For a growing number of Americans, reading is more than leafing through a physical book. Between 2011 and 2021, the share of Americans who listened to an audiobook more than doubled, from 11% to 23%, according to the Pew Research Center. At the same time, the share who read an e-book rose from 17% to 30% – all while the number of Americans who read any format of book held relatively steady. 


That, on its surface, sounds like a win for the nation’s public libraries. E-book lending surged durin...

Soichi Sakamoto (1906-97) never formally learned to swim, and had limited athletic training and coaching experience. But against all odds, the schoolteacher became one of swimming’s most influential coaches, developing science-based training methods that are still used today.
Born in Maui to Issei parents, Sakamoto was a rebellious, free-spirited child who struggled with their strict, traditional expectations. He believed he was destined for something greater and approached life with restless cu...

One of Lee’s favorite Easter eggs in the museum is a scene from Jaws in the harbor near the model coastal Maine town. “I love hearing people say, ‘Oh my god, that’s Jaws!’ I love leaving things for people to find. It gives visitors a reason to look at all the amazing details that members have put in,” Lee said. There is also a model Bluesmobile hidden in the mountains.

After two months on the moo-ve, the MSPCA reported that the elusive Roslindale bull (who is actually a steer) was safely captured and is being evaluated and cared for at Nevins Farm in Methuen. He was lovingly given the name Moodini, a nod to the famous escape artist Harry Houdini.

Two recently released movies, The Holdovers and American Fiction, have something in common - they both contain scenes filmed in the Parkway area. Caution; the following article may contain mild spoilers.

The home improvement series on PBS, This Old House, is airing new episodes about transforming a Victorian house in West Roxbury. The show described West Roxbury as a “small town in a big city.” The first episode discusses how the Victorian house in the neighborhood was originally built on farmland in 1894 and was the first single-family erected in the new subdivision.

Almost 200 Dedham residents and community members joined a Zoom meeting to help reimagine the property of the current Dedham Police Station in a way that could benefit the entire community.

Over the past month, West Roxbury Bikes (WR Bikes) has been collaborating with local biking and walking groups like Dedham Bikes to push forward an idea for a bike path along Route 1 between Spring Street and Dedham Square.

“This is our fourth official Trader Joe’s store in Boston, and our twenty-fifth Trader Joe’s in Massachusetts, so we’re really excited to be here,” TJ’s Regional VP Will Walls said during the ribbon-cutting ceremony. The store hired more than 80 new Crew Members (staff) from neighboring communities and received additional staff transfers from nearby Trader Joe’s locations.

Many residents said they did not receive anything in the mail regarding the proposed speed humps, and are left with many questions — Is this plan finalized or just a proposal? Where exactly on the street will they be placed? If I object to the speed humps, will they still be installed on my street?

Over the past year, this proposal was met with some opposition from the community, many of whom claim that the building at 1911 Centre Street has significant historical value since it was a post office during the Civil War.

Boston Parks and Recreation initially projected that the Billings Field project would be completed by late summer 2026. The timeline has since shifted, with construction now slated for completion this November. The sports fields are expected to fully reopen in spring 2027, once the turf has been established.
“Weather-related impacts, expanded project scope – including major park accessibility improvements – contributed to this revised timeline,” the spokesperson explained. “The project remains on track for completion in November 2026.”

After five years of public meetings and social media discourse, the implementation of the West Roxbury Centre Street redesign, known on the street as the “road diet,” is well underway. The new design, which aims to make Centre Street safer for motorists, pedestrians, and cyclists, has been implemented from the intersection of Centre Street and Lagrange, up to the Holy Name Rotary.

“Currently only three percent of housing in West Roxbury is income restricted, with 52.7 percent of West Roxbury renter households spending more than 30 percent of their income on rent. Our plan will enhance the previous proposal for 270 Baker Street, which we renamed ‘Residences off Baker’ due to neighborhood feedback from the previous meeting,” Grace explained.

Since October, many improvements have been completed, including a new ADA-accessible ramp off of Bellevue Street, a new staircase, a new street hockey rink, reconstruction of the retention wall along the wooded area, new asphalt along the retention wall, new pickleball courts, new scoreboards, and playground resurfacing with repairs.

Mayor Walsh discussed the need for housing and development in Boston. He explained that when he became Mayor in 2014, his administration inherited a housing crisis. So he released Housing a Changing City: Boston 2030, a comprehensive housing plan designed to address the housing needs of Boston’s growing population.

For two years, the committee studied the economic, community, and environmental impacts of possible scenarios for this property—including selling it, keeping the parcel for surface parking, keeping the building, or keeping the parcel and creating a town square/green.

Many adults enjoyed the Hive, which served beer, wine, cider, and hot mulled wine. You could even step inside the trailer to warm up, where the vintage cottage-style interior felt incredibly cozy.

Small businesses are disproportionately affected by tariffs. With tighter budgets, smaller profit margins, and a dependence on steady supply chains, small businesses usually don’t have the flexibility to absorb rising costs.

“Picture books are still one of the best technologies for sharing inspiration, inspiration, and really important messages like peace. We all need more peace in our lives, we all need to be more peaceful ourselves - there’s inner peace, and there’s the peace around us, and then there’s peace in the universe. We’re aiming big here, we want universal peace.”

“While our grapes are sourced from the esteemed Suisun Valley in Napa, California, the wine is entirely fermented and produced onsite. The process strictly limits the use of sulfites and prohibits the use of additives, providing a distinctive difference from commercial wines, which often contain high levels of sulfites and are produced with chemicals to add color, alter flavor, limit alcohol content and correct flaws."

“The difficulty of this situation was hammered home for me recently. I was replacing tires on a BMW (German) that was made in South Carolina. It had Bridgestone (Japanese) tires on it that were made in Mexico. I was replacing them with Michelin (French) tires that were made in the United States."

Delini Gelato is a family-owned gelato shop in West Roxbury, known for its authentic Italian gelato made fresh in small batches every day. But over the past six months, tariffs have had a “negative and harmful” impact on the gelato store. Owner Viktoria Petkova explained that, as a small business with tight margins, the added costs from these tariffs have been very difficult to absorb without impacting both pricing and long-term planning.

The Roslindale Wetlands are kettle bogs, which have incompletely decomposed plant material (peat) that accumulates when saturated year round by water that is cool, acidic, poorly oxygenated, and low in nutrients. Kettles are formed by blocks of dead ice left behind by retreating glaciers, which become surrounded by sediment deposited by the melting water.

Increased flooding has become an urgent concern in recent years for Hawthorne Street residents. There have been multiple community meetings over the past year regarding this issue, and residents are concerned about proposed new developments exacerbating the problem. Homes for sale on Hawthorne Street are marked as having “severe” flood risks on Zillow and other real estate websites.

Healey noted that communities across Massachusetts have faced devastating impacts from severe storms, flooding, and wildfires in recent years. She emphasized that FEMA funding is critical not just for recovery, but for protecting against future extreme weather events.

Nature enthusiasts and birders have noticed the effects of bird flu in their neighborhood parks. West Roxbury resident and wildlife photographer Mary Ellen McMahon noticed two dead canadian geese at Millennium Park, and another dead goose at Leverett Pond. She reported the sightings to Mass Wildlife.

Dozens of bird enthusiasts, bird watchers, and nature photographers flocked to the canoe launch at Millennium Park last week to get a glimpse of a unique bird. The glossy ibis, also known as the plegadis falcinellus, foraged in the shallow, muddy waters of the Charles River.

After a mild but dreary winter, spring is finally here - with more rain. Boston received a total of nine inches of rain in March, and an overall total of 18 inches of rain this year. The heavy downpours have caused flooding issues all over Boston, including the Parkway area.

“One of the big places for wild food is edge habitats, where different habitats come together,” explained Kristan. An edge habitat is a floral community with different vegetation structure than the two ad- joining habitats in nature. “Unfortunately, a lot of edge habitats are right next to roads. You don’t want to go there; you don’t want to eat the pollutants from the roads. But you don’t have to go far to get clean plants."

The Charles River by the canoe launch was so dried up, one could nearly walk all the way across the other side without getting their feet wet. “For years, I have been a regular visitor to Millennium, there in the mornings walking the trails and photographing birds and other wildlife. I know that stretch of the Charles River extremely well. During the course of a typical year, it can be swollen with rain, and lower when it's dry,” remarked Lang. “Some years, you can see a small sandbar in the middle when it's especially dry. But never have I seen it as low as it is now. Never have you been able to walk into the middle of the river basin or essentially cross over to the other side staying just about completely dry. Who's to say for sure if it's the effects of climate change or just a rare but periodic dry spell, but for certain this isn't normal for this stretch of the Charles.”

Avid cyclist and Roslindale resident, Alan Wright, is biking from Boston to Portland, Oregon to help promote greener transportation and climate justice. Wright left Boston on Saturday, May 22 after attending Boston Cyclist Union ‘Build Back Bikeable’ rally at Government Center the night before and dipping his bike wheels into the Boston Harbor.

MassWildlife and Mass Audubon asked Massachusetts residents to stop using bird feeders and bird baths for the time being to prevent birds from congregating due to a mysterious bird illness seen in parts of the country.

Last month, Boston Bike enthusiast August Blake took a Blue Bike from Salem to West Roxbury and documented his trip on social media. Bluebikes is Metro Boston's public bike share program, with more than 3,000 bikes and more than 300 stations across Arlington, Boston, Brookline, Cambridge, Chelsea, Everett, Newton, Revere, Salem, Somerville, and Watertown. Multiple Blue Bike Stations have popped up in the Parkway area over the past few years.

“The owls that I brought here today are local - these are animals that live around here, they are not endangered or exotic. This is native New England wildlife."

The Rivermoor Urban Wild is a narrow parcel of floodplain marsh along the Charles River. This city-owned urban wild forms a riparian buffer from the buildings across the street. It is also a habitat for a lot of wildlife, including swans, which were spotted during the cleanup. “It is such a pretty spot,” noted one volunteer.

