Archive for July 13th, 2012

July 13th, 2012

‘For Boston’

by PaulM

My wife and I enjoyed a sunny day in Boston this week and left the city convinced that it is looking as good as it ever has. Our destination was the waterfront, Fan Pier, where we expected to go to the Institute for Contemporary Art—but the weather was simply too good, so we opted for a day outside instead of doing the museum thing. We walked along the harbor all the way to the Aquarium, marveling at the water views and well-kept properties, walkway, and tons of construction going on, especially in the Innovation District. We used to go to the hyper-Irish Mass on Easter Sunday at the small church in the neighborhood, Our Lady of Good Voyages on Northern Avenue, which is now tucked in between rising office, commercial, and residential buildings. One of the things we noticed is that the sidewalks and streets are well-kept and litter-free. Somebody is doing something right.

At the wharf near the Aquarium we bought tickets for a 45-minute harbor tour, something we had never done. The boat was full for the 12.30 p.m. trip. A young guy from Ireland strolled the upper deck and narrated, giving us bits of heritage history and popular history, from the 1630 founding of the city to quips about Whitey spending time in the big courthouse on the right. We heard about the massive molasses explosion and “One if by land” lantern in the North End and cannon balls bouncing off the sides of the “USS Constitution,” which are made of 22-inch thick Georgia oak. We were surprised to see the many derelict wharves on the East Boston and Charlestown side of the Harbor, which suggests there is plenty of room for future waterfront development and gives a clue as to how busy the harbor was at its peak, before trains and trucks and planes.  All the while the high sun lit the skyline and Zakim-Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge. Back at the dock, we disembarked and walked back to our car via the Rose Kennedy Greenway, a magnificent series of small parks that map the old expressway route, each with a different theme and planting scheme. Again, the grounds were clean and not overrun with pan-handlers or police. Everything was pretty mellow. For a Wednesday afternoon, the tourist destinations like the Aquarium were busy with people but the harbor walkway was lightly trafficked. We walked in and out of a couple of hotel lobbies just to snoop around. One of them had a fancy compact second-floor meeting room with a gigantic metal horse that was really a lamp stand.

Back outside, we sat for a while and watched a group of guys doing somersaults and handstands in a park to the tune of “Call Me, Maybe.” A ten-year old boy walked by and said, “That song is over-played.” We finished our raspberry seltzer drinks from Starbucks and moved on.

What was the “take-away” for Lowelltown, as my former colleague and teacher Linda Silka used to say?

Plant more flowers and blooming trees; be a demon on the litter patrol—zero tolerance; keep people moving in public spaces so everyone feels it is his or her space to enjoy; spruce up the waterfront walkways; add more lighting; draw more commercial activity to the water edges, whether it is Vandenberg Esplanade or the Canalway downtown; use colorful banners to market and excite; encourage live arts and entertainment in public areas; maintain the flowers, bushes, and trees that have been planted.

That’s all folks.

 

CategoryCulture, History, Lowell | Comment2 Comments »

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July 13th, 2012

Electronic Recording of Real Estate Documents

by DickH

The below is a cross-post of something I wrote about electronic recording of real estate documents on the Middlesex North Registry of Deeds blog, LowellDeeds. While electronic recording is used only by those in the real estate business, it represents an example of technology changing the way something has been done for a very long time so it might be of general interest to readers:

During the second quarter of 2012, the number of documents being recorded electronically at the Middlesex North Registry of Deeds has increased considerably. By way of background, Back in 2005 Middlesex North became the first registry of deeds in Massachusetts to offer full electronic recording services. Gradually, other registries have activated the service and so now, about half of the state’s 21 registries of deeds offer electronic recording.

With electronic recording, authorized customers scan the documents that are to be recorded and then upload the scanned images and data they enter about those images to a secure website. At the appropriate time, the authorized customer clicks the “send to the registry” button and at the registry, a notice appears on our computers that an inbound recording has arrived. We open the electronic package and review the submitted documents in the same way we do documents presented in person for recording (signed, notarized, land in this district, etc). If all is in order, we click the “record” button and in a second or two, the document is recorded in our records, an electronic copy of the recorded document plus a receipt bounces back tot he sender, and the fees are paid through an electronic transfer into our bank account. By my measurement, the amount of time spent processing an document submitted in the traditional way (by bringing it to the registry) requires 10 minutes of our time while processing an electronically submitted document takes only 1 minute. In that way, it is a substantial efficiency.

Most of our earliest electronic recording customers were large national institutions that were already using the service in other states. Over time, however, more and more local attorneys are using it. Electronic recording is a huge time saver for them, too. While the attorney or law office staff does have to scan the document and enter some data, neither the document or any person associated with it has to leave the office to go to the registry. Everything from execution to recording to disbursement of funds to filing away the paperwork can be done all at once.

Our volume of electronic recording relative to all documents recorded has steadily risen over time. By the end of 2011 and into the first quarter of 2012, at least 30% of our daily recordings were submitted electronically. For the three months covered by April, May and June of 2012, however, that number has risen to 35%. Our biggest day ever for electronic recording was on June 29, 2012 when out of a total of 793 documents recorded for the day, 373 were electronic, accounting for 47% of the total. Of the electronic recordings that day, 18 were deeds, 58 were mortgages, 31 were mortgage discharges, and 266 were other types of documents (and having helped record many of them that day, I can say most were assignments of mortgages).

As electronic recording rolls-out to the remaining registries of deeds in the state and as local real estate people, especially those working for municipalities like tax collectors, get more comfortable with the technology, I believe the volume will rise to close to 50% of all transactions.

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