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‘They're part of the family': A Vermont dairy farmer fears being separated from a family of migrant workers

Boston Globe

17-07-2025

Politics
Boston Globe

‘They're part of the family': A Vermont dairy farmer fears being separated from a family of migrant workers

Morin hired Bernardo and her partner out of necessity. He couldn't find Americans willing to milk his cows, raise his calves, and shovel out the barn — physically demanding work with long hours and modest wages. Over time, the relationship between the self-described conservative farmer and his migrant workers has deepened. Advertisement 'I consider them more than just employees,' he said. 'They're part of the family.' Farmer John Morin and his partner, Lynn Beede, had lunch with Wuendy Bernardo's family at home in Orleans County, Vt., on July 10. Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff The feeling is mutual. As Bernardo's 17-year-old daughter let out the family's chickens one muggy morning this week, she described Morin and his partner, Lynn Beede, in similar terms. 'They are like our grandparents,' she said. 'They care about us.' But this blended family could soon be pulled apart. Bernardo, who was apprehended after illegally crossing the southern border in 2014, has been required ever since to make periodic check-ins with immigration authorities. Since President Trump took office, those appointments have become more frequent, and the stakes have felt much higher. Her next one is Monday. 'Each time I go back, it's with the same fear,' the 33-year-old Bernardo said through an interpreter last week, seated at Morin's dining room table. 'When I walk into that building, it's with the thought that I might not be able to go home, and I might not be able to see my children.' Advertisement Morin — a Carhartt-clad man with gray facial stubble and kind eyes — also dreads the check-ins. 'If I lose my workers, I'm going to be done,' he said. 'What am I gonna do? Hire more migrant workers and worry about losing them ?' Bernado's children played outside the barn on the dairy farm in Orleans County, Vt., on July 10. Bernardo and her partner have lived and worked on the farm for over a decade with their family. Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff @font-face { font-family: BentonSansCond-Regular; src: url(" format('woff2'), url(" format('woff'); } @font-face { font-family: BentonSansCond-Bold; src: url(" format('woff2'), url(" format('woff'); } .dipgrid { display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap; align-items: stretch; margin: 25px -28px; } .dip__main { position: relative; overflow: hidden; } .dip__image { position: relative; top: 50%; left: 0%; } .dip__image.portrait { height: auto; width: 100%; padding-top: 24px; } .dip__image.landscape { height: auto; width: 100%; padding-top: 10px; } @media only screen and (min-width: 700px) { .dipgrid { display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap; align-items: stretch; max-width: 1200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; } .dip { width: 48.5%; } .dip:not(:nth-child(2n)) { margin-right: 3%; } .dip__image.portrait { height: auto; width: 100%; padding-top: 10px; } .dip__image.landscape { height: auto; width: 100%; padding-top: 0px; } .dip__main { position: relative; overflow: hidden; } } .dip_cap_cred { font-family: "BentonSansCond-Regular", "Times New Roman", Times, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: .5px; text-align: left; margin: 3px 15px 0px 0px; font-weight: 200; } .dip_cap_cred span{ text-transform: uppercase; color: #6b6b6b; } .theme-dark .dip_cap_cred{ color: #fff; } .theme-dark .dip_cap_cred span { color: #fff; } Will Lambek of Migrant Justice comforted Wuendy Bernardo after discussing her immigration situation on July 10. (Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff) Bernardo milked a cow during an early morning shift at the farm in Orleans County, Vt., on July 11. (Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff) When Morin was growing up, there were dozens of farms in these parts. He and his siblings would milk his father's 50 cows before and after school, and bale hay in the summers. Most of those farms are now gone. The ones that remain are far larger and rely less on family labor. Throughout the state, an estimated 750 to 850 migrant farmworkers, mostly from Mexico and Guatemala, constitute 'There aren't a lot of people growing up into farming anymore,' Morin said. 