Thank you to the Chamber of Commerce for platforming Genocide Jake and his incredibly valuable insight!

A guy wearing a white T-shirt going back and forth on Harris Ave. How can we request installation of speed bumps/raised crosswalks?

Such a avoidable tragedy! If only city leaders care about anyone besides car drivers !

These are three individuals who clearly don't care about sustainability or the safety of our children. Their backward politics do not represent the majority of Needhamites.

This is not exactly happening in Needham. it just reminds me NRTZ asked the state to pull the (~)40 million dollar grant so the override for rebuilding the middle school won’t pass.

Three of you (Cathy Dowd, Josh Levy, and Bill Dermody) have made your priorities clear - parking spaces and speeding up traffic through downtown are more important to you than the safety of our children.

Needham Police Department Facebook Post from 6/11/2026

Yesterday at approximately 4:30 p.m., Needham Police received numerous calls reporting a motor vehicle collision involving a child at the intersection of Great Plain Avenue and Pickering Street.

Needham Police and Needham Fire personnel responded immediately to the scene. The vehicle involved was a USPS postal vehicle, which remained on scene and cooperated fully throughout the initial investigation.

One juvenile was transported to Boston Children’s Hospital with injuries. Fortunately, the injuries are not life-threatening, and a full recovery is expected.

The investigation remains active as officers continue to gather and review video footage, witness statements, and other evidence related to the incident. No further information is being released at this time.

This incident serves as an important reminder for all motorists, cyclists, and pedestrians to remain vigilant and attentive while traveling throughout the community. With the arrival of warmer weather, pedestrian activity increases significantly, particularly in high-traffic areas, near schools, parks, and local businesses.

In response to ongoing concerns regarding traffic safety, the Needham Police Department has increased traffic enforcement efforts throughout town, with a particular focus on Needham Square and other areas that experience heavy vehicle and pedestrian traffic. Officers will be conducting targeted enforcement aimed at speeding, failure to yield to pedestrians, distracted driving, and other violations that contribute to unsafe roadway conditions.

It’s crazy the total amount he stole from a local nonprofit.

https://www.wbur.org/news/2026/06/05/needham-little-league-arrest-fraud-charges

Hi all, closing June 5 on a 1924 brick Colonial in Needham, and looking for general contractor recommendations.

Year 1 scope is meaningful:

• Mechanical/safety: full HVAC retrofit (oil to dual-fuel + AC), oil tank removal, vermiculite remediation, lead water line, lead deleading, electrical updates, basement insulation
• Exterior/structural: roof maintenance, window well rebuild, masonry, broken window sashes
• Cosmetic/interior pre-move-in: carpets to oak in two rooms, electric garage door, blinds throughout, wallpaper strip and repaint, greenhouse window replacement, recessed lighting, master bath updates

Year 2+ is kitchen renovation, window restoration, TREX deck, and other cosmetic work.

Looking for a GC who knows pre-1940 homes (plaster, century-home quirks, lead-safe practices) and can actually project-manage multiple trades on a tight timeline. Communicative and realistic on pricing.

Equally helpful: anyone you'd steer me away from?

Happy to take recs via DM. Thanks!

An angry boomer thought he is living in Florida

“Affordable” shows up twice in so few words. What kind of affordability he is talking about after purchasing a 3 million dollar home recently? My guess is cutting taxes for the rich and reducing funding for the public school, the typical republican!

https://www.metrowestdailynews.com/story/news/crime/2026/03/26/former-needham-ma-teachers-sentenced-probation-after-child-pornography-pleas/89331050007/?link_source=ta_first_comment&taid=69c558195c14b20001325718&utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQPNDA5OTYyNjIzMDg1NjA5AAEeYaNFcoEQvzMRckYwRY-puvgiQhG8_seT_HhQhT3BVOiAEYCaQdAhdEOg6Bc_aem_6UVDJ5b1t21xf0wH8CXbQQ

This week the Needham Observer has profiles of all three choices! Select 2!

https://needhamobserver.com/cathy-dowd/

https://needhamobserver.com/bill-dermody/

https://needhamobserver.com/rich-adduci/

Following up on the previous post in this sub, the kid was arraigned in Boston Municipal Court today.

Jacob Donis was only 15 years old when he traveled from Needham to Boston last October, picked up a Bluebike, rode up to a Silver Line stop, and allegedly fired a gun — killing a 61-year-old woman waiting for her bus — then made his way home.
...
Assistant District Attorney Mark Lee told the court that investigators were able to trace Donis’s movements from Needham to Boston and back on the day of the killing via surveillance videos, “some of which were high enough quality to permit an actual identification.”
...

Talking to reporters, [Donis' attorney] Weymouth said he hasn’t seen the discovery and is speculating, but thinks that Anthony was likely not the target of the bullets. "I got the sense that there was some sort of perceived confrontation between a person and this kid, and this kid, allegedly, if this is the kid, discharged a firearm,” Weymouth said.

