February 2021 - Neighborhood View

Boda Borg’s Closure Creates Repercussions for Malden’s Economy and Morale

February 26, 2021 Anne Bennett 1

“A lot of them (Boda Borg’s customers) are going into Malden restaurants and buying stuff in Malden Square.” Senator Ed markey By Anne Bennett Soon after COVID-19 began to spread, the “questing” center Boda Borg, one of Malden’s premiere destinations, was forced to shut down. Boda Borg, where almost 200,000 annual visitors use their wits to solve puzzles and escape routes, has been out of service since March 2020, with the exception of three weeks in October. Chad Ellis, one of the owners of Malden’s branch of Boda Borg, said the operation “is just totally dependent on the physical space we are in.” The staff has no choice but to “hunker down” until the next stage of reopening in Massachusetts, Ellis said. Boda Borg is an international franchise; the only U.S. location is in Malden. While the closure has been hard on Ellis and his staff, it has also created ripples in other local businesses by reducing their customers. Kevin Duffy, the Strategy and Business Development Officer for the City of Malden, believes that fewer people coming into […]

Confronting Slavery: Local NAACP highlights the push for reparations

February 23, 2021 escorsello 2

By Elizabeth Scorsello Growing up, Schiffon Wong listened to her grandmother talk about reparations for the country’s Black citizens. The family had been sharecroppers and her grandfather’s parents were enslaved, and they could barely make a living. “She used to say we never got our reparations and it always stuck with me,” Wong said. Today, Wong heads the newly formed Reparations Committee of the Mystic Valley Branch of the NAACP, which seeks to provide the larger community with a better understanding of the issue of reparations. The committee has launched a drive to send copies of the book From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century, by William A. Darity, Jr. and A. Kirsten Mullen to every member of the U.S. Congress to keep the subject of reparations in the public discourse. “It is our hope by sending this really important book to our congress it would give us the opportunity to educate them and engage them,” Wong said. “We want all of us to have a shared understanding anchored in […]

the Mayor and the councilman hold Trevor Noah's book, Born a Crime, in front of City Hall.

Malden Reads Launches New Season with Procession to City Hall

February 2, 2021 Anne Bennett 0

“It made the most sense at a time when we needed the humor and a need for us to learn about each other’s history.” Erga Pierrette By Annie Bennett Malden Reads hosted a COVID-conscious launch on Tuesday, January 26, with a car procession starting from the Malden Public Library on Salem Street, past UMA – Urban Media Arts (formerly MATV) on Pleasant Street, and ending at Malden’s new City Hall. The procession symbolically linked the two anchor institutions (the library and UMA) that help coordinate the volunteer-run “One City, One Book” program, which first launched in 2011. According to the group’s website, the mission of Malden Reads is “to promote literacy and a love of reading, and to build community in the city of Malden.” It is known in the community for its unifying effect. This season, participants will be reading Born a Crime by Trevor Noah, a response to the fervent cries for racial justice across the world over the past year. Noah is a Black comedian and a South African native, most well-known […]