'It's very hard to find American help that will actually milk the cows, work in the barns.' Margins in the industry have grown tighter as the price farmers get for milk hasn't kept pace with rising costs. 'I'm surviving, but I'm not gonna lie: It's hard financially,' said Morin, who bought the family farm from a brother. 'Of the 20 years I've been farming, I've probably had three good years.' Advertisement Bernardo's 18-year-old sister helped John Morin collect a calf and its mother on his dairy farm. Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff Bernardo's children cast shadows on a garage at the dairy farm where they live and work. Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff Of Vermont's 14 counties, Orleans was one of two Trump won in 2024. But Morin says there's a growing, if quiet, discontent among local farmers. 'I think a lot of people are not happy at all,' he said. 'We have to worry about weather. We have to worry about the price of milk fluctuating. And now we gotta worry about losing our help. We're just trying to make a living and feed the country.' Morin said he voted for Trump in 2016 'against my better judgment,' but backed the Democratic nominees in 2020 and 2024. 'I consider myself conservative, but I don't consider this administration conservative,' he said, emphasizing the importance of family values. 'You don't treat people like they're doing.' In recent months, rival factions within the Trump administration A Trump 2028 flag was posted on a hill in Orleans County, Vt., near Morin's farm. Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff US Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, until recently ICE did not respond to questions from the Globe about her case, or about its current posture toward migrant farmworkers. Advertisement Bernardo and her partner have five children, from 5 to 17, and also care for two of her orphaned half-sisters, ages 15 and 18. The family members have a range of immigration and citizenship statuses. It is a hard life of long days. Most mornings, Bernardo and her partner start milking Morin's 125 cows at 4:30 a.m., and again at 3 p.m. before letting them out for the night. In between, they do other farm and household chores and spend time with their kids. Morin's farm is smaller than most and lacks a modern 'milking parlor' that would allow the cows to come to centralized machines. Instead, Bernardo and her partner walk up and down three rows of cows in the barn, disinfecting their udders and attaching mobile milkers one by one. Bernardo and her 15-year-old half-sister made dinner at their home in their kitchen upstairs. Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff Bernardo fed a calf on the dairy farm on July 11. Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff The younger children also help feed the calves, and the older ones take the occasional milking shift. Days off are vanishingly rare because, no matter what, the cows have to be milked. But sometimes life gets in the way. When their 10-year-old son had appendicitis this spring, Bernardo and her partner stayed by his bedside for three weeks at a hospital in Burlington, while Morin took over some of their dairy duties. 'John was the one who picked up the slack, and they also helped care for the family,' Bernardo said. In better times, Morin and Beede share meals with Bernardo's family, ply the kids with snacks, wait for them at the bus stop, and take them to town. The children love his cat and her dogs. Bernardo and her partner took a walk on the farm with two of their children after a second round of milking cows on July 11. Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff @font-face { font-family: BentonSansCond-Regular; src: url(" format('woff2'), url(" format('woff'); } @font-face { font-family: BentonSansCond-Bold; src: url(" format('woff2'), url(" format('woff'); } .dipgrid { display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap; align-items: stretch; margin: 25px -28px; } .dip__main { position: relative; overflow: hidden; } .dip__image { position: relative; top: 50%; left: 0%; } .dip__image.portrait { height: auto; width: 100%; padding-top: 24px; } .dip__image.landscape { height: auto; width: 100%; padding-top: 10px; } @media only screen and (min-width: 700px) { .dipgrid { display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap; align-items: stretch; max-width: 1200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; } .dip { width: 48.5%; } .dip:not(:nth-child(2n)) { margin-right: 3%; } .dip__image.portrait { height: auto; width: 100%; padding-top: 10px; } .dip__image.landscape { height: auto; width: 100%; padding-top: 0px; } .dip__main { position: relative; overflow: hidden; } } .dip_cap_cred { font-family: "BentonSansCond-Regular", "Times New Roman", Times, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: .5px; text-align: left; margin: 3px 15px 0px 0px; font-weight: 200; } .dip_cap_cred span{ text-transform: uppercase; color: #6b6b6b; } .theme-dark .dip_cap_cred{ color: #fff; } .theme-dark .dip_cap_cred span { color: #fff; } Bernardo's 15-year-old half-sister said a prayer before having breakfast with her family. (Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff) Bernardo's daughters played in their bedroom before breakfast. (Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff) Occasionally the younger kids call down from their upstairs apartment to ask if they can come down to play or watch a movie. Advertisement 'Kids give life purpose. They give life meaning,' Beede said. 'I think that's what Wuendy and her family do in our lives.' Without them, 'It would be a very lonely existence for us, with very little purpose.' According to Dan Kurzman, a longtime friend of Morin's: 'He adopted that family — and they've adopted him.' Upstairs, the family of nine shares close quarters: a cramped kitchen and common area, one bedroom for the parents, and two more packed with bunkbeds. Several balloons in the kids' bedrooms last week marked the recent high school graduation of Bernardo's oldest half-sister. 'It feels exciting,' the 18-year-old said. 'My first graduation.' 'As a mother, that's what I hope for all of my kids,' Bernardo said. 'I hope to see them all graduate.' Bernardo's children played outside the barn while their parents work on the dairy farm. Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff The children have typical aspirations, of becoming a nurse, or a veterinarian, another an attorney, another a dentist, Bernardo said. They attend local schools, which the older kids say they prefer to long, slow summers on the farm, when they must concoct their own entertainment. 'We go to the river and spend time there when days are hot,' the 13-year-old said. 'And I think that's all.' (To protect their privacy, Bernardo asked that her children not be named.) Over a breakfast of homemade tortillas filled with pork sausage, spinach, and Vermont cheddar cheese, Bernardo's partner said he wished more Americans understood that all he and his family are looking for is a better life. 'We do the dirty work they don't want to do. We are not criminals. We are supporting our kids. We are part of the economy of the United States,' he said. 'That's all we do: work and feed our family.' Advertisement He said he felt nervous about Bernardo's looming check-in. 'I always try to stay positive and think everything will be all right,' he said. 'But with this administration, you never know.' Bernardo sat with her cup of coffee after having breakfast with her family. Her day started at 4:30 a.m. with the first of two shifts milking cows. Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff At Bernardo's last appointment with ICE, on June 20, crowds of supporters gathered outside the agency's office in St. Albans to protest her potential deportation. After a half hour she reappeared. She'd been told to return in a month. Morin, who had driven Bernardo and three of her children to the appointment, waited for her outside, fuming. 'This is not American,' he said. 'I wear the American flag. I support the Constitution. I support our troops that have fought for this country, that make this country free. What's going on in this country — it's not humane.'

