By adamg on Sun., 7/10/2016 - 12:01 am
A disgusted citizen files a complaint:
Move the Coconut Grove plaque to where it belongs. The city needs to stop bending over for the rich. 492 people died, why are millionaires allowed to change history and dishonor the dead. THE CITY SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF THEMSELVES FOR MEETING THIS HAPPEN!
The citizen probably read the Cullen column: Cocoanut Grove plaque shoved down the street.
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Whoosh
By Stevil
Sun, 07/10/2016 - 4:14pm
Now I get it. You don't get anything - even a joke about how you would try to teach one of the best in the world at a certain skill how to do it.
Talk about clueless.
Math and reading are your friends. Take them out for a spin some day.
a) Try reading my post before responding by ignoring anything that might refute your arguments and pretending they weren't written.
b) If you are going to argue math - do your homework first. I'm not really sure exactly what your point about less is above - but it doesn't even apply to the $60k a year household you yourself chose as an example. Might apply to someone making $30k - but if that's your point - see a) above.
Strawmen and context
By Daan
Sun, 07/10/2016 - 1:26pm
There is no "man." There are economic structures that create wealth and poverty. Walmart and other oligarchic massively sized businesses are a part of the structure that creates and supports near poverty by being able to 1) eliminate locally owned retail stores, 2) pay below subsistence wages and 3) remove wealth and economic power from local communities by centering wealth in other hands, whether share holders or executives. Oligopolies such as telecommunications and any other industry that has consolidated through mergers and acquisitions so that power and wealth concentrate into the fewest hands are more examples. That assumes that the estimates that locally owned businesses reinvest wealth at a higher rate that non-locally owned businesses. Perhaps that is a myth perpetrated by the countless deceitful small business owners of America. Perhaps ultimately the best economic system is one where the fewest enjoy the most and the most get only the least.
The claims that if a person does not buy a car, does not go on vacations, does own telecommunications equipment or use related services, enjoy a meal out or go to sports (and I'll include arts events) they would have more disposable income to save and invest is true. However why should only those with enough wealth to afford all of these expenses and still have money left over be the only ones who get to own a car, go on vacation, visit a ball game or art museum, etc. and save? By maintaining economic classes where to save money means to live within means that are severely limited as compared to what wealthier people can enjoy is to say, "Sorry, you have to stay home, exclusively use pitiful public transportation to get to work, school or the doctor, may not enjoy a vacation with your family, etc., all because you are not fortunate enough to afford all this and more."
This discussion of wealth also ignores a large sector of society: the elderly. What of the elderly who after raising families, sending children to college, etc. but also retire from jobs that do not have pensions, that did not provide enjoy for retirement and who did not earn enough to enjoy large Social Security pensions? Are they also to blame for being older and poorer?
Ignoring economic and tax policies that direct wealth into few hands, as well as ignoring economic structural changes (the massive shift of manufacturing jobs to the nations that support extremely low wages) creates an illusion that the wealthy who take advantage of these changes are pure good people who just happen to fall into wealth. It puts the blame on people who work and yet till do not earn the incomes to maintain a middle class life style and still save money.
It also ignores other grossly out of whack economic trends such as insanely inflation in higher education and medicine. It ignores a legal system that is biased against anyone of lessor means because the Supreme Court has made suits against wealthier organizations hard by restricting class action suits and by maintaining a legal system that boils down to wars of attrition of rich against non-rich because the wealthier can afford to extend legal battles while non-wealthy can not.
The wealth alway have advantages over the non-wealthy. But as an economy and society we have evolved to giving far greater advantage to the wealth at the expense of our own interests by electing governments that want to consolidate wealth and power into the fewest hands from Reagan onward and accepting as though fated that the wealthy should be wealthier and the rest should be poorer.
It's the UHub way
By merlinmurph
Sun, 07/10/2016 - 1:47pm
Stevil, I think you're well aware that rich-bashing is the UHub way (whatever "rich" is").
Ghostbusters
By BHL57 (not verified)
Sun, 07/10/2016 - 10:47am
Those residents are gonna have to have Ghostbusters on speed dial for all the bad karma that'll be raining down on their heads.
This is so wrong
By Evergreen (not verified)
Sun, 07/10/2016 - 9:53am
If the residents are doing the hard work of ignoring the fact of 492 horrible, untimely deaths on the spot where they live, a simple plaque shouldn't be that big a challenge to ignore, too.
But apparently they blame the plaque for their problem. Forgetting turns out to be extremely hard work, no matter how nice their homes are, nestled on a site of mass death and grief.
The residents need to realize that the plaque is not the problem. History is their problem. Moving the plaque doesn't change much except to create trouble for long-suffering survivors and others who care about commemorating history and will never let it be forgotten. Moving the plaque simply produces outrage and anger. Now the residents will need to learn to ignore contemporary bad feelings on top of historical horror.
