Speedway Produce Program Awarded Harvard Grant
Architectural Heritage Foundation’s COVID-19 relief efforts in Allston-Brighton got a big boost last month from Harvard University. On May 27, the school named twenty-seven local nonprofits – among them AHF – as recipients of its new Allston-Brighton Emergency Response Grant.
AHF Launches Speedway Produce Program in Brighton
This week the Architectural Heritage Foundation, through the Charles River Speedway project, announced the Speedway Produce Program, an initiative to expand food access in Brighton during the COVID-19 pandemic. With the help of state Representative Michael Moran, AHF has teamed up with the Speedway’s next-door neighbor, Charles River Community Health (CRCH), and local wholesaler Katsiroubas brothers, to provide fresh fruits and vegetables to CRCH patients facing food insecurity as a result of the shutdown. AHF is offering the general public an opportunity to contribute to this program.
AHF launched the Speedway Produce Program last Thursday with a delivery of forty produce boxes to CRCH, each of which contained enough fruits and vegetables to feed a family for up to a week. A Katsiroubas Brothers truck dropped off the boxes at the health center in the morning, and CRCH staff arranged for them to be safely picked up later that day. AHF also contributed eighty hand-made masks donated by a Wellesley-based volunteer sewing group. We plan to contribute 120 more produce boxes to CRCH’s constituency over the next three weeks. With additional support, we can increase the number of households served and even extend the program into June.
Even before the pandemic, many CRCH patients were struggling to get by. Seventy-one percent were living at 200% of the Federal Poverty Level, and many were forced to work two jobs to make ends meet – jobs that have disappeared or become much more hazardous due to the public health crisis. Now food insecurity – an ever-present issue for so many households – has become a dire problem.
AHF and the Speedway team invite the public to participate in the Speedway Produce Program through the GoFundMe Link below. A donation of $25 will sponsor one produce box; $100 will provide four boxes over the next three weeks; $1000 will enable us to extend the program by another week. (As of this writing, we have raised $850, nearly a fifth of the way to our goal of $5000!) With this initiative, we hope to play a small role in the much wider regional efforts to ensure food access for the most vulnerable members of our community.
Support the Speedway Produce Program
For updates on the Speedway Produce Program, follow AHF’s blog and Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter pages, or sign up for the The Speedway newsletter.
Community Preservation: Expanding Food Access in Brighton during COVID-19
What can I do? It’s a simple question that leads to a conversation, then to an idea, then to action. And it’s a question that countless people in Boston and beyond have been asking and answering, with powerful results.
From Markets Insider – “Twain Financial Provides $1.6 Million in Historic Tax Credit Equity to Charles River Speedway in Boston, MA”
Twain Financial Partners announced the investment of $1.6 million in federal historic tax credit equity for the historic renovation and adaptive reuse of the Charles River Speedway in Boston, MA. The Speedway is located in the North Brighton section of the growing Allston-Brighton neighborhood of Boston. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in July 2010. The 1.28-acre site includes three adjoining parcels, including the original 1899 former historic racetrack administrative building and garage facility.
From Architecture Boston – “Shifting Gears: The historic Speedway complex—hidden in plain sight along the Charles River—gets set for a reawakening”
If winter is cold and dark, at least snowdrops and the promise of spring give us hope and hint of new life. The cycles of change—to cities and the natural world—can remind us that places have souls to lose. Emotions may be mixed. There is a quiet richness to the reworking of existing buildings that has crept into the psyche of the design professions as they resurrect past aesthetics, juxtaposed against new imageries and an overturning of previous uses. Those cycles of change reel from catastrophic to delicately nuanced, and architects try to counter one and orchestrate the other.
AHF and DCR Break Ground at the Speedway
Yesterday marked a turning point in the Charles River Speedway project, as AHF, DCR, and local leaders and community members officially broke ground at the historic recreational complex.
From Curbed Boston – “Brighton’s Speedway project sets a date for groundbreaking”
The backers of a redevelopment of the long-shuttered Charles River Speedway at Western Avenue and Soldiers Field Road in Brighton plan to formally break ground on October 24. The most prominent feature of the multifaceted project—dubbed the Speedway—will be an outpost of the Salem-based Notch Brewery, including a taproom…The nonprofit Architectural Heritage Foundation (AHF) is overseeing the project, which is expected to be done in time for a summer 2020 opening. Construction started this month, and available retail spots of 250 square feet to 5,000 square feet are available.
