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.

The Dorchester Reporter reports several voting-rights groups have drawn up a proposed redistricting plan that would see Mike Ross having to run against Tito Jackson - if he doesn't move to Newton to run for Congress - and create an incumbent-less district covering the Chinatown, the South End, and the Fenway:

This reconfigured District 8 would become an incumbent-free, racially-mixed district with common interests and anchored by a growing Asian-American population, creating significant opportunities for historically under-represented communities.

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.

BPDLive reports the woman fell from about the third floor of the garage at 200 Stuart St. around 2:30 a.m.

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.

Right, not Dewey Square but Mary Soo Hoo Park in Chinatown, where a fed-up citizen complains:

Trash is not being collected by Public Works nor Greenway in the new Mary Soo [Hoo] Park. Has not been collected since the park opened. Trash is spreading all over sidewalk and plantings. Might be a misunderstanding about the maintenance agreement btw different agencies. Either way, the neighborhood needs help here.

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.

Venu manager Tom Montgomery with map showing distance between shooter and club.

UPDATE: Board agrees with club; issues no penalty.

The Boston Licensing Board decides Thursday whether to order a rollback in hours for Venu, a Warrenton Street club that already had a long list of complaints against it when a man police say was a patron got a gun and started blasting away at two gang rivals down the street.

A stripper caught by Boston Police detectives as she writhed on top of a patron at the Glass Slipper on LaGrange Street no longer works at the club, a manager told the Boston Licensing Board today.

Det. William Gallagher told the board that during a routine inspection around 1 a.m. on Oct. 27, he and another detective found a male patron lying on a couch on the club's third floor, a dancer on top of him, his hands gripping her buttocks. That violated state and city regulations, including Adult Entertainment regulation 1C, which specifically forbids customers from being allowed to grab a dancer's buttocks. Gallagher said the customer had paid $300 for the dance.

Glass Slipper manager Nicholas Germano did not dispute Gallagher's account of the $300 "private party" in a room set up for private parties.

Germano said dancers are told of the relevant regulations. Normally, a first violation results in a warning, but in this case, "it was so flagrant that we dismissed her immediately" after the club got a copy of Gallagher's report, he said.

Last year, club managers accepted similar responsibility for a similar lap dance.

The board decides Thursday what action, if any, to take about the infraction.

Construction has finally begun on a luxury tower at Washington and LaGrange streets. Once it's completed, how long do you think Centerfolds and the Glass Slipper - the Combat Zone's last two strip clubs - can hold out before their buildings are torn down for a high rise?

Boston Police report arresting Samuel Higginbottom, 23, for four shootings outside Venu on Warrenton Street early on Nov. 18.

Police say officers arrested Higginbottom without incident in Union Square in Allston today and charged him with four counts of assault with intent to murder. His four allged victims, aged 23-33, were not fatally struck, police say.

Innocent, etc.

The Globe reports a recount showed Bill Linehan really did beat Suzanne Lee - and that a council redistricting plan he authored would shift two precincts where he did really poorly out of his district.

South End Patch reports Suzanne Lee will formally ask the city elections department to recount votes in District 2, where officials said she lost to incumbent Councilor Bill Linehan by just 87 votes.

With all precincts now in, city numbers show incumbent Councilor Bill Linehan defeating challenger Suzanne Lee by just 87 votes in District 2 (South Boston, South End, Chinatown).

(Originally appeared at www.bostonbastard.com. This post reflects the opinion of the Boston Bastard and not that of UHub and Adam G.)

In September, Suzanne Lee had one thing that Bill Linehan didn’t – the element of surprise. No one expected a first-time candidate from Chinatown to give much trouble to an incumbent South Bostonian in “South Boston’s District.”

That all changed when Lee smacked Linehan across the face in the polls, Sept. 27, taking the top spot in the preliminary election.

All of a sudden, what was not expected to be a difficult battle for Linehan, has turned into one of two hotly-contested district races this year.

