westroxbury – Changing Way

Celebrating the Local

West Roxbury is local to us, although we actually live in Roslindale. Maddie takes classes at the Center for Asian Martial Arts in West Roxbury (it moved from Roslindale at the start of this year). She had her 5th birthday party at the center on Saturday. It went very well, mainly thanks to the instructors who made the party fun for the crowd of kids (mostly girls of 5 or 6).

Another local business that contributed to the success of the party is the Sugar Bakery. They did the usual excellent job with the cake.

Sunday saw my first visit to Seek Books (previously). I liked this recently-opened second-hand science fiction bookstore very much. It packs a lot of inventory into a smallish store, managing to be cozy rather than cramped. I bought an as-new paperback of Sabriel for $4.

Then it was off to Macy’s to pick up some wine. There were a couple of wines out for tasting. I particularly liked the “El Miracle,” a blend of Tempranillo and Shiraz.

We visited a bunch of other local businesses over the weekend, but as far as the specifics go, I’ll leave it at wine, cake, books, and martial arts.

SF Bookstore Within a Mile?

Sci-fi bookstore to invade Centre Street (West Roxbury), proclaims our local bulletin. I saw the headline on the free paper while shopping at Roche Bros this morning, and got caught up via Universal Hub. I’d previously had drive-by glimpses of interesting-looking signs at the retail location.

My thoughts are that:

It’ll be tough going for Seek Books. It’ll need to be a destination for folks from as far away as… Dedham, maybe even Jamaica Plain.
My hopes for the new store somehow rose when I learned that the owner is a retiring addiction therapist.

Pizza Wars, West Roxbury Style

Pizza wars continue, proclaims our local Bulletin. Now, pizza wars suggests several dramatic scenes:

Trouble at Chuck E. Cheese’s, as reported in the WSJ article that destroyed any last shred of interest I might have had in finding a local CEC’s.
A mob movie starring Robert De Niro (Mean Cheese?) in which rival pizza-connected gangs fight it out.
A video game in which you must gather topping, put them on pizzas, bake the pizzas, then hurl them at foes as if you were some saucy ninja.

No. In West Roxbury, pizza wars means that Upper Crust Pizzeria wants to come to West Roxbury, and some of the eight or so pizza places on Centre Street already plan to take action. They will… show up at the meeting of the Neighborhood Council!

I can’t claim that things are much more dramatic here in neighboring Roslindale. And I’m not sure I’d want them to be.

West Roxbury Library

I spent a couple of hours this morning working at library in West Roxbury. It hadn’t previously realized what a lovely library it is. After a look round the inside, I went out to the little courtyard and sat on one of the benches to take advantage of the shade and the wireless.

If you click over from the photo to its Flickr page, you’ll see that its neighbors there show different views of the library. One shows the front, and the other shows the lovely indoor perch I found after I came in from the courtyard.