Dev with me in Boston Centre: Dev is a centre resident, works in IT, and overseeing major renovations.
BK Boston has almost finished renovating their centre, just 20 minutes from Boston CBD, in Watertown MA. After purchasing the house they have occupied for over 20 years, the group, using only Boston BK stakeholder funds, have expanded their home dramatically...and
purposefully: and I visited last week.
The new Meditation Hall, with a great view over the park, seats over a hundred, there is a commercial kitchen and light filled dining room...and entrances either directly to the Meditation Hall or to kitchen/dining
on the floor below. There is on site parking for 18 cars, and ample parking along the park boundary.
The original centre/house has accommodation for three residents, and additional accommodation for up to seven guests... as well as office space, and
a huge flat roof garden! 🙂And council approval in place, of course...
One can't help comparing the Boston venture with the new Five Dock Centre
in SydneyFIVEDOCK SURPRISE!: which has approval for only forty people on weekdays, (eighty including
staff at weekends), a second floor Meditation Room and kitchen/dining, no accommodation for residents (one caretaker) no accommodation for guests, troublesome parking...and a six million dollar plus price tag, versus less than a third of that for Boston including
renovations! Both centres are about the same distance from their CBD's.
Let us hope that the planned new Melbourne BK centre, ( the iconic Fitzroy centre on fashionable Brunswick Street will be sold) is given more thought and attention than the BKA Board gave to Five Dock... naughtily, if perhaps accurately, described by Didi Nirmala as 'Charlie's White Elephant'.🤔