Designing a legacy – Celebrated African-American architectural team helped shape city
By Meghan E. Irons – Globe Staff / August 22, 2010

Their designs are part of the fabric of Boston — they can be seen in the new police headquarters, the Ruggles T station, Roxbury Community College, the Southwest Corridor.

But there is much more to the 40-year legacy of Donald Stull and David Lee, nationally praised and one of the first African-American architectural teams in the country.

Stull and Lee were tops in their field in the 1960s, and forces for change in one of Boston’s most tumultuous eras. With major projects in neighborhoods like Roxbury, they are credited with helping to unify neighborhoods and redraw a city that had been socially and racially divided.

Now that they are aging — Stull is 73 and Lee is 66 — they want to pass on their work to the next generations, and it is a legacy that Northeastern University wants to help preserve.

The university, which has collections from other black Boston trailblazers, recently acquired 1,400 tubes and boxes containing their sketches, designs, and drawings, and it plans to apply for a grant to hire staff to sift through the papers and archive them.

Turner issues appeal for witnesses at trial
Political Circuit – August 22, 2010

Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner is taking his criminal defense to the people.

Literally.

Turner sent a note to supporters last week and placed ads in community newspapers looking for witnesses who would be willing to testify at his trial, which is scheduled to begin Oct. 12 in US District Court in Boston. He is accused of accepting a $1,000 bribe and lying to the FBI.

“My lawyers plan to put on the stand those who can testify regarding help received from me and whether money ever stood between their needs and my service,’’ Turner wrote in the note.

The Letter

Incoming college freshmen face lessons in handling credit, staying out of debt
By Michelle Singletary – Washington Post / August 22, 2010

Entering freshmen at colleges across the country will be the first class of regular semester students to face credit card restrictions under the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act of 2009.

If you are under 21, to open a credit card account you will need to either show you have the income to make payments or get a cosigner 21 or older who has the ability to do so.

Credit card companies are prohibited from marketing credit within 1,000 feet of a college campus. This limit would include related college events. Companies are also banned from offering certain “tangible’’ gifts.

But I wonder how successful the Credit CARD Act will be. There will be locations near a campus that will give credit marketers a chance to pitch to students. The companies may not be able to offer a free T-shirt or stuffed animal, but they can entice students with discounts, reward points, or promotional credit terms, according to final rules released by the Federal Reserve.

And I’m sure there are plenty of parents who are convinced that their kid needs to establish credit. So they will be all too willing to cosign. By the way, the Federal Reserve says that anyone 21 or older can cosign. This means it’s possible that older siblings or even friends may be persuaded to cosign. But no one should ever do this.

Divine Dixie – Bullock Brothers and Hot Tamale Brass Band come together
By Andrew Gilbert – Globe Correspondent / August 22, 2010

As befits a tradition dedicated to sharing a timeless message, the lifespan of a gospel ensemble is often measured in decades and generations rather than years. But even by gospel’s temporally expansive standard, the Bullock Brothers represent a triumph of familial harmony.

Founded in 1950, the soul-stirring vocal ensemble starts celebrating six decades of spreading the good word at the MFA on Friday as part of a double bill with the Hot Tamale Brass Band. Tickets for a 60th anniversary party Oct. 9 at Lombardo’s in Randolph went on sale last Sunday.

With two founding members still on board, Rev. George Bullock and his older brother Rev. Richard Bullock, the group provides a vital bridge to gospel’s golden age, when African-American sacred music produced a current so powerful that it transformed American popular culture, providing rock ’n’ roll, soul, and R&B with an essential jolt.

“What we have planned for the 60th is a lot of oldies but goodies,’’ says George Bullock, 75, who composes most of the group’s original material. “We’re always adding new songs, and old pieces sometimes fall by the wayside. Some of our children who grew up listening to those songs started asking to hear them, so I made a list of songs we hadn’t sung for years and we performed them at our church last month. But with any of our songs, old or new, you know it’s the Bullock Brothers when you hear them.’’

You can’t fight City Hall, but you can marry there – Hall-marked weddings
By Renee Nadeau Algarin/Boston Herald – August 22, 2010

City Hall’s stark, concrete walls may not stir thoughts of romance, but for some, the government building has become a little white chapel.

Last year alone, more than 1,000 couples said their “I do’s” at Boston City Hall, city clerk Rosaria Salerno said.

“It’s their very brief moment and it ought to create an environment in which they can really appreciate each other’s commitment,” the clerk said. She presides over ceremonies in her sixth-floor office, with dark wood furniture, reddish-orange accents and a view of “that terrible, distressed concrete” of the building’s exterior walls.

Devika Dammanna, 30, and husband Venkateshwar, 34, of Boston held a Hindu wedding ceremony last year but officially wed at City Hall on July 22. Despite the grim, bureaucratic surroundings, love was in the air.

“It was just a legal aspect we needed to take care of, but I ended up shedding a few tears,” Devika Dammanna said.

Salerno, who said her busiest wedding days are Mondays and Fridays, takes a little time to speak with each couple to personalize the ceremony, which centers around the themes of commitment and a love that grows.

[Rosaria Salerno lives in the East Fenway. - ed]

565 – St. Columba reports seeing a monster in Loch Ness, Scotland.  More anniversaries.