Boston Scenes

City Councilors-at-Large and mayoral challengers Michael F. Flaherty (left) and Sam Yoon speak at a candidates forum at English High School in Jamaica Plain on Thursday, Sept. 17, 2009. The councilors and fellow candidate South End businessman Kevin McCrea (not pictured) attended the event, the final forum before the Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2009, preliminary election. Incumbent Mayor Thomas M. Menino did not did not attend. (Tony Irving photo)

Above is an artist’s rendering of the August Wilson Center for African American Culture, which held its grand opening and world premiere celebration on Thursday, Sept. 17, 2009, in Pittsburgh. The $39.5 million multidisciplinary facility, named for one of the 20th century’s most celebrated playwrights, is intended to reflect various aspects of African and African American culture. (Photo courtesy of August Wilson Center for African American Culture)

Mayor Thomas M. Menino (right) talks to Ashleigh Juarez and her son, Jonathan Casiano, during the opening of the Boston Public Schools Re-Engagement Center at the John Shelburne Community Center in Roxbury on Saturday, Sept. 19, 2009. The Re-Engagement Center helps dropouts re-enter high school. (Photo courtesy of the Mayor’s Press Office)

The Rev. Bill Loesch (center) is surrounded by his daughter (second from right) and former residents of Columbia Point housing projects, now called Harbor Point, in Dorchester. Loesch was honored on Sunday, Sept. 13, 2009, by the Columbia Point Tribute Committee for his work ministering to families in Columbia Point since 1966. (Tony Irving photo)

Twenty-five members of the Muslim American Society celebrate their graduation from the “Moving from Debt to Assets” course during a ceremony held at the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center in Roxbury on Aug. 31, 2009. The all-women class of students brings the total number of graduates from the financial education program, which is run by the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization, to 479. (Photo courtesy of Greater Boston Interfaith Organization)

Anti-death penalty activist Martina Correia (left) speaks as Charles J. Ogletree Jr., executive director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School, listens during a conversation about the death penalty case of Correia’s brother, Troy Anthony Davis, held Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2009, at Harvard Law School. Davis was convicted and sentenced to death in 1991 for the murder of Savannah, Ga., police officer Mark Allen MacPhail. After years of appeals, the U.S. Supreme Court last month ruled that Davis must have the opportunity to present his case in a court of law. (Tony Irving photo)

South End developer and Boston mayoral candidate Kevin McCrea (second from right) poses with Academy Homes 1 Family Day organizers. The second annual Academy Homes 1 Family Day celebration, featuring food, music and community engagement, was held Saturday, Sept. 19, 2009, in the Weaver Way parking lot. (Tony Irving photo)

Eleven young musicians from urban Boston neighborhoods and City Music Network partner sites around the country accepted full tuition scholarships to attend Berklee College of Music starting this fall at a presentation at the Berklee Performance Center on Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2009. From left: Roger H. Brown, Berklee president; Lynette Gittens, associate director of Berklee City Music; Krystal Banfield, director of City Music Boston; scholarship recipients Nathaniel Coe III, Carrington Brown, Mark Ward, Jalysa Riley, Benjamin Allen, Ashton Riker, Linton Smith, Aaron Liao, Christopher Juris, Keithen Foster, and Adriel Ferguson; and J. Curtis Warner, associate vice president for education outreach/executive director of City Music. (Phil Farnsworth photo)

Former residents of Roxbury and first cousins of the Clifton family met in Westford, Mass., last month for a family reunion. (Front row, from left): Louise Jackson Braxton, Dr. Joseph Stokes, Brenda Hardwick Jackson. (Middle row, from left): Phoebe Hardwick Matthews, Phyllis Jackson, Lucille Hardwick Johnson, Marilyn Jackson Tyler, Edwina Hardwick Burke. (Back row, from left): Peter Hardwick, Ralph Harris, Wilbur (Billy) Jackson. One living cousin, Dr. Edward Bryant, is not pictured. (Photo courtesy of the Clifton family)

Members of the Cambridge Youth Dance Program of the Deborah Mason School of Dance perform a dance tribute to the late Michael Jackson during the recent Martha Eliot Health Center annual health fair in Jamaica Plain. At the event, hundreds of festival-goers participated in a variety of activities, such as dancing, designed to help them take steps toward becoming healthier. (Photo courtesy of Children’s Hospital Boston)

Mattapan resident Myrtle Hosang shows off the results of her green thumb, a couple of plump tomatoes and a plot full of collard greens, grown in the Shangri-La Community Garden at the City of Boston’s Hunt-Almont Park. (Photo courtesy of the City of Boston)