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City Notes: Downtown Updates

by Bill Dusty

ARBOR ALLIES HOSTS TREE PLANTING
The local conservation group Springfield Arbor Allies will be hosting a tree planting on Saturday, May 30, 2009 from 9:30am to noontime, meeting up on Dwight Street behind the MassMutual Center. The group, which organized just this year, is helping to coordinate tree planting in neighborhoods throughout the city in areas of need. Arbor Allies works in cooperation with the city’s Forestry Department (well, what’s left of it), which helps the group purchase tree saplings and identify locations for planting.

For more information on the Dwight Street planting, or how you can help out in the future, contact Arbor Allies Director Mike Tully at, (413) 886-5183.

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TAX PROTEST AT THE STATE BUILDING

On this past Thursday, May 21, the Western Mass 912 Project, an activist group protesting government spending and high taxes, held a street demonstration in front of the State Building on Dwight Street in downtown Springfield to protest the state’s proposed 25% increase in sales tax in Massachusetts.

As I was snapping a couple of photos of the protest, a car accident suddenly jarred our attention. Apparently, a pizza delivery guy and another vehicle had a fender-bender after attempting to elude a speeding car as it zipped past them on Dwight Street. In an even bigger twist to the scene, I happened to know the guy in the other car. Hi Bob!

I snapped some accident photos for him and later emailed them to him.

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HOT TABLE COMING TO TOWER SQUARE

Next in line to try out doing business at Tower Square’s Main Street, ground-level eatery storefront is Hot Table, a European-styled shop serving Panini sandwiches, coffee and desserts. The Springfield-based Hot Table already has a shop on Breckwood Boulevard, and according to this ABC-40 news report, the three owners – brothers Chris and John Devoie and brother-in-law Don Watroba – are willing to take the gamble of opening up shop downtown during a struggling economy as they look to expand their business. The new shop is due to open this summer.

Good luck, guys.

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Posted by Bill Dusty on May 25th, 2009 and filed under Feature Stories, Latest Posts, Society. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.