March 3, 2010

Yesterday I discovered where MLK and Coretta lived when they returned to Boston in the fall of 1953 after getting married in June and spending the summer in Atlanta. It was 396 Northampton Street, according to the timeline of the King Papers at Stanford.

I checked the address with Google maps and it pulled up the name and a view of the William Carter School with a link to their website. I emailed the principal of the school asking if she knew of this and had any information or possibly a photo of the apartment building that stood there before the school was built. She didn't know this, was quite amazed and had no infomration. We exhcanged several more emails and I filled her in on the background of Dr. King's time in Boston.

Carter is a Boston public school devoted to developmentally challenged kids. Currently they are struggling to find funding to build a swimming pool for their students. With no facility of their own they have to drive, just a few at a time, all the way to a special (zero-access entry ramp) pool out in Waltham. In my first email, I said that King would no doubt be proud to have the Carter School on the spot where he once lived. Marianne Kopaczynski, the principal took it a step further in one of her replies.

Dear Mr Bastide,

I had chills reading your e-mail. Thank you so much. Have you seen our website www.williamecarterschool.org?

We are attempting to fund raise to build an aquatic therapy pool for our 25 severely cognitively, physically, medically challenged students. I can’t help but think that Dr King would be willing to help with this endeavor and perhaps the angels will intervene and make a break through.

Our staff is overjoyed with this information. Thank you so much for sharing. It has made our day. We feel blessed because of his goodness.

Marianne Kopaczynski
Principal
Carter School
396 Northampton Street
Boston, MA 02118

I think that those kids are going to get their swimming pool.

Today I filled her in on King's 1965 March on Boston. She emailed me back to say that bricks from the former apartment building at 396 had been dug up while making the new bus shelter last year and, previously, the Sensory Garden.

Worked on the King article, writing about the 1965 March and the Dialectical Society.

Biked downtown to meet a client, do an errand and visit the garden. Snow flurries and cloudy with errant winds. Felt good though after being housebound for days, almost fun. Almost. The garden was totally intact. Just a few beer bottles heaved over the fence and mice made a huge nest over the lava rocks in the gas grill. Mud season, slogging in and out. Garden renewal applications came today (or recently anyway). What to do? Think.

Image ... Saint's Way. North End, Boston.