertown High six students who received the Unity Award for their work spreading Kingian Non-violence teachings to WHS. Pictured from left, Fred Laboissiere, Tino Themelis, Eva Henry, Claire abian, Catherine Fabian and Shivani Sharma. The people who brought the teachings of Martin Luther King Jr. to the Watertown schools and the community came together, and were honored during the the 20th annual Watertown Unity Breakfast on Monday. The annual celebration on Martin Luther King Jr. Day has been put on by the World in Watertown for two decades, and at the 2020 breakfast the local efforts to teach the principles of Kingian Non-violence in town were at the forefront. The keynote speaker was one of those who trained Watertown teachers, students and police about applying King’s non-violence teachings today, and the Unity Award went to six students who spread MLK’s teachings to Watertown High School.
The Watertown boy’s hockey team looks to make the State Tournament for the second year in a row. Here, the Raiders celebrate after scoring in the Div. 3 North quarterfinal. Their improvement has been noticed by the Boston Globe. The Watertown High School boy’s hockey team has made big leaps in improvements since the varsity program was put on hold for a year in 2016-17, and the Boston Globe has taken notice.