Sorry it took awhile to reply on this. It’s a combination of me being laid up a bit and a lot of things going on. First of all, thanks for your multiple notes of appreciation on progress with the cleanup in our parking lot. Also, congratulations on your wonderful efforts on Boston Shines. I did see Tom Palmer’s article in the Globe on it. It was great! Ironically, I was interviewed by Tom a couple of days before that appeared on a story about the status of the General Mail Facility relocation project.

I guess even I was overly-optimistic a bit at just how much work was involved in cleaning up the lot. On the day you sent me the e-mail below I went over to the lot and walked the entire length of the perimeter inside the fence from the A Street entrance across from Melcher Street down to our gas pumps south of the Vehicle Maintenance Facility. Along A Street looked fairly clean and that squared with what you saw (from the pictures you sent me) just before the Boston Shines weekend. However, there was a lot of trash most of the rest of the way and some of it looked pretty old. As I had noted before the areas inside the fence where there is a guardrail had a lot of trash, undoubtedly because the winds not only blow it toward the fence but trap it between the fence and the guardrail.

Anyway, I brought my observations back to the maintenance manager. He assured me that the cleanup effort was ongoing and could take as much as a month because, even with the regular weekly maintenance and judging from previous years, it seems to take that long just after the winter to get the lot into as pristine a condition as possible. I knew that the effort had begun, especially when I received your previous e-mails. I just mistakenly assumed that it was completed.

I think a positive note is that Chris Stockbridge and Frank Aldoupolis of our maintenance department have spoken and I think they’ve established a dialogue wherein each understands the other’s duties and responsibilities and so forth but each also understands the bottom line is that the parking lot has to be kept reasonably clean.

You and I spoke about this but we’re trying to attack the problem in another way under the philosophy that “if no one drops the piece of paper in the first place, no one has to pick it up.” I’ve prepared a number of “service talks,” as they’re called, that will be used to both ask for all General Mail Facility employees’ cooperation in not littering in the parking lot but also reminding them that it is their responsibility, at least in part, to keep the lot clean and the consequences for violators, i.e., loss of parking privileges.

I think a lot of this problem boils down to the fact that our employees are largely no different than the population at large. What this means is that, candidly, some of them are born slobs, but most of them are not. But even those that are not can be inadvertently contributing to the problem. It IS windy in that parking lot and it is very easy for papers and food wrappers to blow out of a vehicle door when it is open, sometimes without the person seeing it.

Regarding the urine bottles and other such problems we’ve spoken about, suffice it to say that I’ve brought it to the attention of the Postal Inspection Service and their uniformed branch, the Postal Police. For probably obvious security reasons, I can’t go into any more detail than that.

I know Chris Stockbridge gave you Frank Aldoupolis’ contact number and you certainly may contact Frank but his role is limited to strictly maintenance issues. You might want to keep me as your main contact for any issues or concerns regarding the Channel Center/Fort Point Place’s relationship with the Postal Service.

Congrats once again on Boston Shines!

The people with paintbrushes knew more than the realtors did at the time.

Mondo Condo (Melcher) = success
Fort Point Place (Wormwood) = success
25 Channel Center = success
35 Channel Center = success
Midway Studios = success

Not sure where the failures are other than Archon’s abandonment of their so-called “vision” in favor of flipping buildings for office space.

I guess the only questionable one might be FP3 because of pricing, but the area is an amazing place to be so FP3 may be a dark horse.

John, I think that residential in the area was a great decision. The market isn’t absorbing units at the rate most might have expected a few years back, but I think that the area holds great potential and almost everyone i know that lives in the area loves it.

Maybe we’re not giving developers, city planners, and the zoning board enough credit.

With respect, Channel Center would be office space and arts space if it wasn’t for the arts community. When Beacon Capital purchased the buildings, everyone opposed residential on the site except for the arts community. At the time every Southie elected leader opposed residential on the site, and Gillette had sued Beacon to stop the residential program. Only the arts community rallied support for new neighbors and new residential, and testified at ZBA in support of the market rate residential project, as they have continued to do for the past dozen years.

Your comments about “four walls” and income are off base and offensive… If you suppose that you personally might not contributing as much to the tax base as some artists in Fort Point, you could be sure those artists would never guage the merits of your residency based on that criteria.

I’m not trying to start an argument, just wanted to state some facts based on history. There is more to the big picture (including the City’s economic picture and the value of the arts community as a whole) than your casual observations allow.

I don’t expect you to agree, no problem.