Hyde Park

Mike Ball goes to a performance at the Hyde Park library of the 2nd South Carolina String Band, which plays the music Southern soldiers would have listened to, and is surprised to learn that most of the band members are from Massachusetts.

Anthony Sammarco, who illustrates his histories of local neighborhoods with old photos, talks about Hyde Park at the Hyde Park library tonight and again on Oct. 6, at 6:30 p.m.

This time by an outbound commuter-rail train on the Providence Line, about 5:20 p.m. just outbound from the commuter-rail station, AlertNewEngland reports.

Channel 4 reports the woman, whom the MBTA said was trespassing on the tracks, was hit next to the Boston Renaissance Charter School. The school sent out e-mail to parents and staff that the woman had no affiliation with the school and did not get onto the tracks from school property.

Trains in both directions were stopped, and extensive delays persist as of 7:30 p.m. As passengers sat and grew restive, one Providence Line conductor went on the PA, Lauren Gallagher tweets:

The conductor simply announced "I apologize for you losing 2 hours of your life, but this girl lost all of hers."

In August, Benjy Barlatier, 28, of Hyde Park, was killed by an inbound Amtrak train while standing on the tracks at the station.

Eagle-eyed Ron Newman, who actually scrolls all the way down the boston.com homepage, noticed this link today, perhaps written by somebody with even less of a grasp on actual Boston geography than I have.

HallJavann Hall of Dorchester was arraigned today on charges he acted as the driver for a gunman who blasted away at a Readville man about to get his todller out of the car Saturday night.

Suffolk County Assistant District Attorney Mark Lee estimated the victim was hit eight or nine times by bullets as he and his girlfriend stood outside their apartment on Millstone Street, in one of the city's most remote, quietest areas. Lee told West Roxbury District Court Judge Kathleen Coffey that while the victim is expected to survive, he is still in bad enough shape that officials are still not sure exactly how many times he was shot.

Boston Police report arresting Javann Hall, 26, for the Thursday shooting that sent one man to the hospital in critical condition.

Hall will be arraigned Monday in West Roxbury District Court on assault with intent to murder, assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon and unlawful possession of a firearm, police say.

Innocent, etc.

Update: Arrest made

Update: Boston Police report the victim, in his 20s, was shot repeatedly.

A man was shot tonight at 47 Millstone Rd., off Neponset Valley Parkway, backing up to the old Stop & Shop warehouse property. The homicide unit was summoned, which means the victim was taken away in critical condition.

Police are looking for two cars: A black Dodge Charger or Intrepid with "some chrome" and a foot-long black antenna out of the rear window and a dark, four-door Civic-like vehicle with a heavy-set driver wearing a cranberry-colored sweatshirt.

This is the second shooting in less than two weeks in what is normally the sleepier end of Hyde Park.

Boston Police report officers responding to a break-in call Tuesday night at 302 Turtle Pond Parkway in Hyde Park noted a guy walking down the road nearby "due to the fact that this area does not have much pedestrian traffic." The road is bordered on one side by Stony Brook Reservation.

When they got to the house and discovered it had, in fact, been broken into, as well as ransacked, they radioed to other officers to check out the guy walking along the parkway. When he realized police eyes were on him, he "raised his hood and started walking away."

Police say Solomon Bona, 18, "had an obviously heavy bag on his shoulder," which turned out to contain "a large number of coins and jewelry."

The residents of the house were brought over and identified the jewelry and coins as theirs, after which Bona was charged with breaking and entering in the nighttime, malicious destruction of property and receiving stolen property.

Innocent, etc.

Possibly in the neck, around 5:15 p.m. at Summer Street and Gordon Avenue.

Boston Police report a security guard making his rounds at Westinghouse Plaza got into a confrontation with a man who didn't belong there around 1:30 a.m.

