Newton mayor faces pressure to repaint Italian flag traffic stripes on Nonantum parade route before festival

Boston Globe

9 hours ago

'It was a real kick in the [privates],' said Jimmy Donovan, 64, who owns the Nonantum Press Room sandwich shop on Adams Street. 'It's like the veins of the festival, that's how deep this cuts.'
While city officials say they told Festa volunteers they're welcome to repaint the tri-colored lines next to the new yellow stripes, some neighbors aren't interested. They've launched a petition demanding officials 'immediately restore' the historic traffic lines before the St. Mary of Carmen Festival, which begins Wednesday, July 16, and culminates on July 20 with a religious procession along Adams.
Lifelong resident Julia Camilli said her grandmother and grandfather emigrated to Nonantum from Naples and San Donato Val di Comino in the 1940s.
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'I'm sure he's rolling in his grave over this,' said Camilli, 25. 'It's just crazy that some of the oldest traditions we have can't be preserved."
What happened to Nonantum's Italian flag stripe?
On the night of June 26, while many Nonantum residents slept with their windows open after a heat wave, people awoke to a 'deafening' sound of street work, said St. Mary of Carmen Festival chairman Chuck Proia.
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Workers were removing the tri-colored lane lines that have adorned Adams Street for decades and painting double yellow lines in their place.
A view of Adams Street in Newton, where red, white and green-colored traffic lines were painted over in June.
Suzanne Kreiter/Globe Staff
'Our elders say the Adams Street lines have been here for 90 years,' Proia said. 'I'm 57 years old, and a lifelong Nonantum resident, and I can say for certain they've been here my entire life.'
Newton Mayor Ruthanne Fuller said the old lines were stripped and repainted as part of a safety upgrade, after a traffic analysis last year identified Adams Street as one of the city's top five crash areas.
Such road work is customarily performed at night, Fuller said in a statement to the Globe.
'Our country has uniform standards for roads in order to allow us to drive anywhere in the US without having to understand local customs,' Fuller said of
the yellow stripes.
For his part, Proia maintains that while public safety is important, the traffic report's guidelines did not have to be instituted because they are not law.
City Councilor says neighbors were not notified
John Oliver, one of three city councilors representing Nonantum, one of Newton's 13
villages,
said residents who live along the procession route between Washington and Watertown streets were not
notified
ahead of the repainting.
'No one in the community knew this was coming, no elected officials were contacted,' said Oliver, 57.
Chuck Proia has been chairman of Nonantum's Italian-American festival for more than a decade, and he's pushing Newton Mayor Ruthanne Fuller to reinstate the village's red, white and green lane lines.
Suzanne Kreiter/Globe Staff
But Fuller said her office 'communicated with Festa volunteers over many months' regarding the upgrade.
City of Newton communications director Ellen Ishkanian told the Globe Monday that Festa organizers have also been told they can repaint the Italian flag colors alongside the new yellow lines, about 12 to 18 inches from their original location.
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'We communicated with the Festa volunteers so that the city would paint the center lines yellow and their volunteers are able to repaint the Italian flag-colored lines next to these yellow lines,' Ishkanian said in an email.
Pressure mounts ahead of festival next week
A Change.org petition demanding Newton officials 'immediately restore' the Italian flag stripe had
Residents remain puzzled as to why the city painted the lines just a few weeks ahead of the such a big annual festival.
'The bottom line is the timing of it was the biggest deal,' Donovan said.
Fuller's office said that was tied to factors like weather and workers' schedules.
'The only thing we didn't know was the exact date of the line painting as we are subject to both weather and the availability of the long line paint contractor,' Ishkanian said in an email.
The Change.org petitionwas not launched by St. Mary of Carmen Society, which organizes Festa, but the group appreciates the effort, said Proia. He hopes the campaign convinces Fuller to reverse her decision.
'We do not accept the compromise she has given to paint next to the lines,' he said.
Rather, he said, festival organizers are willing to have the yellow lines for 11 months of the year, except for July, when they say the Italian flag colors must bedeck Adams Street — without any yellow paint.
Camilli said she and others are impatient to repaint the traditional lines.
'We're going to be painting when the time comes,' she said, 'if the time comes.'
Claire Thornton can be reached at