Hanging around at the World Trade Center
By adamg - 6/6/13 - 8:15 amCisco is holding a conference at the South Boston convention center this week, and apparently it rented out the World Trade Center for parties tonight and tomorrow that are going to feature some acrobats. Billy Chen watched them warm up. Another view.
Also see Cisco's reassurance to attendees that they wouldn't get blown up in Boston.
Plans filed to remove most of the crate that City Hall came in
By adamg - 6/6/13 - 8:02 am
A developer yesterday filed plans with the BRA to replace most of the Government Center garage over 10 years with a series of buildings housing 771 apartments, a hotel and 1.3 million square feet of office space. The plans, by Bulfinch Congress Holdings, which has owned the garage since 2007, also call for "a new public square and pedestrian promenade that will connect both the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway and the Market District along Congress Street through to Canal Street."
Our wicked unique way of talking
By adamg - 6/6/13 - 7:43 amJoshua Katz of the North Carolina State University Department of Statistics has put together some maps of American linguistic diversity, based on the typical answers to 120 questions about particular words. Take a look at this map, select Boston and then see if anything stands out.
His methodology has one flaw: It doesn't include tonic as a possibility for soft drinks.
Citizen complaint of the day: The mismatched bricks of the South End
By adamg - 6/6/13 - 7:24 am
A pattern-conscious citizen complains about the bricks on Lawrence Street:
Who chose these bricks? These bricks do not match the look or feel of the existing South End brick sidewalks, Please look into this ASAP AND GIVE ME A REPORT BACK thanks
Earlier:
South End font kvetching.
The Yankee Doodle lyrics you didn't learn in school
By adamg - 6/6/13 - 7:19 amSeems there were some extra verses not deemed fit for schoolbooks. J.L. Bell provides the singalong.
First Fung Wah, now Lucky Star
By adamg - 6/6/13 - 12:12 amWBZ reports Lucky Star, which provides bus service between South Station and New York's Chinatown, shut down Wednesday night after some bad inspections.
Man shot dead in Cummins Highway house
By adamg - 6/6/13 - 12:09 amUpdated Thursday morning.
Boston Police report a man was fatally shot around 11:50 p.m. inside 633 Cummins Highway.
The man, in his 20s, was taken to Faulkner Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Clear split among mayoral candidates on charter schools
By adamg - 6/5/13 - 9:10 pmAt an education debate at the Brooke charter school in Roslindale tonight, most candidates supported lifting or increasing the current cap on charter-school seats in Boston.
John Barros, Charlotte Golar Richie, Mike Ross, John Connolly, Bill Walczak and Dan Conley all said they favor increasing the number of charter seats in Boston.
Felix Arroyo, Charles Yancey and Rob Consalvo all opposed it.
Back Bay scamster pretending to collect donations for the troops
By adamg - 6/5/13 - 5:52 pmBoston Police report a guy wandering around the Back Bay yesterday was preying on people's sympathy for service members:
[He] as falsely representing himself as a member of the USO with superimposed photos of himself and a false USO Identification Card. The suspect has been soliciting funds for personal use under the guise of donations to US troops. The suspect has been known to carry a tin can covered with American flags and is frequently seen in the Back Bay area. The suspect is known to police for having solicited under false pretenses in the past.
So, what's the verdict on the new MBTA Alerts?
By roadman - 6/5/13 - 4:58 pmPersonally, I think the new alerts are just plain awful, as compared to the old ones.
Say there are Green Line signal delays at Copley Junction:
Under the old system, the alert would read something like:
Woman hit, killed by train at Stony Brook
By adamg - 6/5/13 - 2:51 pmThe Orange Line was shut in both directions after a woman was struck by an inbound train at Stony Brook around 2:45 p.m.
The station was evacuated and the T put together alternate bus service in both directions between Forest Hills and Ruggles.
Her death comes the day after riders at the Mass. Ave. station helped a man off the tracks after he'd fallen on them.
Update: Transit Police report the victim was white, apparently in her 30s and was near the south end of the station when hit.
UPDATE, 6:10 p.m. Service has resumed, but is a mess.
That AC won't help where you're headed, pal
By adamg - 6/5/13 - 2:13 pmBoston Police report somebody stole an air-conditioning compressor from a storefront church in Codman Square at 12:48 a.m. on Tuesday - and tried to make off with a second compressor as well.
Police say they know the exact time of the theft because Freedom in Christ Ministry, 653 Washington St., had a surveillance camera running at the time.
Three-alarm fire near Harvard Square
By adamg - 6/5/13 - 1:17 pmCambridge firefighters are on Harvard Street between Ellery and Trowbridge, battling a blaze.
This debate's for the birds
By adamg - 6/5/13 - 1:12 pmDavid Wade at WBZ faced a conundrum this morning: A report was coming up on those birds whose nesting habits force the closing of beaches, but does their name rhyme with "clover" or "lover?" Well, Wade didn't get to where he is by not knowing how to get answers, so, he tweets:
I called MA Audubon. They say it like "lover."
Not so fast there. Kate MacDonald quickly replied:
Hold up, ask anyone who grew up on Cape and had their summers ruined by these stupid things - rhymes w/ "clover"
Amanda McNeil adds:
I worked at one of their reserves in the NPS. We said it like clover.
Also, nobody west of Worcester knows how to spell 'Bulfinch'
By adamg - 6/5/13 - 1:04 pmAlthough the owners of the Bulfinch Hotel on Merrimac Street have already announced a name change to the Boxer, this being Boston, they need formal approval from the Boston Licensing Board.
At a hearing this morning on the proposed name change, board Chairwoman Nicole Murati Ferrer was dying to know: Why "The Boxer?"
Emily Antonelli, who also needs board approval to become the hotel's new manager, tried to explain:
"I think they were trying to capture the fighting spirit of the independent person in Massachusetts," she said. "It's a little more abstract, not so much a dog."
During the public-comment section of the hearing, nobody spoke against letting the hotel change its d/b/a. The board votes tomorrow on both the name change and letting Antonelli become the new manager.
Harbor houseboater: Win Cup for Martin
By adamg - 6/5/13 - 9:56 am
Noah watched this houseboat glide past Long Wharf yesterday evening. He notes that blue thing by the flags is a slide.
Meanwhile, injured MBTA Officer Richard Donohue will wave the flag at tonight's Bruins game.
Fenway watering hole dries up this weekend
By adamg - 6/5/13 - 9:53 amBoston Restaurant Talk reports An Tua Nua becomes just a memory this weekend.
Connolly proposes tit for tat: If non-profits help renovate Boston schools, he'd fast track their own projects
By adamg - 6/5/13 - 9:50 amCity Councilor and mayoral candidate John Connolly says Boston could end a $1.6-billion backlog in public-school renovation by working out deals with local non-profit institutions with expansion plans: Faster approval of their plans if they agree to help the city out with school projects.
The City Council today considers Connolly's request for a hearing on his proposal, which would go beyond the payments-in-lieu-of-taxes plan already in place, under which non-profit institutions make annual payments to the city that range from nominal to several million dollars.
Connolly says the city last year approved $3.4 billion in new projects at local colleges and research facilities.
City councilors want liquor licenses for Dudley Square
By adamg - 6/5/13 - 8:30 amCity Councilors Ayanna Pressley (at large) and Tito Jackson (Roxbury) say the city needs to figure out how to get liquor licenses to restaurants in Dudley Square, in a city where licenses increasingly go to pricey chains in areas such as the waterfront and downtown.
JP bicyclist dies on California highway
By adamg - 6/5/13 - 6:51 amMichael Arthur, 24, crossing the median on I-80.