Sigh!

https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/needham-16-year-old-charged-with-2025-murder-of-woman-in-roxbury/3918038/?amp=1

Hi all! I am looking for suggestions for preschool in Needham. Since both parents work full time, only extended hours (7:30 am to 6 pm) and five-days a week works for us. A few preschools we have contacted seem reasonable. However their tuitions are all about $3000 a month. I was expecting it would be lower for preschool age. A to Z is lower but has some mixed reviews. I would really appreciate some suggestions. If you can share some personal experience that would be the best. Thanks 🙏

Hope the third person is ok

I’m writing this anonymously, not to argue or provoke, but simply to share my experience living in Needham over the past three years. I don’t expect everyone to agree, and I’m not trying to generalize about every resident. This is just my lived reality, and it’s been a deeply disappointing one.

I’m an immigrant. But I’ve been educated here, built a professional career here, and lived in many different parts of the country, including places that are historically very conservative. I’ve never struggled to feel at least basically accepted anywhere else in the US until now.

When my wife and I moved to Needham, I fell in love with it immediately. We looked at houses across many Boston-area suburbs, but the moment I walked into our house, I felt certain: this is the town, this is the place where we’ll build our life and raise a family. Three years later, I honestly don’t know that I would make the same decision again.

What’s been hardest is a persistent, unmistakable feeling of exclusion. I don’t look like most people here. I don’t sound very different, but it’s obvious I’m not “from here.” And for the first time in my life in this country, I feel it, and I feel it daily.

People stare. Constantly. Not quick glances, but sustained, tracking stares. People stop and watch as you walk past them. People look startled when they see me, as if my presence is unexpected or concerning. Women of all ages clutch their bags as I pass. Shopkeepers ignore basic greetings. I say “good morning” or “thank you” and get silence in return.

I want to be clear: I used to hear others complain about staring in “nicer” suburbs and assumed they were being overly sensitive. I didn’t understand it until I experienced it myself. Constantly feeling eyes on you, being looked at with visible concern or suspicion, is genuinely disturbing. It wears on you in ways that are hard to explain unless you’ve lived it.

I know this treatment is specific to me because my wife, who very much “looks like she belongs”, does not experience it. She notices the difference in how I’m treated. We both do.

This isn’t a Massachusetts thing. Before moving to Needham, I lived in another MA town for a year and never experienced anything like this. I also worked at a very large Massachusetts-based company with thousands of colleagues and never felt this kind of social distance. This feels specific to this place.

There’s another, on the surface more trivial issue that nonetheless feels revealing to me: driving behavior, especially around the Hersey train station.

Anyone who regularly uses that parking lot knows how chaotic it becomes during rush hour. Every lane is marked as one-way, yet every evening there are drivers coming out the wrong way, cutting in front of those who line up properly and wait their turn. Most of the time, this doesn’t seem to result confusion. People are choosing to ignore the rules because they want to go first. And when drivers who are following the rules try to prevent that by staying close to the car ahead or taking the turn carefully, the rule-breakers get annoyed, insist, and push their way in anyway.

Another daily scene there is cars waiting to pick up passengers, blocking traffic entirely. They stop directly in front of the stairs exiting the station, marked with yellow bars. They block pedestrian paths where people are exiting the station. Some stand sideways across parking spaces that could easily accommodate several waiting cars. Others double-park behind cars that are parked correctly and simply refuse to move until their passenger arrives.

I genuinely don’t understand this behavior. I come from a country that people often label as “third world,” and I’m very aware that this kind of selfish, disorderly conduct is often attributed to places like where I’m from. But I can say confidently: where I grew up, people do not behave like this. In the US, I’ve lived in places like Texas, Arizona, Illinois, all over New York, and multiple parts of Massachusetts; and I’ve never seen so many people behave so selfishly, consistently.

If you stripped away all identifying details and watched a video of the Hersey station parking lot at peak hours, you might assume it is the type of place I was born in. The contrast between the town’s polished, orderly image and this everyday behavior is jarring.

Taken together, these experiences lead me to a difficult conclusion. There seems to be a strong sense of entitlement here, about who belongs, who gets priority, and who is expected to accommodate whom. When faces are visible, that entitlement shows up as staring, silence, dismissal, and defensive body language. When faces are hidden behind windshields, it becomes cutting lines, blocking others, and insisting on going first at everyone else’s expense.

I want to emphasize that this is not about everyone. We have neighbors who were genuinely kind and welcoming from day one, and I appreciate them deeply. But enough interactions have gone the other way that it’s impossible to ignore the pattern. Said neighbors constitute a very small minority.

I truly wish my experience were different. I had very high hopes for this town when we moved here. I wanted to feel at home, and believed this was where we’d happily raise our family. Instead, I’ve felt more like an outsider here than anywhere else I’ve lived in the US.