December 2021
Happy Holidays Westend!
It’s starting to look a lot like the holidays! After
a long and tedious year, it brings me joy to drive
around the neighborhood and see so many cheerfully decorated homes.
With the pandemic (kind of) in the rear view
mirror, and after a year of isolation over the holidays, this year there are many activities to choose
from in the next few weeks.
We’ve compiled a partial list of holiday happenings, from breakfast at Mo’s on the 17th to meet
your neighbors and find out about upcoming events,
to Voce at Immanuel House on the 19th, to the live
Nativity in the Asylum Hill parking lot on the 24th,
complete with Mary, Joseph and animals. See our
full list on page 3.
Also, if you’ve been spending a lot of time at
home and are
thinking of doing
some renovations,
you may want to
check out our
interview with Erin
Fink at the State
Historic
Preservation Office
on page 4. She
gives an overview
of the program,
along with some of
the dos and don’ts
of applying for the historic tax credit, and a big
change that may be coming in July.
Every home in the West End has a story, and
sometimes it’s easy to forget just how lovely they are
on the inside, with all of the turn of the century
architectural details you don’t find in modern homes.
You can find a brief description of the inside of 461
Farmington Avenue on page 6. If you have a story
about a West End architect or home, please share for
a future edition of the Westender.
Wishing everyone a safe and joyful holiday season.
Suzann L. Beckett, Publisher
The State of Foreclosures
Hello, Westenders. For
the past ten years, I have
directed my consumer law
practice to residential foreclosure defense matters;
working to keep people in
their homes or negotiating
graceful exits. After navigating many clients through the
wake of the 2008 financial
crisis, I can safely say that I have not experienced
anything like what the past year has brought to the
foreclosure business.
The Covid-19 pandemic affected all of us and
our professions, the foreclosure industry uniquely so.
Unlike 2008, there was a direct correlation between
the high-risk, unaffordable mortgages and the
tsunami of foreclosures that hit the courts, we still
do not know how severely the pandemic will impact
foreclosures.
The pandemic’s economic hardships seem certain to cause an uptick in defaults and foreclosures,
however, it is yet to be seen how widespread the
damage will be. Many variables exist(ed) which
make prognostication difficult.