25 hot new paperbacks to read this summer, from page-turning thrillers to steamy romances

Boston Globe

10-07-2025

General
Boston Globe

25 hot new paperbacks to read this summer, from page-turning thrillers to steamy romances

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Boston Globe

10-06-2025

General
Boston Globe

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75 new books to add to your summer reading list

Boston Globe

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Bell is a Jamaican-born critic and media and politics researcher. Lauren LeBlanc is a board member of the National Book Critics Circle. Wadzanai Mhute is a former books editor at Oprah Daily whose work has appeared in The New York Times, People Magazine, and The Washington Post, among others. Daneet Steffens is a books-focused journalist and critic. You can find her online @daneetsteffens. Kate Tuttle edits the Globe's books section. Freelance writer Chris Vognar was the 2009 Nieman Arts and Culture Fellow at Harvard University. The Boston Globe may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. © 2025 Boston Globe Media Partners, LLC Advertisement Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Advertisement

As Trump targets Harvard, Greater Boston's economy is in the crosshairs

Boston Globe

12-05-2025

Business
Boston Globe

As Trump targets Harvard, Greater Boston's economy is in the crosshairs

Harvard is the point of origin for hundreds of successful companies, a magnet for ambitious people, and a crucial piece of the innovation economy that has powered Massachusetts' growth in recent decades. Now much of that ecosystem feels at risk. As the Trump administration pressures Harvard to rework everything from admissions to academics, Related : Advertisement 'We're all just holding our breath figuring out where the impact is coming,' said Denise Jillson, executive director of the Harvard Square Business Association. 'We will be hit, but how much? How deep?' Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up The answer could be dire: Harvard employs 18,000 people and staffs 14 hospitals with medical students. It is among the Related : Advertisement Even some Harvard supporters question whether a single university should be so wealthy, or so essential to the institutions that make Boston Boston. But talk to entrepreneurs, nonprofit leaders, real estate experts, and residents, and nearly all agree Harvard is a boon for Massachusetts. Its influence flows from the school's red brick buildings to almost every industry in the state, and anchors a higher education sector that accounts for @font-face { font-family: BentonSansCond-Regular; src: url(" format('woff2'), url(" format('woff'); font-weight: 600; font-style: normal; } @font-face { font-family: BentonSansCond-Bold; src: url(" format('woff2'), url(" format('woff'); font-weight: 600; font-style: normal; } .dnddicesarea__container{ display: block; max-width: 750px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; background-color: #fff; } .cvsillotitle { font-family: "BentonSansCond-Bold", "Impact", "Arial Narrow", "Helvetica", sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.28; text-align: center; color: #000; padding: 0; margin-top: 25px; } .cvsillotextblurb { font-family: "BentonSansCond-Regular", "Impact", "Arial Narrow", "Helvetica", sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 1.28; text-align: center; color: #000; padding: 10px 10px 10px 0; letter-spacing: .5px; } .cvsillotextblurb span { font-family: "BentonSansCond-Bold", "Impact", "Arial Narrow", "Helvetica", sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 1.28; text-align: center; color: #000; padding: 0 0 10px 0; letter-spacing: .5px; } /* Dek styles */ .cvsillo-well__dek { font-family: "BentonSansCond-Bold", "Impact", "Arial Narrow", "Helvetica", sans-serif; font-size: 28px; font-weight: 200; text-align: center; color: #000; padding-right: 10px; margin-left: 10px; line-height: 1.2; } .cvsillo-well__dekblurb { font-family: "BentonSansCond-Regular", "Impact", "Arial Narrow", "Helvetica", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 1.2; text-align: center; color: #000; margin-bottom: 10px; letter-spacing: .5px; padding: 0 0 0px 0; } /* Link box styles */ .cvsillolinks { font-family: "BentonSansCond-Regular", "Impact", "Arial Narrow", "Helvetica", sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 2; letter-spacing: .8px; background-color: #fff; color: #333; cursor: pointer; padding: 5px; border: none; text-align: left; transition: 0.4s; margin: 0px 0; width: 100%; } .abovecredline { width: 100%; display: block; border-bottom: 0px solid rgba(000, 000, 000,1); height: 1px; background: #56849b; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-top: 4px; text-align: center; } /* Flex layout for responsive card grid */ .cvsillo-well__top-links { display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap; justify-content: space-between; gap: 20px; margin-top: 0px; } /* Default: 2 per row (fallback for smallest viewports) */ .cvsillo-well__related-container { flex: 1 1 calc(50% - 10px); max-width: calc(50% - 10px); } /* Medium screens: 3 per row */ @media (min-width: 600px) { .cvsillo-well__related-container { flex: 1 1 calc(20.333% - 10px); max-width: calc(33.333% - 10px); } } .cvsillo-well__related-container { position: relative; } /* Show vertical divider between 2-per-row items, EXCEPT the last