Northeastern University - Cauldron Yearbook (Boston, MA)

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State Sen. Joseph P. Timilty believes that downtown expansion such as Faneuil Hall Marketplace has been achieved at the expense of the neigh- borhoods. Boston ' s leaders have always judged the quality of the vitality of the city by the changes in the sky- line, according to the 40-year-old Mattapan Democrat, who nearly defeated White in the 1975 mayoral election. Boston ' s a city that ' s made up of neighborhoods, and Boston ' s got to understand it, said Timilty, who is the chairman of the National Commission of Neighborhoods — a position Presi- dent Carter appointed him to after Timilty helped on his 1976 campaign. The administration frustrates neigh- borhood organization, he said, because they see it as a threat rather than as a means of buttressing and administering neighborhood programs. He advocates involvement of private enterprise in developing jobs and housing in neigh- borhoods. We have to develop our neighbor- hoods as well as develop our down- town, he said. There ' s too much gov- ernment. And government has become a bastion of employment for social the- orists, rather than government pro- grams getting down to where the peo- ple can use the assets of the program. I It is a criticism White has heard before, and he reacts angrily whenever he hears it. In ten years we spent eight times more money in the neighborhoods than we did downtown, and I deny anyone to show differently, he said, adding that his administration has built more neighborhood schools, libraries and police stations than any other mayor in Boston ' s history, including James Michael Curley. Now I ' ll give you another figure, he went on. We spent one-to-one on

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downtown as against only Roxbury. That means I spent as much money in Roxbury as I spent all of downtown. Indeed, several years ago, members of the white backlash movement dubbed him Mayor Black for his involve- ment in the black neighborhoods. Gulo believes that, no matter what the White administration is doing else- where in the city, it certainly isn ' t ignoring his neighborhood. I think the city administration has taken more note of it than it ever has in the past, he said. It ' s a unique part of Boston. I think that through our efforts over the past four or five years, we ' ve brought the attention of the city to bear so that the various problems that the entire area confronted are being addressed one way or another. Housing for low and moderate- income people is being developed on Symphony Road and Westland Ave- nue, alleys have been widened, trees have been planted, streets have been patched up. Those are the kind of improvements Gulo cited. But he acknowledged that the city is still plagued by a woeful lack of good housing for all classes of people. Unemployment, trash, crime, poor public education and inadequate trans-