It remains to be seen how much support Linehan was able to drum up since coming in second, but it’s clear the race would not be a cake walk.

As far as campaign financing goes, both Linehan and Lee reported roughly the same amount of total campaign donations for the year at the time of the election, September 27. But on the Friday following the election, Linehan’s campaign deposited $23,630 in donations.

Linehan didn’t actually report any receipts in the first two weeks of October, but in that time, he did sink $ 17,936.18 into his campaign, predominately in local media advertising.

Mark Garfinkel photographs the day's most bizarre traffic accident, early this morning at Marginal and Washington streets.

A concerned citizen posts a photo of a big fat tour bus parked at a T bus stop:

Yet another tour bus illegally parked in a city bus stop, causing city bus to double park and disembark passengers in the middle of the street! Please do something about this. We just went to a meeting at City Hall regarding this matter. The Leather District is NOT a bus depot!

Photographynatalia walked around Chinatown last night.

Copyright Photographynatalia. Posted in the Universal Hub pool on Flickr.

Parcel 24. Graphic from Asian Community Development Corp.

City and state officials gather Monday morning to announce financial help for a planned development that would restore housing to a block demolished for a support structure for I-93 nearly five decades agao.

NorthEndWaterfront.com reports several state reps are shepherding an "emergency" bill that would, immediately on passage, let Boston and other communities ban overnight commercial trash pickups. Legislators consider the ide at a hearing on Oct. 18 at the State House, Room A-1, starting at 10 a.m.

The proposal, backed by, among others, Marty Walz (D-Back Bay) and Aaron Michlewitz, would dovetail with an effort by city councilors Felix Arroyo and Mike Ross to limit commercial pickups because of noise complaints in neighborhoods such as the North End, downtown and the Back Bay. Current state law prohibits such bans.

Cambridge, Mass. — Tickets are on sale now for George V. Higgins’ The Friends of Eddie Coyle, Stickball Productions’ world premiere stage adaptation of the quintessential Boston crime novel. The production runs Dec. 8–Jan. 15 at Oberon in Harvard Square, for tickets, visit www.thefriendsofeddiecoyle.com

It is the winter of ‘69 in Boston and Eddie Coyle is a bottom of the barrel hood attempting to stay alive and out of jail among his “friends” – cops, bartenders, radical hippies, bank robbers, hit men and informants. Weeks away from a prison sentence for trucking stolen booze, Eddie’s making a few bucks supplying the guns for a rash of brazen bank heists, while looking to tip someone in for a kind word to the judge.

George V. Higgins’ classic novel has been called the “best crime novel ever written” by Elmore Leonard, and literary scholars have compared his unforgiving and realistic depiction of Boston’s underworld with the works of Dickens, Dostoevsky, and Balzac. Through dialogue quintessentially Bostonian, and the most poignant homage to Bobby Orr and the ’69-’70 Boston Bruins in literature, The Friends of Eddie Coyle has set the bar for Boston crime stories for nearly 40 years.

Boston Police report arresting four guys on charges they stomped on two men for no particular reason at Boylston and Washington streets around 2:30 a.m. on Monday.

They were arrested, police say, with the help of a Good Samaritan who had his car smashed in by the four as they fled the scene - and via identification by one of the victims, who jumped in a cab and ordered the driver to follow that car.

The Boston Fire Department reports an eight-story garage at 40 Beach St. dropped some brick and concrete around 4 p.m., leading city officials to shut and evacuate it and close down Beach and Harrison Avenue.

The department reports one person suffered a minor leg injury. One car was damaged and the window of a neighboring bank was cracked by falling concrete. Cars parked in the garage were trapped as engineers evaluated the building to make sure nothing worse was happening with it.

Boston Police report arresting a Chinatown woman last night on charges her Hudson Street massage parlor offered a bit more than just shoulder rubs.

The Globe reports southbound delays on the Orange Line this afternoon were caused when a train had to be stopped and then taken out of service at Chinatown when a passenger kicked out a window.