During the altercation, the victim says the firearm discharged and struck him. According to the victim, the suspect was described as a 6'0" tall Hispanic male wearing a black mask, black clothing and black shoes. After the gun discharged, the victim says the suspect fled on foot in the direction of Readville Street.

City Councilor Ayanna Pressley posted a friend's photo of the scene on one Jamaica Plain street this morning.

Meanwhile, a tree fell on the house at 739 VFW Parkway in West Roxbury, damaging it enough firefighters were worried it would collapse.

A tree also crashed into a house at 6 Oak Pl. in Hyde Park, where firefighters summoned an ambulance for an elderly resident having breathing problems.

City Councilor Rob Consalvo opposes a request from a Dominican restaurant on Fairmount Avenue to extend its closing hours from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. Consalvo says there are no Hyde Park restaurants or bars open past 1 a.m. and he wants to keep it that way.

A later closing time "might be a fit downtown or in some other areas," but not in the southwestern corner of Boston, Consalvo told the Boston Licensing Board this morning on a request from Rincon Caribeno on Fairmount Avenue to extend its hours from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. In June, the board rejected a similar 2 a.m. request from Tony's Pizza next door.

Rincon Caribeno owner Javier Diaz says the later hours would help him better serve the area's Dominican population. He proposed keeping the kitchen open until midnight and the bar open until 2.

A representative from the mayor's office also opposed the later hours.

Diaz is also seeking permission to add hard liquor to his current alcohol license, currently limited to beer and wine. He said he has yet to see any profit from the beer-and-wine license, which he got last year.

Via FacebookMBTA Transit Police report Benjy Barlatier, 28, of Hyde Park, died last night when hit head on by a speeding Acela train.

According to the report, Barlatier was hanging with two friends near the benches on the inbound platform when he "unexpectedly" got up and dashed across the tracks nearest the platform onto the center set of tracks:

Barlatier reversed his direction and proceeded back to the platform and was fatally struck while attempting to cross over [the tracks nearest the platform].

The engineer of the inbound train estimated it was doing 120 m.p.h. when it hit Barlatier around 10:30 p.m. Police say the engineer saw Barlatier before the strike and immediately applied the emergency brakes, but at that speed, it took 1.26 miles to stop the train - it came to a halt just past the West Street bridge.

Barlatier's remains were brought to the state medical examiner's office for examination.

Inspectors and police at Hyde Park station, a few feet from tarps covering remains.

UPDATE: Victim identified as Hyde Park man.

An Acela train barreling through Hyde Park station struck and killed somebody around 10:30 p.m. The engineer immediately applied emergency brakes, but it still took several blocks for the train to come to a stop - just on the other side of the West Street bridge, well north of the station.

More than 100 passengers sat on the train for more than two hours beside beside a wall painted with "Welcome to Boston," while outside, police and firefighters also waited, to help transfer passengers to a promised relief train from South Station that never came.

"The train crew haven't announced what happened, but passengers told them we read about what happened on Twitter," Jesse, a passenger on the train reported.

He added that the train "coasted to a stop with a burning electrical smell that I presume was the brakes. AC was off for a few, then kicked back on."

At 12:45 a.m., after an inspector took one last look around the train, the engineer sounded its horn twice and the train took off for Back Bay and South Station.

Meanwhile, back at the Hyde Park commuter-rail stop, investigators continued to examine the tracks and put down evidence cones along the inbound platform. Three white tarps covered remains along the center tracks.

Flashing police and fire lights cast an unusual glow on the stopped Acela train.

Thomas and KeeFriends of Kevin "Smiley" Thomas are planning a Saturday candlelight vigil outside the Hyde Park Avenue apartment he shared with Billie Marie Kee, where both were found shot to death early Tuesday.

His friends are also trying to raise money to help pay for his burial, in part through a Facebook remembrance page. There's a separate page for Kee.

Thomas, who got his nickname because he always seemed to be smiling, grew up in the Bromley-Heath project, where his grandmother still lives. He was 32. In addition to Kee's two children - one of whom was sleeping in an adjoining room at the time of the murders - he leaves two boys.

