Jamaica Plain

Cat reports on an eventful ride on the Orange Line last night involving a guy who couldn't stop his singing and phone yawping and another guy who finally had enough:

at that point another guy suddenly shouted; "enough!! enough! stop it! no more barbara or whatever her name is. no more singing!! there are other people in this train. enough!" now we suddenly had a screaming person on either side of us, and i wasnt sure anymore which one was more crazy. the singing guy sort of ignored the angry guy, and just continued his loud phone conversation with the person who stepped into the train somewhere else. the angry guy did not like that, and while we were approaching our final stop, he ostentatiously (this word sounds better in dutch) took out his phone.... if possible, he was speaking even more loudly than the singing guy, reporting the above...

Elaine Almquist tweets Loud Singer Guy is a regular:

OHMIGOD! Musical-singing guy rides my bus! When I see him, I wait for the next one or walk. Very annoying.

A JP citizen is tired of being a-salted this winter:

Is it really necessary to put so much salt on the street? It has been bad all season. Whose nephew owns the salt company? It is bad for the environment and very uncomfortable for dogs.

The Jamaica Plain Gazette offers up some history on that 30-story tower (now a rare co-op building) off the Jamaicaway that sometimes makes people go "what the hell is that doing there?" Let's just say the BRA's tactic of declaring an area "blighted" to get what it wants is nothing new.

Hyde Park Avenue in Forest Hills around 7 a.m.

Kristina Cary reports from an inbound Needham Line train:

We're stopped right after Forest Hills with all power off.

The T estimated a 30-40 minute delay for the 8:30 train she's on. Steve Poftak, also on the train, though, tweets it took 50 minutes to get from Bellevue in West Roxbury to Ruggles.

Matt O'Malley on a recent trip to Israel.

In the Jamaica Plain Gazette, Liam Madden explains.

John Stephen Dwyer put together two videos imagining what it would be like if Iron Man attacked the CSA booth at Forest Hills station (top) and if a giant wrecking ball plunged into the station lobby:

Back when Egleston Square had a movie theater and an elevated train, in 1939, as captured by Leslie Jones. Jones also photographed snow removal closer to downtown - back when the downtown skyline consisted of one building:

More Leslie Jones snow photos.

Posted under this Creative Commons license.

That would, of course, be the Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Council. The Jamaica Plain Gazette reminds us that the group, which claims to be a municipal board so that it can sue over a South Huntington Avenue development it doesn't like, last year claimed it was not a municipal board so that it could hold private meetings without having to comply with the state Open Meeting Law.

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."

The Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Council yesterday sued the city over the Zoning Board of Appeals' approval of a luxury housing project at the Home for Little Wanderers site on South Huntington Avenue, the Jamaica Plain Gazette reports.

Charlie, Beverly Scott, State Rep. Byron Rushing at Forest Hills.

New MBTA General Manager Beverly Scott bounded up from the Orange Line with hugs for carolers - as well as candy canes. She wore a Santa hat. That unpleasantness the other night was quickly forgotten and the carolers got down to business: As new waves of commuters came up from the train platform, the carolers serenaded them with Christmas classics, from "Silent Night" to "Deck the Halls."

The fence in front of the Soldiers Monument in Jamaica Plan tonight was lined with 26 teddy bears and crosses as a memorial for the children and educators killed in Newtown, CT on Friday.

The MBTA reports both new GM Beverly Scott and Charlie the T Mascot will be on hand at Forest Hills around 6 p.m. tomorrow to welcome a group of "church ladies" and kids for some old-fashioned caroling. The originally impromptu carolers were kicked out of the station yesterday because they didn't have a busking permit.

Baez about to set a tire fire on Sigourney Street in JP.

Jose L. Baez, 41, of Dorchester, who admitted setting four fires - and was implicated in four others - earned a 15-year federal prison term on Friday, the US Attorney's office in Boston reports.

A group of "church ladies" and some kids were kicked out of the Forest Hills Orange Line station tonight when they started to sing Christmas carols without an official MBTA busking permit.

But after learning of the situation, T General Manager Beverly Scott, making one of the first executive decisions of her first day on the job, decided to invite them back, to a "suitable and safe" location.

Rev. Laura Everett, executive director of the Massachusetts Council of Churches, reports what happened around 6:15 p.m.:

Because some of them were recordings.

Sarita reports on a pre-dawn birding count in Jamaica Plain that involved cranking up a loudspeaker playing "screech owl trills" to try to attract the birds:

Today's Screech owl count was 8, which is a very respectable number. The two first I didn't see, but they both were attracted to the sound from our speaker and vocalized through the dark. The third and fourth ones I eventually got to see - they started tussling with each other up a tree and tumbled down to the ground. Number five we heard from a close distance. ...

Seems some kids who start up Twitter accounts have taken to soliciting followers on a particular support column in the upper busway at Forest Hills - although as you can see, somebody also took the time to critique their work (and no doubt the T itself will soon join in the critiquing - by way of an application of gray paint).

The Harvest Co-Op on Washington Street, just south of the T station, is scheduled to open tomorrow at noon.

Orange Line repairs yesterday near Green Street. Photo by MBTA.

The MBTA reports crews finished up repairs between Forest Hills and Green yesterday, meaning the end of the speed restrictions that let inbound commuters carefully scrutinize all those emergency-exit distance markers for the past few months.

Jack Freeman tweeted this morning:

Well, I would say the Orange Line construction over the weekend was a success - thanks MBTA!

Hillary adds:

Yes, exciting to see train approach Green St @ full speed, not creeping along like a toddlers' Santa Land ride.

The Public Works Department is alerting residents in the two neighborhoods now that in many cases there street-sweeping schedules will be changing in April. In a notice to JP residents, the department says:

The goal of the alterations is to provide mechanical street sweeping services to more closely follow your residential trash collection day. Currently, some portions of Jamaica Plain have to wait several days for street sweeping following residential trash and recycling collection. ... This will alleviate much of the litter generated by the weekly residential trash collection in a faster and more efficient manner.

A similar change will affect parts of Dorchester.

The Jamaica Plain Gazette interviews a man who has participated in 269 clinical trials to date.

The Jamaica Plain Gazette reports on the opening of the JP Free Tiny Library, a wooden box atop a traffic-control box across from the closed-for-repairs BPL Jamaica Plain branch.

MBTA Transit Police report a guy who didn't feel like getting off the Orange Line at Forest Hills around 1:20 this morning started screaming at workers. And when they told him police were on the way, he screamed even louder, then punched a window on the train, causing a series of cracks.

Police say they caught up with Robert Coveney, 51, in the station's upper busway.

He was scheduled for arraignment today at West Roxbury District Court on a charge of malicious destruction of property, due to the estimated $300 to $500 cost to fix the window, police say.

Innocent, etc.

A Hyde Park man got 18 months in jail for stealing a box containing Transformers meant as a Christmas present for a young boy in Jamaica Plain last year, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports.