Letter: Late South Ender Helped Beautify Upton Street

Dear Editor,

It was gratifying to see some of Ned's many gifts to the South End recorded in . Old-timers will remember Ned (he was uniquely memorable) and some younger readers will enjoy knowing how he contributed to their quality of life today in the South End. 

One of the more interesting tales concerned the planting of the Upton Street trees.   

The Newdicks strived to beautify trash-littered, run-down Upton Street, managing to persuade the resourceful BRA to supply young trees. The deal was that that the trees would be planted by Upton Street neighbors.

Ned Newdick enthusiastically took on on the tree-planting project (along with another civic-minded citizen whose name disappears in the mists of time). In the late Sixties, the two South Enders planted the Upton Street trees which today loom several storeys high.

Among Ned's other contributions: assuming the care of the city-owned elm in Alley 701 when the City, replacing the old brick sewers, destroyed some of the elm's ancient roots. This  tree, which was diagnosed with "a one-in-five chance of surviving Dutch elm disease" is one of the few magnificent elms still contributing its magnificent shade in the City of Boston.

The Newdicks also concentrated on attempting to rid Upton street of drugs, homelessness and a six-foot-high mountain of commuter trash routinely deposited on an Upton Street sidewalk. Sally Newdick, in that regard, was known to some as "The Trash Lady".

- Lita (formerly Sally) Newdick