Help, please!

[hallie-mathia.livejournal.com]

Hi guys, my name is Hallie and I'm a college student at Emerson College.  I'm studying journalism, and one of my assignments this semester is to cover Davis Square -- basically, to follow and report on it through May.

I'm not from the area (I'm actually from Texas!) but I went to Davis this morning and walked around and honestly -- I fell in love.  What a great area!  I'm so excited I get to cover it!

I stumbled across this LiveJournal while doing some research, and I was wondering if any of you would be able to talk to me about Davis, what you like about it, what you as a community are doing for/with the area, etc.  I'd love any links or leads you could give me, or any stories you may want to see featured!  I'm all ears for what you guys have to say!

Thanks for reading this, and again -- any information you can give me is welcome and wonderful.  Thank you guys so much!!!  Have a great day :)

Hallie 

Comments

Try this page for a start

[davissqgeek.livejournal.com]

http://www.morrisonhousebnb.com/Davissq.htm

[cos]

Some things you should do:

1. Hang out at Diesel while doing your schoolwork, frequently.

2. See live music at both the Somerville Theatre and Johnny D's.

3. Walk the bike path, in the snow and in the spring.

4. I'd say "go to Somerville Open Studios" and "go to ArtBeat" but your semester may be over too soon for those.

5. Flip through the archives of this community.

6. Interview Ron Newman. Do it after you've done some of the other stuff, so you have more context and know what you want to ask him about.

thank you!

[hallie-mathia.livejournal.com]

Thanks for your input! I'm planning on heading back over to Davis on Tuesday, so I'll bring some work to do at Diesal (I've been there once before & loved it). Also, I'm looking into shows at Johnny D's now.

And thank you for Ron Newman's name! I really appreciate it :)

Re: thank you!

[ron_newman]

Sure, I'll talk to you, but the folks you really should interview are Carla DeLillis at Johnny D's, and Ian Judge at the Somerville Theatre. And possibly also Jimmy Del Ponte and John Roderick and Laurinda Bedingfield. They've been around Davis Square for decades before I arrived here.

Re: thank you!

[srakkt.livejournal.com]

Seconding Jimmy Del Ponte and Ian Judge, if only because I know they're both awfully friendly folks.

Re: thank you!

[enochs-fable.livejournal.com]

and Tom Champion!

[teele-sq.livejournal.com]

Do a story about how local government is chasing away local business and residents by enacting ridiculous parking laws.

[serious-noir.livejournal.com]

to spare yourself some email spam/getting on a spammer list - you might consider not posting your full email address. Break it up with spaces or some other char. (not foolproof at all but worth the attempt).

[teele-sq.livejournal.com]

Do a story about the plague of airplane noise.

[teele-sq.livejournal.com]

Do a story about burritos.

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

If you want some context for teele_sq's suggestions, check out these tags: parking (http://community.livejournal.com/davis_square/tag/parking) (the laws that were being whinged about can be found here (http://community.livejournal.com/davis_square/2011317.html)), noise (http://community.livejournal.com/davis_square/tag/noise) (do a word search for "airplane", although the sleigh bells post is a reference as well), and of course burritos (http://community.livejournal.com/davis_square/tag/burritos).

Interview Tom Champion too.

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

I think.

Re: Interview Tom Champion too.

[tom-champion.livejournal.com]

Before or after I leave the City's employ?

Re: Interview Tom Champion too.

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

How about before AND after? Just to see if your perspective changes... :)

Re: Interview Tom Champion too.

[serious-noir.livejournal.com]

Move da planes please ... ;-)

Re: Interview Tom Champion too.

[closetalker11.livejournal.com]

LOL!!

[redcolumbine.livejournal.com]

You might enjoy:

The Tiles Project http://davissquaretilesproject.com/davis-square-tiles-project

DARBI's History of Davis Square http://www.yourdavissquare.com/davis_square_history.htm?current=three&sub=b

[mrsdollylevi.livejournal.com]

the tiles project is great... Check out the CVS windows right now to see some of what they are doing with it

[serious-noir.livejournal.com]

There have been loads of stories on Davis (a memorable lame: some Boston.com video "gurl" reporter thing "it's alll SOOO fabulousss." Ugh.. Was worse on video).

--The economics of DS - which businesses have survived and which didn't, and speculation as to why. (Bowl and Board, etc.)

--The Carberries curse (the space on Elm that seems success adverse)

--More gritty: the importance of places like McKinnon's, the Social Security office and Goodwill for keeping DS from becoming a completely gentrified and/or Harvard Ave. hell hole.

[mattdm.livejournal.com]

Bowl and Board didn't survive because they got way behind on the rent for their Brookline store, and weren't making enough elsewhere to catch up.

[serious-noir.livejournal.com]

I followed the B&B fall and it was not quite as simple as that.

No matter, I was speaking from a DS POV: what B&B may have hoped for in moving here and what did or did not occur.

I have wondered at times how certain retail businesses survive here (-names redacted-). Glad to see that they have, but still.

[ron_newman]

NPR's series on Bowl & Board, in eight installments from December 2008 through November 2009. I don't think much of it focused on the Davis location, though.

[vonelftinhaus.livejournal.com]

I have 2 old pictures of Davis Sq-possibly pre 1950's. could scan them and send them your way

[ron_newman]

I'd love to see those too. Could you put them up on Flickr and link to them here?

[enochs-fable.livejournal.com]

You'll have to report back with what you come up with!