item */ .cvsillo-well__related-container:not(:nth-child(4n)):not(:last-child)::after { content: ""; position: absolute; top: 10%; right: -10px; width: 1px; height: 80%; background-color: #ccc; } /* Remove all dividers on desktop (4-per-row or more) */ @media (min-width: 1000px) { .cvsillo-well__related-container::after { content: none; } } Harvard and the Mass. economy, by the numbers The university is a major employer and landowner on both sides of the Charles River, who spends billions at state businesses to maintain its operations. $1.45 billion The amount spend by Harvard at Massachusetts businesses annually 18,718 The number of Massachusetts residents directly employed by Harvard 6,793 The number of international students at Harvard and its extension school in fall 2024 51,500 Estimate of Harvard alumni that live in Massachusetts At least 160 The number of startups launched around Harvard research since 2013 Around 500 The number of buildings Harvard owns on both sides of the Charles River 1,350 The number of new housing units in Allston-Brighton that came out of Harvard partnerships SOURCE: Harvard 2023 Facts & Impacts Report and data from its Office of Institutional Research; RYAN HUDDLE/GLOBE STAFF All considered, a weaker Harvard would mean a weaker Massachusetts with less cutting-edge research, fewer tourists, and consequences for the street-level businesses that rely on the bustle of a college town. Kneecapping the 'What kind of a city and area are we going to leave to the next generation, 10, 20, 30 years from now?' she asked. 'Having to think about our survival is jarring.' Michael Schrader cannot tell the story of Vaxess, the Woburn life science company he cofounded, without Harvard University. Neither Schrader nor his three partners would've moved to Boston if not for Harvard. They learned of the technology that powers Vaxess in a 'Commercializing Science' course at Harvard Business School. Kate Skrada, a senior research associate in immunology at Vaxess, a Cambridge biotech startup, is pictured in 2022. Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff The financial showdown between the White House and Harvard now poses a threat to every step of that journey, from the original science to the eventual spinoff, which develops needle- and refrigeration-free patches for vaccines and other medical therapies. Advertisement A federal funding freeze could force Harvard to pull back resources for aspiring entrepreneurs like Schrader. Related : Harvard and its peer institutions have already initiated layoffs, closed labs, and reduced graduate admissions to steel themselves against financial challenges. 'The whole Vaxess journey was seeded at Harvard,' Schrader said. 'It took seven years of living out of its i-Lab and Life Lab, surviving off of grants, competition winnings, and early stage funding to find our footing. Without it, more companies will not survive through that period of iterating and evolving.' Related : Indeed, colleges and companies have long been intertwined here. Universities played a key role in Massachusetts' transformation from post-industrial backwater to one of the most prosperous places in the US. MIT partnered with the Pentagon to open the Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington in the 1950s, helping turn Route 128 into 'America's Technology Highway.' Young people poured out of college campuses into white-collar jobs, aiding Greater Boston's shift from manufacturing to a managerial economy that leads the way in robotics, software, and biotechnology. A researcher at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory. MIT Lincoln Laboratory 'It's because of all of these institutions — Harvard is just the 800-pound gorilla we all see — that that change happened,' said Bob Allison, a Boston historian who teaches at Suffolk University and the Harvard Extension School. Advertisement An explosion of graduate students in the past 30 years at Harvard and elsewhere helped draw blue-chip companies and lucrative jobs. Kendall Square emerged as a global hub for life sciences, sparking a wave of new construction that continues to this day. Biotech companies, such as Vertex Pharmaceuticals and Gingko Bioworks, planted themselves in shiny Seaport towers. And in 2018, a defunct envelope factory near Union Square in Somerville Related : Today, Harvard alone spends over $500 million annually buying research materials and equipment from local suppliers. Many of those biotech firms are already seeing a softening in sales amid tariffs, the pullback in federal funding, and A spokesperson for Qiagen, a German research supplier to Harvard, Tufts, and University of Massachusetts, said its customers have already become more cautious on spending. Shares for Waltham-based Thermo Fisher have dropped Salvatore Russello, chief executive of New England Biolabs, said the Ipswich company can stave off pain in the short-term, but needs the steady flow of colleges and industrial clients to operate as usual. Related : 'Massachusetts is the center of the biotechnology universe, and our economy depends on it,' he said. 'We depend on it.' Also at risk now is the brainpower from abroad that keeps the state on its pedestal. Advertisement Pedestrians walk along Massachusetts Avenue in Harvard Square. Suzanne Kreiter/Globe Staff MassChallenge chief executive Cait Brumme said half of the firms in the accelerator's new program were founded outside the country, though a drop-off in foreign talent is all but certain now. At the Harvard Pagliuca Life Lab in Allston, 70 percent of companies are run by international founders. 