They must simply work harder on their forgetfulness. Nobody fell for the wreath/gawking tourist reasoning, by the way.
The plaque should be put back. The residents should then take themselves shopping for awesome new stuff.
Tourists? What tourists?
By scollaysq
Sun, 07/10/2016 - 11:53am
People peeking in windows? The last time I made a pilgrimage to visit the spot, maybe three years ago, the place was absolutely deserted and I walked around a while too.
As Mayor Menino used to say: "Hogmosh!"
I call BS on the tourist argument.
By Boston_res
Sun, 07/10/2016 - 12:13pm
I'll call it louder once the first unit shows up on Airbnb.
This is coconuts!
By anon (not verified)
Sun, 07/10/2016 - 12:27pm
I'm going to walk by every week and leave a coconut at the original site of the plaque until it's put back.
History does have a purpose:
By mplo
Sun, 07/10/2016 - 1:15pm
It's something that people can and ought to learn from, so that the same mistakes that caused incidents like the Coconut Grove fire, the Hotel Vendome fire, and other grisly events like it are not made in the future.
The lessons to be learned
By anon (not verified)
Sun, 07/10/2016 - 4:37pm
The lessons to be learned from Cocoanut Grove are 1) be careful with flammable building material and 2) make sure your emergency exit doors swing out and not in.
I don't think a little plaque in Boston is going to make a difference in maintaining that awareness in fire codes worldwide. If anything, the fire's wikipedia page does that.
Bostonians (and UHub posters in especially) have a quasi-religious attitude towards old things. Not that it's a bad thing, but they also carry an attitude that anyone uninterested in preservation is backwards and unenlightened. In the 50's and 60's there was an opposite prevailing attitude - shed the old, in with the new, clean slate. There are pros and cons to both ways of doing things, but I think it's naive to think one view is correct and the other incorrect.
condescending and elitist
By anon (not verified)
Sun, 07/10/2016 - 3:35pm
"We now occupy these homes with our families as part of the Bay Village neighborhood and would like to enjoy our homes in peace, without tragic memories, hanging wreaths at our doors and tourists peeking into our houses" has got to be one of the most condescending, elitist, "let them eat cake" comments I have ever heard. What idiots. There are no hanging wreaths or aggressive tourists in that area at all. The Cocoanut Grove plaque was small, respectful and even optimistic. It should have remained. Irrespective of the "rich vs. poor" argument, the people who move into urban luxury condos seem to be a special breed of snowflake who want to live in an urban environment yet at the same time remain in their elite bubble. Remember the bozos, reported right here on U Hub, in the luxury housing adjacent to the Boston Garden who were complaining that it was too noisy and that they and their precious children had a right to peace and quiet? Um, you moved in next door to the Boston Garden you jerk. You have waived your right to peace and quiet. period.
Wreaths
By Cantabrigian
Sun, 07/10/2016 - 4:55pm
We should start hanging wreaths.
Candlelight vigil?
By anon (not verified)
Sun, 07/10/2016 - 6:08pm
Annually?
You know, with hymns and a reading of all the names of the victims and tributes to the heroes?
I'd be there
I can only assume that people
By faegirl
Sun, 07/10/2016 - 7:24pm
I can only assume that people will show up with wreaths and flowers and start peeking into their windows now.
Why not get the facts straight FIRST
By BVer (not verified)
Mon, 07/11/2016 - 5:12pm
I live a few blocks away from the site and walk by it several times a day.
The Globe has a lot of facts wrong. The story could benefit from some corrections.
Fact. The city has done nothing to commemorate the tragedy except send a pol or two around when the neighborhood association (yes, those ugly rich people-except they're not all ugly and rich) have made efforts to memorialize the fire.
Fact. The neighborhood association paid for and put in the original plaque.
Fact. The neighborhood proposed and championed renaming the alley off Shawmut in memory of the fire.
Fact. The plaque was originally put in the wrong location. It was meant to be on the site of the revolving doors where so many died. Its new location isn't there -- but it's closer.
Fact. Before the new condos went in, the site was an eyesore - A PARKING LOT. Oh, and remember this was prime streetwalker territory until just a few years ago. I was part of "whistle patrols" and that parking lot was very busy...
Fact. Yes, lots of rich people have bought condos there. I think they're insane. IMHO the site is cursed and haunted - the Revere staff claim to have seen stuff.
Fact. The developer pushed to have the plaque moved, not the residents. And, given that the plaque was privately donated and placed by a private organization on someone else's land, guess who wins? Maybe the wonderful folks living elsewhere in the city should have actually done something constructive and public to memorialize the tragedy in the last 80 years...
Next stop Dudley
By anon (not verified)
Tue, 07/12/2016 - 4:33pm
The rich are on the march:
Southie the middle class is gone baby gone
South end the middle class is gone baby gone
North end the middle class is gone baby gone
The seaport the middle class is gone baby gone
Roxbury get ready to be evicted
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