Chinatown

The Boston Licensing Board decides tomorrow whether to let Miller Thomas, Jr. become manager of Cure, 246 Tremont St.

Thomas told the board today he spent 33 years on the police force, more than 25 of them as a detective. If approved, Thomas would join another former BPD detective as a Theater District manager - Thomas Montgomery, who now runs Venu and Rumor on Warrenton Street.

They could rename it Pigsty Park.

The Globe today reports the state Department of Transportation has some ambitious plans for the land and air around the turnpike/93 interchange in Chinatown, which it hopes will eventually become a new gateway to the city, featuring new development and parks.

Parks, huh? The photo above is the latest on file with the city's Citizen Connect service from Mary Soo Hoo Park, the little plaza at the pedestrian gateway to Chinatown that is owned by the state Department of Transportation - or at least, that's what the city and the Greenway Conservancy keep telling residents in explaining why their crews can't pick up the trash that keeps getting left there. A couple of weeks ago, the city actually did dispatch a DPW crew to remove trash, but this latest complaint is marked "closed:"

Case Referred to External Agency. Mass dot jurisdiction. details forwarded.

UPDATE: A Chinatown resident did something revolutionary: Actually used a telephone for its original purpose today and called up Justin Holmes, head of constituent services for the city. Within 45 minutes, a city crew swung by and cleaned up the park.

We're talking actual refuse. An increasingly disgusted citizen follows up last week's report about festering Mary Soo Hoo Park, for which the city apparently couldn't spare a single bulldozer or garbage truck, even though, like Dewey Square, it doesn't own the land either. In fact, it seems like nobody wants to claim ownership:

We spoke to Greenway who says they have no authority here and MassDOT is responsible. Trash keeps piling up-can the city step in, take charge and see this gets done? Chinatown residents would be grateful to have Mary Soo Hoo Park back for our kids to play in. The trash has not been emptied since the park opened. Thanks.

The Boston Licensing Board today ordered the Glass Slipper to shut down for two days as penance for the horizontal lap dance a police detective found a dancer giving a customer early on Oct. 27.

The club, one of two strip clubs left in the Combat Zone, gets to pick when it wants to shut down.

At a hearing on Tuesday, a club manager said he was as surprised as anyone to discover the customer was lying on a couch pawing the dancer as she ground on top of him, in direct violation of a city ordinances against customer/dancer contact in general and butt grabbing in particular. The customer paid $300 for the performance in one of the club's third-floor private-party rooms; the dancer lost her job over the extra work.