The vigil is planned for 5 p.m. outside 957 Hyde Park Ave.

You probably heard about the couple shot to death in Hyde Park as a little boy slept in an adjoining room and how the woman was the daughter of a retired Boston cop.

What hasn't come out, though, is the man's name; police have declined to release it (for that matter, they haven't officially given out the name of the woman, either, but reporters are trained to get answers).

Readville Post Office: Small, but no easy walk to the next post office.

The US Postal Service has released its list of Massachusetts post offices it's thinking of shutting down to save money.

In addition to those locations, the postal service is thinking of ditching post offices in Inman Square, East Arlington, East Dedham and a whole bunch in Newton, as part of an effort to close 3,700 post offices across the country.

UPDATE: Two men charged with the murders.

Boston Police report finding two people shot to death around 12:40 a.m. at 957 Hyde Park Ave.

Common Cause Massachusetts is hosting a Redistricting Olympics this summer. We will be taking citizen drawn Congressional, State House, and State Senate maps all summer, evaluating them, declaring a winner, giving out prizes and submitting the winning maps to the MA Legislative Redistricting Committee for consideration.

The purpose of the redistricting Olympics is threefold: to educate the public about the steps in the redistricting process, to initiate public participation in the political arena, and to pressure the legislature to draw the districts so that the citizens are appropriately represented.

Help show the legislature that redistricting is about our interests, not theirs. By participating in our redistricting Olympics and learning how to draw your own fair districts, you can acquire the tools you need to expose attempts by public officials to politicize the state’s new legislative maps.

For more information check out and/or email us at .

Participate in our democracy!

A Truman Parkway habitue pleads with the Mayor's Hotline to get a Coffee Break Cafe where the new Stop & Shop is going in.

The Hotline responds, "your case has been resolved," which is probably a polite way of saying "no."

The Globe reports a Boston Public Schools plan would relocate the exam school to what is now a defunct Hyde Park High School and use the BLA building to move the Boston Arts Academy out of its shared quarters with Fenway High School. Also, the Eliot School in the North End would be expanded.

Mike Ball takes us on a tour of what's left of Camp Meigs, the Hyde Park field where the black soldiers of the 54th Massachusetts actually trained before going off to war:

A visit just below the Neponset Valley Parkway doesn’t make you hum patriotic tunes. Sharing a large rectangular block park, the Camp Meigs site is the smallest portion of a basketball court, softball field, kid’s playground and tennis courts.

A motorcyclist who plowed through a four-way stop in the middle of Stony Brook Reservation without stopping crashed into a pick-up truck and suffered fatal injuries, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office report.

The collision happened around 4:30 p.m. at the intersection of Dedham, Enneking, and Turtle Pond parkways, the DA's office says. The victim, identified only as a 45-year-old Hyde Park man, was on Turtle Pond Parkway when he hit the pick-up, heading onto Dedham Parkway. He was taken to Faulkner Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

The crash remains under investigation; no charges have been filed at this point, the DA's office says, adding State Police are in charge of the investigation because the collision happened on state parkways.

Boston Police report arresting James Bond on an OUI charge in Hyde Park last night.

Bond (James Bond) was arrested around 9:40 p.m. on Dana Avenue after he was stopped on suspicion of being involved in an earlier domestic dispute, police say. Police say Bond smelled of alcohol, had glassy eyes and slurred speech and was unsteady on his feet when asked to exit his car. Police did not say if they asked Bond if he only drank twice.

Bond was released on personal recognizance at his arraignment today in West Roxbury District Court, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports. He is due back in court Sept. 2.

Innocent, etc.

A concerned roadrunner sends up a flare from Fairmount Hill in Hyde Park:

There are coyotes all over the place up here.

Illustrating the complaint is a high-quality photo of an eviscerated rabbit.