NEWBURY STREET BUSINESSES CURB THEIR TRASH

By Jenny Speer

BACK BAY – Despite falling temperatures and the ignorance of rude passersby, Dave O’Neill spends every morning sweeping the sidewalk in front of Cuoio, a women’s shoe store on 115 Newbury Street.

“I can’t tell you how many times people have walked through my leaf piles,” said O’Neill, the manager for the building that houses Cuoio and five others along Newbury Street and Commonwealth Avenue. “But I’m a neat freak. My mother is a five-foot Irish woman who was always running around and cleaning, and all of that sunk in the second she wasn’t there to do the pile of dirty dishes in my sink.”

Representatives from the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay and the Newbury Street League approached Newbury Street businesses in June as a part of their “Clean to the Curb” initiative. The groups asked area local businesses to clean the areas in the front and back of their buildings up to the curb. They also provided city phone numbers for the maintenance of sidewalks and streetlights as well as graffiti removal.

“We weren’t looking for anything in particular,” said Jo-Anne Leinward, the project’s manager and head of the association’s city services committee. “We were just looking to keep the neighborhood clean, and for those who were already doing it, we wanted to show appreciation for the fact that they were paying attention.”

As fall's leaves clutter the street, the effects of the organizations’ effort shows as the initiative finishes its first season. Most businesses cooperated and improved the aesthetics and accessibility of the street before winter.

Sandy Gaskin, another member of the association’s city services committee who worked closely on the project, said are emptying trash cans themselves and even spraying gum off the sidewalks.

“The sidewalk in front of the Prince building [201 Newbury St.] is fixed now, too,” she said. “But some of [the businesses] were doing this before we even got there.”
For some businesses, the initiative only reinforced cleanliness standards.

“It’s important for us to keep clean,” said Patrick Kritchever, director of sales at Tapeo Restaurant and Tapas Bar on Newbury Street. “It’s difficult to maintain during the fall, but it takes less than five minutes.”

For others, like O’Neill, the initiative inspired personal dedication to maintenance.

“I used to sweep the sidewalk, but I haven’t had to do it since the beginning of summer,” said Pat Caldwell, the manager at Cuoio. “[O’Neill] takes really good care of it.”

The organizations are discussing how to show appreciation for the cooperative businesses in these initial efforts and planning another initiative for next year.

“This year, we wanted to bring awareness,” said Susan Kelley, the league’s chief administrator. “There are no penalties [for not cooperating]; we’re just looking for good neighbors, and they all have been for the most part. But who knows where it will go from here?”