Local Field Trip Opportunities

Images of the Judge Baker Children's Center, Boston, MA (click to enlarge)

Judge Baker Children's Center, 53 Parker Avenue, Boston, MA

Judge Baker Children's Center is a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the lives of children whose emotional and behavioral problems threaten to limit their potential. The Center strives to provide services of the highest standard, to search for new knowledge, to teach, and to apply and disseminate knowledge.
I'm not sure what the complete building program is, but it has a gymnasium with adjacent classrooms and was designed by a Boston-based firm called Steffian Bradley. (Three project photos from their website are shown above.)

Frisoli Youth Center, 61 Willow Street, Cambridge, MA

Beth used to work with a woman whose husband is the director of this facility. We had the opportunity to photograph the opening event and get a tour of the facility the weekend it opened back in 1998. As I recall they have a good size gymnasium, workout room, classrooms and a computer lab. I believe it's a two story structure, half of which is submerged.

I'm going to contact Stephen Christo this week to see when would be a good time for him to give us a tour of the facility.

Here is an article that I found on the web that offers a brief description of the facility and it's programs:

Nations Cities Weekly (March 9, 1998)
The Frisoli Center gives Cambridge youth a positive place to go. The Frisoli Youth Center in East Cambridge, Massachusetts, provides recreational and educational facilities for the city's youth.

With the opening of the new Frisoli Youth Center last October, the children of East Cambridge, Mass. have a positive, supervised environment with. an array of recreational and educational activities for after school hours and Saturdays. Replacing rented rooms in a local church that served 25 to 30 participants a day, the new $4 million center serves as many as 150 a day. One of five city youth centers, and the third involving new construction, the project demonstrates the continuing commitment of the city to responding to the need for expanded facilities for its youth.

The Frisoli center is situated on formerly underutilized tennis courts at the Harrington School/Donnelly field Complex in a densely populated area. It is named for a former East Cambridge resident who served as the city's superintendent of schools and devoted many years to organizing youth sports programs.
The building was designed to blend in with the neighborhood, and its . . .

Vineyard Christian Fellowship of Cambridge, 170 Rindge Avenue, Cambridge, MA

The Cambridge Vineyard recently purchased a Catholic church in the Porter Square area of Cambridge. I haven't been there myself, but I've heard that they've employed some interesting strategies to make the traditional design of the church more functional for their needs. They have also employed some new A/V technologies as well, from what I've heard.