I wish I could find the link to the derided story about the weird Ask-O-Thingy (you could put questions in, but only the one guy would answer them)... and the local reporter who wrote a piece on it without doing much in the way of due diligence (and hence missing all interesting stuff.)To her credit, she apologized instead of just vanishing with no response.

People here are pretty passionate (some would say obsessed or just plain crazy) about Davis Square, and I have two pieces of advice:

Don't make things up and don't be lazy. If you don't know, get out there and find out. There's more info out there than you can shake a stick at, and while a lot of it can be found just sitting at your desk, most of it, the good stuff, can only be unearthed by actually getting out and talking to people and visiting the places you're writing about.

[ron_newman]

If you go to the local characters tag and search for 'wheel' you'll probably find it.

don't mess with the square

[enochs-fable.livejournal.com]

Here it is: post about Somerville News intern reporter and the Wheel (http://community.livejournal.com/davis_square/1877215.html). She didn't do her fact-checking and people nailed her for it. A rough introduction to the world of journalism for sure.

Re: don't mess with the square

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

LOL, I certainly remember that one! :)

[longtimeres.livejournal.com]

I grew up in Davis Square 60's/70's. If you're interested in talking, let me know.

[daviscubed.livejournal.com]

I'd also add Giancarlo Sessa of Sessa's Italian Specialties to the list of people who have perspective of owning a business here from "the old days" (Sessa's has been here since 1979).

[mem-winterhill.livejournal.com]

I think somebody needs to go bowling....

http://community.livejournal.com/davis_square/2076112.html

[rethcir.livejournal.com]

Pop in the Joshua Tree on a friday night.. in addition to the yuppie crowd, there are some very interesting regular characters who've seen a lot.

[katers5636.livejournal.com]

I'm a fellow Emerson student, and I live in Davis Sq. I just moved here in August, so if you need a newcomer's take on this area, I'd be happy to help a fellow student. You can contact me here if I can help at all.

Good luck! I love Davis Sq...I'm certain you'll have a great time covering this area.

WOW

[hallie-mathia.livejournal.com]

Guys, I'm overwhelmed by and grateful for all of your help and suggestions! As a student journalist, I get a LOT of people who don't take me seriously and slam doors in my faces. The fact that you all have treated me with respect is so incredibly nice. (Also, I *promise* to fact-check!)

To keep you updated on everything, I'm putting together a blog that you're more than welcome to follow. Once I get it up, it'll have pictures of the area as well as stories I've done. I have ideas (based on your suggestions) for seven different ones so far:

1) Somerville driving up the cost of parking, hurting local businesses
2) Tile project (fun angle - the person collecting the tiles? Whose idea was it to start the project? One of the people featured?)
3) Local music scene bringing in outsiders (Johnny D's, Somerville Theatre, etc.)
4) Carberries curse? (area that is never successful)
5) The importance of places like McKinnon's, the Social Security office and Goodwill for keeping DS from becoming a completely gentrified and/or Harvard Ave. ***@serious_noir - will you talk to me about this?***
6) How small businesses are fairing in this economy (college kid-targeted, with stores like Poor Little Rich Girl)
7) Then & now, how Davis has changed (economically, socially, diversely, etc.) ***@longtimeres, can we talk about this?***

@vonelftinhaus - I'd LOVE to see the pictures!!!

@mem_winterhill - I'll be there!

@rethcir - Thank you for the tip, I'll definitely check it out!

@katers5636 - Thank you!!! I'll keep you in mind :)

Guys, I really can't tell you how awesome you are. And in return, I promise I'm not going to be a flake-out student journalist. I'm committed to (and excited about!) this beat, and continuing to discover the coolness of Davis Sq. :)

Hallie
hallie (underscore) mathia (at) emerson (dot) edu

Re: WOW

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

Oh, don't forget also: Somerville voted overwhelmingly NOT FOR BROWN! :)

Re: WOW

[serious-noir.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a book! (which would be cool).

No doubt you will find a thread or two that have particular interest for you. Personally I think an in depth piece on one aspect (economic, cultural, social) would be more interesting than a travelogue type thing ("36 Hours in Davis Square" etc.) since that has been done to death.

@Social Security, etc. I don't have any facts or insider perspective, just observing things over the years. What I meant essentially is that the presence of those venues makes for a greater class mix here day-to-day than you will find, say, in Harvard Sq. despite the degree of gentrification here over the last 10-15 years.

Re: WOW

[hallie-mathia.livejournal.com]

I agree...I'm definitely not looking to do the "36 hours" bit. I'd still love to talk to you about your observations!

Re: WOW

[ron_newman]

A few other non-gentrified places in Davis: Dunkin Donuts, McDonalds, Family Dollar.

Blog link

[hallie-mathia.livejournal.com]

Hi guys! Hope your week is going well.

Here's the blog I put up. Obviously, it's a work in progress, and it's pretty sparse up there right now. But I didn't want to monopolize this LiveJournal any longer :)

http://davissquare.wordpress.com/

Hallie

[closetalker11.livejournal.com]

Hi Hallie!

I'm an Emerson alum (c/o '03), and have lived in Davis since 2004. I maybe wouldn't be the most help to you, but I am friends with several local business managers, one of which grew up in the Davis are about 20 or so years ago (and still lives and works here). I would be happy to put you in touch -- I think it would be an interesting perspective for your report ... which, by the way, I would love to read!

Please feel free to be in touch: cori.mykoff at gmail.com.