The Upper Falls News is an email newsletter about what's going on in our village.  The Upper Falls News is brought to you by the Upper Falls Area Council but it's intended to cover any and all news in the village. 

Where am I? - Here's a photo of some place in Upper Falls without its surrounding context.  The game is to look at the photo and identify where in Upper Falls it is (answer below). 
          

Upper Falls & Hollywood - Echo Bridge Entertainment is a film/video distribution company with an office less than a mile away from our Echo Bridge in the Needham Industrial Park.  Needham, MA seems like an unlikely outpost for a company working in the Los Angles / New York centric film industry.  I spoke to a receptionist at their local office recently and she wasn't aware of any connection to our Echo Bridge but said that she had wondered about it too.  Take a look at Echo Bridge's video logo and make up your own mind if it was inspired by our Echo Bridge.

Upper Falls & the Theater - Indiana Terrace's Sam Fidler will be playing the role of Underling in South Stage's upcoming performance of The Drowsy Chaperone at Newton South High School.  "Mayhem, mix-ups and a gay (in the old sense of the word) wedding mark the high-spirited hijinx of The Drowsy Chaperone. The fun begins when a die-hard musical fan plays his favorite cast album, a 1928 smash hit called "The Drowsy Chaperone". Suddenly the man finds himself immersed in the glamorous, hilarious tale of a celebrity bride and her uproarious wedding day, complete with thrills and surprises that take both the cast (literally) and the audience (metaphorically) soaring to the rafters." Feb. 7, 8, 9 at Seasholes Auditorium at Newton South High School, purchase tickets at www.seatyourself.biz/newtonsouth

Whooo's In Upper Falls? - Mark Bridger writes "I took this picture of an owl that was roosting in a pine tree next to my house on Champa St in Upper Falls. It stayed for a day, left droppings on my woodpile, then flew off in search of rodents or rabbits somewhere else."

Who Needs Musical Instruments? - Tomorrow, Sat, Feb 2, the 4th annual A-Cappelooza will be held at Newton North's auditorium.  The all vocal concert is a fundraiser for our Countryside elementary school.  For the last three years its been held at Newton South and always sold out.  This year they've moved to the larger Newton North auditorium.  This year's concert features "Pitch Slapped", "Ball in the House", Newton South’s Newtones, Newton North’s Forte.  If you've never been to Acappelooza or if you've never been inside Newton North, give it a try.  It's always a good show.  A few tickets might still be available.

Speaking of Newton North ... - Our crew of Newton North students is on the job and working diligently on building the Upper Falls Live History Map.  Kavish Gandhi, Alex Slocum and Adam Elghazzawi, all sophomores at Newton North, are cramming on all sorts of arcane technical topics so they can have this imaginative web site up and running by the end of the school year.  While the three students are not from "the falls", we hope they will be granted lifetime honorary resident status when their work is completed.  Once it's finished, we'll hold an event here in Upper Falls to introduce Live History Map to the neighborhood and begin capturing all of your knowledge and memories of Upper Falls.  In the meantime, here's a very simple demonstration of the general concept.  Special thanks to their teacher, Upper Falls' own Chris Murphy who suggested and organized their involvement.

New Years Is Later That We Thought - In the last issue of the Upper Falls News, we extended an invitation from the Tzu Chi Foundation  for neighbors to attend their New Year Candlelight Ceremony on Feb 6 at their Summer St Service Center (the old Methodist Church).  We had the date wrong.  It will be held on Feb 16 (not Feb 6) at 2 PM.  Join our Buddhist friends in ringing in the (Chinese) New Year with prayers for a peaceful and disaster-free world in the coming year.  Call 617-762-0569 to register.
 
The Tzu Chi Foundation has been very busy in recent months in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.  They raised $10 milllion dollars, distributed $600 debit cards to 10,000 families, and provided over 8,000 servings of food to Sandy's victims.   It's amazing work that they do around the world.

Off to See the Wizard -Tickets for Countryside School's musical, The Wizard of Oz," go on sale,Monday, February 4, outside school.  Countryside parents and grandparents from Upper Falls who do not go to the school for drop off/pick-up can get their tickets by sending an email to K.mcgraw7@gmail.com.  Performances are Saturday, February 9th at 4 pm and Sunday, February 10th, at 2 pm. in the Countryside Cafetorium,  Adults: $8, children and seniors, $5.  General seating.  Doors open 30 minutes before show time.

A Mighty Wind - Wednesday night's high wind led to a few surprises on Thursday morning.  Outside the Upper Falls News editorial office, a neighbor's patio table was deposited in the middle of Spring St.  On Pettee St at the playground a medium sized branch blocked the sidewalk.  Down on Chestnut St, it looks like alderman Brian Yates might have have some issues to deal with.

Newton's Wartime Recycling - Leslie Friedman just found this interesting Newton artifact from 1942, in the basement of her Summer St home.  Note this is the same Leslie Friedman that designed the original Upper Falls Historic District sign mentioned in last week's Upper Falls News.  Leslie just loves all aspects of local history.

Upper Falls Tonsorial News - Upper Falls' newest tonsorial outpost was featured in this week's Newton Tab.  Unfortunately the story about Mike's Classic Barber Shop on Chestnut St, which will also be Sol's new home for wielding his clippers, hasn't yet made it into the Tab's on-line edition.   So we have no link here.  You'll have to read it in the paper/ink version of this week's Tab.

Did You Know ... ? .. There once was a lake the size of the England in the Sahara Desert.  "Did You Know ...?"  features an interesting and random fact every issue, collected by ten-year-old Upper Falls resident Jayla Reilly.  Here's an extra related Did you know ... that there are fresh water lakes in the Sahara today

Send Us Your News - If you have any upcoming events, activities, news, trivia, stories, anecdotes or jokes related to Upper Falls just send them to news@UpperFallsNews.org and we'll include them in the next newsletter.  For those who prefer living in the past, back issues of the Upper Falls News are archived at UpperFallsNews.org.

'Where Am I" Answer - This house at the corner of Oak St and Pennsylvania St (on the left when going up the hill on Oak St) has some very interesting stone work.  One side of the wooden house has this round stone room and on the opposite side (on Pennsylvania St) there's a chimney the whole height of the two story house with the same rounded stone construction.