Theodore Parker was an abolitionist, transcendentalist, and reforming minister of the Unitarian church. In 1837, he was called to the pulpit by the Second Parish of Roxbury. His parishioners were deeply devoted to Parker, supporting him even after his radical theology led to his banishment from the Unitarian brotherhood in 1846.

The Billings family helped shape 19th century West Roxbury through their businesses, land/farm ownership, and civic involvement. Their story begins in colonial-era Milton, within the Massachusetts Bay Colony, where Ebenezer Billings and his wife Mariam raised their eight children. The family’s fortune started with the success of their tavern.

April 19, 1775 is a date many Americans recognize. It is the day nearly 4,000 men from communities across Massachusetts dropped everything to respond to the “Lexington Alarm” and fight the British Regulars. One of those men was Major Aaron Guild, a well-known figure in Norwood who is depicted on the Town’s seal with his musket and oxen.

Community members and residents can honor local veterans with banners, which will be displayed on light poles around the Disabled American Veterans (DAV) Memorial Park.

The first person to be entombed at Westerly was Marriam Draper in 1694, who was born in Yorkshire, England. Mary Draper (1713-1810), the widow of Marriam's grandson, aided Continental soldiers in the Revolutionary War by making clothes and bullets, while also feeding troops at her farm.

Strolling or driving down Centre Street in West Roxbury recently, you may have noticed the new banners honoring local Veterans, proudly displaying their faces and names. The 71 banners were installed just in time for Veterans Day.

US Army officer Aaron Daggett was the last surviving brevet Union general of the American Civil War. In 1866, he was nominated by President Andrew Johnson to be brevet brigadier general. A brevet is a temporary promotion in rank. Daggett passed away in his home in WR in 1938, a month shy of his 101st birthday.

Air Force Col. George Lee, a Norwood native and WWII war hero nicknamed “Iron Man", has a legacy that transcends borders. His remarkable story of bravery and service is remembered not only in his hometown, but also in a small village in northeastern France, more than 3,500 miles away across the Atlantic.

Ganske started the podcast by discussing the history of the Fairbanks house. Puritan settler Jonathan Fairbanks constructed the farm house for his wife Grace and their family. The house was occupied and then passed down through eight generations of the family until the early 20th century, when it was converted into a museum.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment, guaranteeing and protecting women's constitutional right to vote. At the dinner, LWV members wore purple, white and yellow sashes, colors which represent loyalty, purity and hope. Some dinner attendees dressed up as Women’s Suffrage icons, while others wore white suits - a nod to what many Democratic women wore during the State of the Union Address.

Mother Brook Canal is the first man-made canal in the United States, dug by English settlers in 1639 to build mills to grind corn. Volpe said that many people often ask how the English settlers knew how to create this advanced method of engineering - the answer is that many of these settlers learned these skills back in England.

When the English settlers came to Dedham in the early 1600s, they could explore the town only via waterways, since it was too risky to walk around the woods. Mother Brook canal (which connects the Charles and Neponset rivers) was dug in 1639, making it the USA’s first man-made canal. The early settlers were in desperate need of a mill, so they needed water power. The canal was dug with wooden shovels since they didn’t have iron.

Food insecurity in Massachusetts has more than doubled since 2019, according to a new report by the Greater Boston Food Bank (GBFB). The findings reflect what is happening locally at the Roslindale Food Pantry, which has seen its number of clients double in the last six months.A growing number of Massachusetts households are struggling with food insecurity, with rates increasing from 19 percent in 2019 to 40 percent in 2025.

Empty Bowls is a community-driven initiative led by artists and artisans across many cities and towns worldwide. Its purpose is to raise funds for food-related charities that support the needs of community members who are food insecure.

While the federal administration announced on Monday it will partially fund food assistance, it is currently unclear when those benefits will come in, and so community members are still stepping up to help neighbors in need.

“During the holidays, both food insecurity and food excess are compounded. One in three Massachusetts residents will experience food insecurity in 2023, while the Mass Department of Environmental Protection projects over one million tons of food will go to waste in our state this year,” stated Roslindale resident Charlie Burns, who is the Site Director of FRUS Boston. She explained that the Friday After events demonstrate that collaborative community efforts ensure that community members have access to nutritious meals while reducing food waste.

The Roslindale Food Collective (RFC) hosted a “Free Food Friday” pop up the day after Thanksgiving at the Match Charter School in Hyde Park. More than 300 boxes and bags of groceries were handed out at the event.

Community fridges, which have been popping up in Boston over the past month, are located in public spaces - the fridges are a type of mutual aid project which enables food to be shared within a community. These outdoor fridges, often built under a roof or shed alongside some pantry shelves, are typically monitored and stocked by volunteers, and filled with everything from fresh produce to canned goods.

“Our agreement is that instead of us getting a box of food, we use the money donated towards purchasing bulk produce that we give out at the Sunday program (i.e. carrots, onions, fruit, etc). Katsirouba decided to offer a Thanksgiving box, that was worth $45 and food pantries could get for $25. Our goal was to be able to offer one Thanksgiving box to the 80 families that typically come through the Sunday program."