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Category Archives: history

Old Wellesley High School won’t implode

By bbrown | Published: December 21, 2011

Wellesley Celebrates Education rolled out a series of excellent events to commemorate the closing of the current Wellesley High School building and has more in store for celebrating the opening of the new Wellesley High School next year. But we wondered if the ultimate spectacle — an implosion of the 1938 building — might be [...]

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How would a Marathon Museum look in Wellesley?

By bbrown | Published: December 10, 2011

It sounds like Hopkinton and Ashland are front runners to land a Marathon Museum, but other towns and cities along the 26.2-mile Boston Marathon route are also expected to show interest. The Boston Globe reports on a $60K feasibility study being conducted regarding such a showcase of running, not just the Boston Marathon. According to [...]

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Swell holiday gift: Wellesley Historical Society calendar

By bbrown | Published: December 8, 2011

The Wellesley Historical Society is selling its 2012 calendar for $10 ($5 additional for shipping/handling if you order online or by phone) at the Society and Wellesley Books. It features the usual variety of new and old  pictures from town.

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One train you can always count on in Wellesley

By bbrown | Published: November 29, 2011

The old-fashioned Holiday Junction trains and tracks at Faber’s Rug in Wellesley Square are back for your viewing pleasure, along with an amusement park setup and other old but well-preserved toys. The Wellesley Historical Society display has become a holiday tradition in town.  

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Scenes from Wellesley High School yard sale & open house

By bbrown | Published: November 26, 2011

Crowds of old and young Wellesley High School alumni, plus families and hangers on like me wandered the halls of the old school on Saturday. Some even ventured up ladders about as high as you could go, into the tower that used to hold the eagle weather vane. Slower | Start | Faster To see [...]

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Wellesley High open house/yard sale Saturday

By bbrown | Published: November 26, 2011

If Black Friday wasn’t enough to satisfy your shopping appetite, swing by Wellesley High School on Saturday for its open house and yard sale from noon-4pm, where old uniforms, lockers, microscopes, pop-poms and more will be for sale as part of the Turn Out the Lights celebration for the old building. A variety of freshly-minted [...]

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Sneak peek at new Wellesley High School lobby

By bbrown | Published: November 21, 2011

A little birdie, and not the metal eagle weathervane that once soared above the tower on the old Wellesley High School and is now shown below, caught a glimpse of a stunning new logo and other aspects of the new Wellesley High School lobby. The new building is opening to students in February and will [...]

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Slightly beyond Wellesley: WHS grads discuss foreign policy Tuesday

By bbrown | Published: November 21, 2011

From Wellesley Turn Out the Lights celebration committee: Wellesley High School welcomes back four of its most accomplished graduates in the area of international relations for the panel discussion “U.S. Foreign Policy: Making It, Executing It, Analyzing It and Covering It.” The panelists will be Kennedy School professor and former diplomat Nicholas Burns, WHS class [...]

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World premiere of Wellesley High architectural video packs em in

By bbrown | Published: November 20, 2011

The first public showing of a video about the architecture of the 1938 Wellesley High School building attracted a near-full auditorium at Wellesley Free Library on Sunday despite the beautiful weather outside. For those who didn’t get a chance to attend, the documentary is available on DVD for $15. I found the video interesting since [...]

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Producers to discuss film on Wellesley couple who helped Jews escape Nazis

By bbrown | Published: November 9, 2011

Unitarian Universalist Society of Wellesley Hills this Thursday at 7:30pm is hosting a discussion with two producers of a documentary set to premiere next year that tells the story of Martha and Waitstill Sharp, a Wellesley couple credited with saving hundreds of Jews from Nazi persecution during the Holocaust. The Sharps lived in Wellesley and [...]

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9/11 survivor from Wellesley cycling to aid Afghan women

By bbrown | Published: August 24, 2011

Wellesley resident Angelique Tung considers herself blessed that she escaped floor 77 of the World Trade Center’s South Tower  in New York City 10 years ago this coming Sept. 11. Tung was living in San Francisco at the time and was visiting New York on business; she learned she was pregnant with her first child [...]

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How to be a Homeless Frenchman…in Wellesley

By bbrown | Published: August 6, 2011

Wellesley’s Paula Lee has self-published a comic novel called How to be a Homeless Frenchman that includes a couple of chapters about our town in addition to a story that involves everything from Nazis to a lion tamer to the Blues. Copies of the book will be sold at Wellesley Books starting this month, and [...]

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Where have all of Wellesley’s beer vending machines gone?

By bbrown | Published: July 11, 2011

Was chatting with a neighbor over the weekend who grew up in the Wellesley area. Was telling me of an old platform/paddle tennis club that use to be off of Rte. 9 where there was a beer vending machine back in either the ’70s or ’80s. No ID required. Hard to picture that…but if you [...]

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Bloody good field trip: Learning about Wellesley’s controversial surgical pioneer, William T.G. Morton

By bbrown | Published: June 1, 2011

Wellesley memorializes dentist William T.G. Morton with a marker in front of town hall, celebrating the world’s first public demonstration of ether as an anesthetic in surgery in 1864. But if you really want to get a feel for the former Wellesley resident’s achievement, you’ve got to visit Mass General Hospital’s Ether Dome, which is [...]

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Wellesley fire (box) sale

By bbrown | Published: May 29, 2011

Wellesley keeps coming up with creative ways to raise money. We might never face another override again at this pace. Recently, we reported that parts of the soon-to-be-eliminated old Wellesley High School building will be sold off as part of a celebration of the historic building called “Turn Out The Lights” (Facebook page here). Now [...]

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