Garden of hope to bloom
Parcel to be transformed in honor of slain student
By Maria Cramer, The Boston Globe | March 22,
2007
It is a barren lot wedged between two three-deckers on
a Mission Hill street that is often clogged with honking
cars and shrieking ambulances headed for Brigham and
Women's Hospital.
Alejandra St. Guillen stood next to
the lot on Francis Street in Mission Hill that
will soon become a memorial garden in honor of her
sister Imette. (Globe Staff Photo / Evan Richman) |
Model by Jennie Smith, COGdesign
landscape designer
|
But soon, neighbors say, the lot will become Imette's
Garden, a haven of birch and dogwood trees, purple
clematis, and evergreen shrubs named for the 24-year-old
graduate student who was raped and strangled last year in
New York City.
Imette St. Guillen grew up on Francis Street, just a
few doors down from the site that will become a tribute to
her memory.
But her family wants the garden to be more than that.
"I would like it to be a place for people to find
a sense of tranquillity and peace and hope,"
Alejandra St. Guillen, Imette's older sister, said
yesterday. "In a lot of ways, that's how she was. She
was her own personal oasis. She was the person who made
sure she called you. She would make sure you were doing
all right. If she sensed anything was wrong, she'd be at
your doorstep five minutes later."
Darryl Littlejohn, a bouncer at a SoHo bar, is awaiting
trial on first-degree murder charges that he strangled St.
Guillen in February 2006 after following her from the bar.
Her body was found in a lot in Brooklyn. If convicted, he
could face life in prison without parole.
The reverberations of St. Guillen's death are still
felt in Mission Hill, where her family moved about 30
years ago.
Soon after neighbors learned of St. Guillen's death,
they decided that the empty lot at 42 Francis St. would be
the ideal place to build something to honor her and end
bickering in the months before her killing over whether to
convert the lot into a dog park or a barbecue pit.
"Everybody just said let's just make it a quiet
place, and we'll make it to her," said Roxanne
Haecker, a Mission Hill resident and member of the board
of the Roxbury Tenants of Harvard, which owns and runs
many of the houses in the neighborhood.
Neighborhood leaders are now trying to raise money for
the garden, which is expected to cost tens of thousands of
dollars. They have enlisted the help of a nonprofit design
firm, Community Outreach Group for Landscape Design, which
has recruited two volunteer artists to create the concept.
Alejandra St. Guillen provided a list of her sister's
favorite colors and animals to help inspire the design.
The family and neighbors quickly agreed on the garden's
theme, the "River of Life," which they said
would symbolize the ripple effects of St. Guillen's death.
"When you go in there, of course, it's always
going to be a little sad," Haecker said. "But we
want people to go in there and feel a little oasis, a
little refuge from what's going on in the streets."
An arched wrought-iron fence will enclose the garden,
which will be divided into three sections.
A pathway, dotted with turquoise, light blue, and green
stones will represent the river and will wind through each
section. Flowers of St. Guillen's favorite colors, red and
purple, will be planted. . In the middle of the garden
will be a weeping tree, and in the back, the sunniest part
of the lot, will be a grassy circular patch, where people
can meditate or practice tai chi, said Andrea Taaffe, one
of the two designers, whose best friend's son dated Imette
St. Guillen when the two were students at Boston Latin
School.
Nancy Schon, the Newton artist who sculpted the
ducklings at Boston's Public Garden, has agreed to create
a bronze butterfly in flight, Taaffe said.
Alejandra St. Guillen, who still lives on Francis
Street, said she plans to visit the garden often.
Maria Cramer can be reached at mcramer@globe.com.
© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.
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