Jamaica Plain

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.

Martha Heinemann Bixby spotted this on a recent walk around Jamaica Plain.

Posted under this Creative Commons license and in the Universal Hub pool on Flickr.

UPDATE: Reactions from the DA's office and the victim's family in the comments below.

The Supreme Judicial Court today ordered a new trial for Lamory Gray, ruling the Heath Street gang member got an unfair trial before he was convicted of murdering somebody he thought was a member of the rival H-Block gang in 2006.

The court ruled a rap video, in which Gray was seen apparently pledging as a member of Heath Street, should not have been entered as evidence in his 2009 trial because it unfairly prejudiced the jury against him without having any direct connection to Herman Taylor's murder. Taylor was a Metco student who had nothing to do with gangs.

Community Spoke in Jamaica Plain reports:

Tools, parts, and bikes were stolen. Please keep an eye out for a brown/copper colored ANT cycle truck with a 20″ front wheel and a very large front basket and an older steel turquoise Miyata mountain bike with an Xtracycle conversion kit. These are very recognizable bikes, and we use them to transport our tools and mobile workshop supplies to do free bike repair away from the shop. If you have heard anything about our tools or bikes, please email us at or call Alex at (910) 547-4843.

The Jamaica Plain Gazette reports on the controversy over the way the neighborhood council's chairman kinda, sorta said a South Huntington Avenue luxury housing project got approved after its developers greased some elected palms.

The Harvest Co-Op, whose sign recently went up on the new Washington Street building where it's planning a new outlet, goes before the Boston Licensing Board next week to seek a license to sell beer and wine along with its groceries.

Hearings start at 10 a.m. in the board's eighth-flooring hearing room at City Hall.

No bunching for this 39 bus.

The Jamaica Plain Gazette reports that Bridging Forest Hills, which unsuccessfully tried to get the state to replace the crumbling Casey Overpass with a new overpass instead of surface roads, hasn't given up its fight and is now trying to get Mayor Menino to help it convince MassDOT to change its mind. Menino had previously spoken against replacing the overpass with surface roads.

Photo by MBTA.

The scene on the Orange Line near Stony Brook this afternoon. Also see photo of a tree on the platform on Eliot on the Green Line. The T reports more than a dozen downed trees along the Beacon Street line.

I love my house. It’s a wonderful spot in a wonderful neighborhood. My neighbors and I watch out for one another. We bring over cookies and attend on another’s parties. We have neighborhood gatherings. We decorate for Halloween. We all vote. In droves. We take our community and our civic responsibilities seriously. It’s a fantastic neighborhood.

While we view ourselves as one neighborhood — our elected officials do not. They continue to “redraw” us into new political districts every opportunity they get. And they do it with an eye toward their own interests — not to the interests of this amazing neighborhood.

The Boston City Council will be voting on a final redistricting map this Wednesday October 31st. The latest proposal gaining momentum would remove two precincts Ward 19 Precinct 7 (Forest Hills, Arboretum, Bourne area) and Precinct 12 (another large section of the Bourne area) out of Jamaica Plain and that is one precinct too many!

Please contact your district Councilor and 4 at-Large Councilors to make sure that they will vote against such a plan.

As someone who lives in Ward 19/precinct 12, I’m personally incredibly upset that our precinct continues to be “traded” around as if there were no impact on my neighbors’ lives.

With one major residential project already in the works, the BRA has started work on a South Huntington Avenue Corridor Study. The first part, figuring out what the study will cover, should be out within a few weeks, the BRA says:

The objective is to define the collective vision and physical character of this corridor for the foreseeable future that will clarify the city’s expectations for future development. The Study’s general boundaries will extend along South Huntington Avenue from its intersection with Perkins Street to the south and Route 9/Huntington Avenue to the north. The Study will explore issues that include height, density, housing mix and affordability, open space, historic preservation, parking, and transportation.

