Good News in the Neighborhood: Mitzvah, new public art and hawk watching

Welcome to Neighborhood View’s recurring roundup of good things happening in our city. This installment chronicles a generous donation to the Malden public schools, an infusion of public art in Malden Center and the season’s start to the best local hawk-watching.

Malden Mitzvah: Late benefactor hailed from Malden’s Suffolk Square

Earlier this month the Malden School Committee accepted a generous $100,000 donation from the Melvin Klayman Trust. Fifty thousand dollars will be donated directly to Malden Public Schools to be used for curriculum, per Superintendent Sippel. The remaining $50,000 will establish the Melvin Klayman Trust Scholarship, which will award approximately $2,000 annually to a graduating Malden senior for the next 25 years.

Melvin “Mel” Klayman was born in Malden on July 30, 1949 of Russian immigrants, grew up on Almont Street in Malden’s historically Jewish Suffolk Square neighborhood, and graduated from Malden High in 1967. He went on to attend Northeastern University and graduated magna cum laude with a major in German, followed by graduate degrees in European history from Boston College and in library science from Simmons College. He passed away in June 2025.

Klayman was a lifelong patron of the arts, accumulating what experts said is one of the most significant private collections in New England in his South End apartment. His Jewish faith was extremely important to him, and he always wanted just one brief inscription on his gravestone: “Here lies Mel Klayman. He was Jewish and a child of the universe.” Melvin’s late brother, Richard Klayman, was a history professor and author of “The First Jew: A Study of the First Eastern European Jews to Settle in Malden.”

Klayman was a believer in public education, as evidenced by his trust’s recent donation. — Reporting by Lorna Garey

Murals & More: An infusion of new public art in Malden Center

Since they say that art is good for the soul, Malden Center just got more soulful. Five new murals plus a light installation brighten the downtown neighborhood with color and form, a nod to history, a celebration of the city’s diverse population and a declaration of the area’s more recent identity as a vibrant gaming district. The new artwork was commissioned by the City’s Office of Strategic Planning and Community Development and funded entirely through state and nonprofit grants and a donation by local business Boda Borg. The artwork is part of a larger initiative to boost economic development, make the area more welcoming and attractive and increase community connection. You can learn more about the initiative and the artwork on the city’s website and check out the artwork in the slideshow below. Also, you can sign up for a walking tour of new public art to be held Saturday, October 3 at 4:00 p.m. Details and registration are online. — Reporting by Anne D’Urso-Rose. Photos by Kim Brookes.

Pinnacle Rock is ready for another fall of fantastic hawk watching!

It’s hawk migration season and Craig Jackson has started inhabiting his roost on Pinnacle Rock in the Middlesex Fells. During fall migration, Jackson sends a weekly email about his raptor sightings and what humans visited him on the rock. Last Friday, Jackson only saw two hawks, but the winds were right and so the magic of Pinnacle Rock was in effect. He didn’t see them coming until they were less than 25 yards away and swooped over his head!

Jackson further reported, “The immature Red-shouldered was particularly interesting this way. It came in a glide from behind one of the pines below me, such that all I could see was the top of its wings, head, and tail. Although it was only visible for three to four second as it glided in front of me, I noted clearly that it had a patch of white near the base of the tail. This puzzled me as the amount of white was as large of the diagnostic white rump of a Northern Harrier. Fortunately, just before the hawk disappeared behind other trees in front of me, it turned slightly and in so doing tilted its wings, clearly revealing the white crescents on each wing, a defining characteristic of Red-shouldered Hawks.”

Read more in Neighborhood View’s “Malden’s Pinnacle Rock: A front-row seat for fall hawk watching.” Follow the map that appears in the article to look for hawks and perhaps meet Malden’s chief Hawk Watcher, Craig Jackson. — Reporting by Kim Brookes.

Corrections Note: The original version of this article stated that Melvin “Mel” Klayman graduated Malden High School in 1976. It was corrected to 1967.