Sweetening U.S. 280: The Gingerbread Lady moving to Greystone Center
Published 4:25 pm Monday, January 4, 2016
By MOLLY DAVIDSON / Staff Writer
HOOVER—Bright colors, delicious treats and eye catching items are what the Gingerbread Lady is all about, store owner Ellen Morris said. Currently located in Irondale, the shop will soon bring its cheer to U.S. 280, relocating to the Greystone Center.
“It’s a regular gift shop and then some,” Morris said of her shop, which carries an assortment of items for nearly everyone.
For the avid sports fan, Morris carries a number of college team-themed goods; for the wine enthusiast, the shop offers a selection of wine caddies from Germany; and for the cook, there are gourmet foods, edible glitter, melting chocolate, professional baking utensils and more. And of course, there are gingerbread houses.
Morris’ creations are not your average gingerbread house, they’re works of art. Morris has been making gingerbread houses for more than 50 years, and her work has graced the Christmas set of the television show, “The Young and the Restless.”
“(As a child) I wanted to be a famous artist… I never envisioned I would be famous for gingerbread houses,” Morris said. “You stumble into things in life.”
Gingerbread houses are available for purchase year round. Shoppers can buy premade houses or request a customized design. Morris’ gingerbread architecture has included castles, merry-go-rounds, trains and mansions.
Customers can expect to find quality items and good prices at the Gingerbread Lady, Morris said.
“I have always not done normal retail markup and I will continue to not do that,” Morris said. “There is a difference between a small profit and greed and I’ve always gone for the small profit.”
After a difficult year, Morris said she is looking forward to the new year and moving to U.S. 280. Her husband passed away in August 2015, and Morris said before he died, he requested she relocate back to U.S. 280. The shop had previously been located in the Colonnade near U.S. 280.
“Two weeks after he died is when I signed the lease,” Morris said. “It’s a new beginning for me, it’s something I need to do after the death of my husband.”
Although an exact opening date has not been determined, Morris said she expects the shop to open soon.
For more information about the Gingerbread Lady, visit Thegingerbreadlady.com.
Boston is fortunate to have large, intact, precincts of fine scaled historic fabric whose character and conservation is carefully monitored through established regulatory processes. However, many historic neighborhoods in thriving cities have been significantly altered by modern, haphazard development. The resulting fragmentation makes the crafting of conservation guidelines a nuanced and daunting exercise, especially as these are often contested spaces in which community aspirations compete with development forces to preserve the integrity and affordability of their district. Nowhere is this more evident than in Chinatown, cleaved by two interstate highways and bounded by Boston’s high-rise downtown core, an intermodal transportation center and the continuously expanding Tufts New England Medical Center (TNEMC). For decades, with strong community support, Chinatown has struggled to simultaneously sustain its identity and cohesion as a neighborhood, while improving the quality of life for its inhabitants.
The South Cove neighborhood that became Chinatown was built on fill, a process that began in the 1830s. The Chinese began to settle this area before 1880, following waves of Irish, Jewish and Syrian immigrants, and had established a coherent, identifiable community in roughly the area occupied today by the 1940s. The buildings of this precinct are highly varied from mid-19th century brick rowhouses through turn of the 20th century manufacturing lofts and a plethora of modern era and recent development.
The purpose of this studio is to aid the community in the development of plans and guidelines to protect the integrity of those areas of Chinatown currently lacking historic designation; it will have two foci: The first will be to map and evaluate the physical and cultural history and general urban morphology of Chinatown with an eye to what has value and why. Students will identify ways in which resources may be protected, and where appropriate enhanced through sustainable development. Deliverables for this portion of the studio will be illustrated analytical maps identifying the type and location of historic fabric, with preliminary asset classification utilizing values-based conservation criteria and including a listing of general exterior character defining features.
The second half of the studio will be a design/planning implementation exercise incorporating knowledge gained in the first half, using one of three types of options. The first is to propose a program and concept level design for a vacant site, suggested at this time to be Parcel R-1, a cleared site bounded by Tyler, Harvard and Hudson Streets. An alternative infill site may be proposed with the instructor’s concurrence. The second option is to renovate an existing building within the district such as the 125 Lincoln St. Parking garage – which would be adapted for non-automobile mixed use. The third choice, geared particularly to Planning students, is to develop and present a more in-depth conservation planning study.
The studio will be informed by visits to the site, guest lectures, and meetings and a possible workshop with both community representatives and officials from the City of Boston.