The inbound track needs repairs, but that requires some special parts, which are currently on order, T spokesman Joe Pesaturo says:

The speed restriction will remain in place until the repairs are made. Upon the arrival of some parts needed to make the repairs, the work will be scheduled for a weekend within sixty days.

Hyde Square crash.

Hugh Gilmore photographed this crash outside Fat Ram's Pumpkin tattoo parlor in Hyde Square in Jamaica Plain about 1 a.m. that left a pickup flipped, a light pole snapped and the driver of a small sedan taken away in an ambulance.

Jamaica Plain Patch has more.

Earlier:
Allston shop gets tattoed by out-of-control SUV.

The Herald reports the board approved the new luxury project on South Huntington Avenue after letting City Councilor Mike Ross (D-Not Jamaica Plain) speak, but not any of the residents there. Next step: A zoning board hearing on Nov. 13. The Herald notes a BRA member implored the developer to dig up somebody who lives in JP to publicly support the project at the zoning hearing, because that board might not be as accommodating as the BRA.

Day Street action. Photo by BFD.

The Boston Fire Department reports a construction crew doing street work on Day Street struck and punctured a 3-inch gas main outside 67 Day St. around 3:30 p.m. yesterday.

Firefighters tried to evacuate several homes, but nobody was actually home. The pipe was repaired by 5 p.m., the department says. There were no injuries.

The Jamaica Plain Gazette reports on the indictment of the former executive director of Hyde/Jackson Square Main Street, charged with funnelling $20,000 of the organization's money into personal purchases.

Roving UHub photographer Jed Hresko checked in tonight from the Jackson Square stop on the Orange Line, where CharlieMachines stayed up even as the lights went down.

Seems somebody told My Big Fat Greek Pizza the name had to go, because this morning it's just Big Pizza. The place had been using the movie-like name since it opened more than six years ago.

No more.

The Jamaica Plain Gazette explains how the builder behind the Blessed Sacrament project in Hyde Square is fighting the Home for Little Wanderers project on South Huntington Avenue.

Jamie tweeted around 8:30 p.m.:

20+ shots fired by Jackson SQ: Heath, Terrace, Parker blocked off. Police dogs out.

Stanley Staco tweets that happened about 15 minutes earlier before a similar massive outpouring of lead a few blocks north on Terrace Street:

Gun Battle btw 2 Cars (over 20 shots Fired), folks runnin, 166 Terrace St, 1 Vict Shot & Down

MBTA Transit Police report that when they asked Dennis Banks what he was doing inside a stairway in a building at the Arborway bus depot yesterday evening,

Banks replied he was "taking a s***" or better stated Banks claimed he was going to the bathroom on the stairs.

Then officers noticed "a freshly cut four foot section of half inch copper resting on a back pack." A quick survey revealed the pipe would have fit exactly in a four-foot gap in a section of pipe on the wall:

Outside Hope Central Church on Seaverns Avenue in Jamaica Plain today.

H/t Dana Reichman Gitell.

Boston Police report a raid on two shops on Washington Street yesterday by several city agencies ended with both shut down for a variety of alleged infractions.

Police, responding to resident complaints about possible gambling and sales of drug-related paraphernalia, say they shut the Dollar Store, 3122 Washington St., and arrested Mario Ovalle, 57, and Francis Gonzalez, 41, on charges of running an illegal lottery, after officers found betting slips not bearing the imprimatur of the state Lottery Commission.

Boston Police have put out an APB for Matthew Carey, wanted for his participation in a Sept. 15 armed robbery on Lamartine Street.

Jamaica Plain Patch has the background on the incident, in which a former worker at the Dedham Whole Foods trusted his former supervisor - with whom he'd regularly smoked pot - to help him sell his phone, only to wind up being robbed by him and two other guys at knifepoint.

Police report:

Daniella Santos asks:

Who makes the best donut in Boston (preferably w/i a 15 min drive from JP)?