Building UP

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Here is the view from the front door of the Perkins School.  The kids inside our school clearly aren't the only ones who are busy.  The construction crews across the street have been working every Monday through Friday.  Even in the rain.  Even on April and February vacations!

As you may know from reading our blog, they are building Phase 2 of the Old Colony renovation.  As you can see here, Phase 2 is going up right next to Phase 1.   

School is almost over, but not work on the construction site.  What will it look like when we come back next September!?!

 

Two Perspectives Upon One View

Kids at the Perkins are busy with math and history and reading.  We shouldn't forget, however, what greets them every time they look out the window:

February 2013

1. A construction site
2. Change 
3. Progress

Building is like learning, in a way: many different skills and materials come together and create something strong and new.  

That's an interesting idea, but when kids compare the different views they saw in February and what they can now see in March, they may have less lofty thoughts.

March 2013

As one student remarked, "Wow, now we can see Angelo's (a popular sub shop) from here!"

They're BA-A-A-CK!!

In the middle of November, a groundbreaking ceremony kicked off the beginning of Phase 2 of the Old Colony's makeover.  Phase 2 is even bigger than Phase 1 and will build 170 units.  Lots of speeches were made, and then a front-end loader took a chunk out of a building to great applause.  

Just one chunk, though. It wasn't quite time to tear all those old buildings down.

It is now!

Remember, you can click on any picture to make it larger.

 And, look what is happening behind the blue fence...

 

Stay tuned, there's much more to come! 

Phase 2 Has Began At Last!

This blog started because over two years ago because an adventure was happening around the Perkins School.  Part of Old Colony, the oldest housing development in Boston, was being renovated.  Our students watched many of its old buildings come down.  Then they had a front row seat for the countless stages of construction that put the new ones in place.  They learned about architecture and building and many jobs they might want in the future.  Then there were all those trucks and cranes and front-end loaders!


Watching the buildings grow was pretty exciting.  




The finished product was too.  Kids have nice sidewalks to ride their bikes on and a new playground.  They have been to the Tierney Community Center to see great programs since the Perkins doesn't have its own auditorium.  The kids aren't the only people who think Phase 1 was a good idea.  Readers of Affordable Housing Finance magazine picked it over about 140 other projects as the year's Best Urban Project.

 
And, guess what?  It's starting to happen all over again.  

Politicians, city planners and developers, and builders came together to get the project started last week.  They made some speeches that basically said it takes a lot of work to do this kind of project--and, it's worth it.  It's good because it gives people from the neighborhood jobs and gives people from Old Colony a better place to live and makes South Boston a nicer community.  

Then came the fun part.  The first chunk of the building came down!

Now a new adventure begins.

Practical Art

The kids in art class are clearly studying scale, proportion and perspective. Could they also be thinking about Phase 2 of rebuilding Old Colony Housing Development, which is due to start in fall? It's never too soon to start planning!

Our First Look at Phase Two

Last May, the kids of the Perkins School attended a ceremony. There, they saw a check, a check that was enormous in more ways than one. First it was big enough that both Senator Kerry and Mayor Menino had to hold onto it. Then, it was written for the sum of twenty-two million dollars. That's a huge amount of money!

The money will help build Phase 2 of Old Colony's renovation. Even though it's a bit hard to imagine what it will look like from drawings--they are what we have at the moment.


Look carefully on the right side of the plan. That's Phase 1, which is getting closer and closer to being done every single day. A little higher up and a little more to the left is Phase 2. It's the section with bits of peach, orange and green--with letters all over it. That won't begin for a while, but it's next.

Most importantly, what's in the middle?

We are! The Michael J. Perkins School! That means that we get to watch the process all over again, but now from different sets of windows. We have a second chance to catch up on all we missed!

How Big a Check Was It?

On May 25th, we reported that Hope 6, a program of the federal government, is supplying enough money to do Phase 2 of the Old Colony renovation. How much money? A lot of money. If you can't read the fine print on that huge check above, it says 22 million dollars!

Ms. Leverett-King's first grade class got a good look at that big, big check at the end of the ceremony. It sure had a lot of digits and place values. It became an opportunity for a math lesson AND a writing lesson.

THAT WAS ONE BIG CHECK!!!!

(Sorry, Senator Kerry, but you really can't blame Emani's judgment call!)

There's Going to Be a Phase Two!

Our readers from the Boston area might already know the news. Perhaps they read it in the newspaper, or saw it on TV. For the rest of you, we're happy to say that the federal government is supplying another money to do Phase 2 of the Old Colony renovation project. If you want to know the rest of the official story, you can click on the story written by the Boston Globe.

What's our news at the PerkinsBlog? People from the federal government actually came to the Perkins School to give the check to people of the government of Massachusetts! The Perkins kids got to see the ceremony and listen to all the speakers.

It's a really big check, isn't it? It's big in two ways--a lot of money (22 million dollars!) and big in size. It turns out this is just a check for the ceremony. But one student turned to another and asked how they were going to deposit it in the bank!

There were a lot of speeches. Some people said this was a wonderful day because it was going to supply more jobs for our construction workers. We're glad for that. It will be nice to keep them around. Other people said that it means more people from Old Colony will have better places to live. And that it will help the environment and because the buildings will use much less energy.




Stephen Lynch is the person who stands up for our part of Boston in the United States House of Representatives. When he got up to speak, he said that he had grown up in Old Colony. He lived in an apartment for fifteen years with his parents and his five sisters.







Then he pointed to the metal picket fence at the edge of our playground. He remembered a time when his friend somehow pushed his head through and got it stuck. Luckily that hasn't happened around here for a long while!


When the speeches were over, the kids got to talk to some of our important visitors. One student was a little disappointed, though. There weren't any limousines lined up in front of the school.

Mayor Menino gave out a lot of high-fives. And when someone tried to tell him about the PerkinsBlog, he said, "I know all about the blog. I know that these kids voted for the Big Giraffe!" (If you want to know what he's talking about, click here.)


Our United States Senator, John Kerry, didn't know about the Big Giraffe, though. So the kindergarteners told him about how they voted for the name of the biggest crane across the street by secret ballot--just like a real election.

Senator Kerry seemed very interested. He also noticed that one student had an untied shoelace, and tried to give him some help.

Soon it was time for us to get back to school. When asked what he thought the morning was all about, Jaymil might have made the best speech of the day. "This is happening, so people can have nice homes," he said, "and live with their heads kept up."