'The state is doing a lot to make the case that we are leading the pack nationally,' Brumme said. 'But if our research institutions don't feel cutting-edge with the nation backing you, we know that the Ultimately, fewer startups will mean fewer full-grown companies. Harvard's Office of Technology Development has licensed more than 90 startups in just the past five years, and nearly all the venture capital funding for Massachusetts biotechnology companies in 2023 went to companies with Harvard alumni in their executive suites or boardrooms. Harvard and MIT dependably create a disproportionate share of returns for venture capital firms, said Rob Biederman, managing partner at Boston's based Asymmetric Capital. Jeff Bussgang, general partner at Flybridge Capital Partners, put it bluntly. 'Any company you can name,' he said, 'I can tell you the roots to Harvard.' After the 2008 recession, the stability of academic institutions — Harvard included — propped up home values in Greater Boston and spared the region from the worst of the housing crash. But since January, the tumult on campus is filtering into the housing market, especially short-term rentals to visiting scholars, whose appointments may be hampered by visa troubles and impending cuts. Advertisement 'It's a ghost town,' said Dino Confalone, chair-elect of the Greater Boston Real Estate Board. 'The Airbnb community is going to get decimated over the next few months.' If colleges pull back from their real investments, it could worsen a market already struggling with soaring housing costs and slumping demand for commercial space. Related : Look at Allston-Brighton, where Harvard has erected gargantuan new academic buildings on Western Avenue, renovated parks, and built 1,300 new homes — roughly 25 percent of which are set aside at affordable prices. Its quarter-century-long expansion into Allston has sparked concerns of faux progress and gentrification. Yet nearly a quarter of Harvard's commercial property in the neighborhood remains empty, according to The Enterprise Reasearch Campus at 100 Western Avenue in Allston. John Tlumacki/Globe Staff But for its faults, Harvard is 'a true community partner, not an adversary,' said Allston Civic Association president Tony Disidoro. Losing its support would leave the neighborhood worse off. Though construction continues on the gigantic Enterprise Research Campus, signs of hesitation are growing. In an April meeting, for example, Harvard representatives turned down a community request to boost funding for housing in Allston. MIT also plans to delay work on its vast real estate holdings in Cambridge, the Globe reported. Related : 'I don't know if they are pulling back and being conservative because they don't know what the future holds,' Disidoro said. 'But that's certainly what it seems like.' That could translate into fewer success stories like Esther Ravitz, who credits Harvard with helping her become a homeowner. A kindergarten teacher at The Shaloh School in Brighton, Ravitz had tired of spending the bulk of her earnings on rent. But buying in the neighborhood where she has lived for two decades felt out of the question. The only listing that fit her budget? A condo in a 20-unit development on Antwerp Street, built on a parcel donated by Harvard. That contribution allowed 12 of the apartments to be priced below market value; Ravitz managed to buy one, for just $250,000. 'My hands were tied, then this apartment opened,' said Ravitz, who lives in a two-bedroom with her 10-year-old daughter. 'It was like I won the lottery.' But the good luck is vanishing, as federal mandates jostle Harvard's standing on the world stage and begin to dribble out in unexpected ways. The Longfellow House, for example, a national historic site on Brattle Street that was once the headquarters of George Washington, cannot pay its $110 annual fee to the Harvard Square Business Association due to the disappearance of federal dollars. And the owner of Brattle Square Florist fears that floral orders for Harvard events — a fifth of the small business' sales — could go away. The home where George Washington slept at the Longfellow House-Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site in Cambridge. Globe Freelance Daniel Berger-Jones, founder of tour operator 'It's one thing when a cultural trend shifts a little bit,' he said. 'It's another when the government picks up the whole terrarium and rattles it.' It's not happening all at once, like the destruction that swept through in the early days of the pandemic. Customers are still buying pens at Bob Slate Stationer and 3-D cards at Lovepop. And though Harvard employees can sometimes be found huddled at Russell Street Tavern, venting about the attacks aimed at the university, there are no signs yet that business will slow down, said owner Patrick Lee, the restaurateur behind the Grafton Group. 'We're taking it step by step to see what may lie ahead, but we're also hoping for the best and that it resolves itself,' he said. 'Talk to me in three months, and I hope I'll have the same answer.' Diti Kohli can be reached at Follow Us Subscribe Now My Account Contact More © 2025 Boston Globe Media Partners, LLC

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