North End

Judge upholds city Segway crackdown

NorthEndWaterfront.com has the scoop and a copy of a Superior Court judge's denial of a request by the city's only Segway tour company for a preliminary injunction against a city ordinance restricting where his vehicles can go.

Two disbarred North End lawyers indicted on charges they kept client money for themselves

A Suffolk County grand jury has indicted two lawyers on charges they sucked more than $1.4 million out of client accounts, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports. One of them is also charged with making up fake clients in a class-action lawsuit against the owners of a Danvers chemical plant that blew up in 2006, the DA's office says.

The North End was buzzing

NorthEndWaterfront.com posts a photo of the bee swarm that settled at Prince and Salem until a beekeeper arrived to take them away.

Earlier:
Swarming bees on a car in Dorchester.

North End residents might be forgiven their smug little smiles today

NorthEndWaterfront.com watches the news about the overturned gasoline tanker in Arlington and reminds us why North Enders fought to restrict tanker traffic on their streets.

Life in wartime

Gas masks

Boston woke up on Dec. 8, 1941 a changed, frightened and determined city. With war declared, Boston felt particularly vulnerable, given its position right on the coast. But Boston also rolled up its sleeves to help fend off the Axis. Scores of Leslie Jones photos posted by the BPL this week give a taste of life in wartime.

The State House's golden dome was painted over, to keep Beacon Hill from becoming a, well, beacon for Nazi warships (a skylight at MIT's Great Dome was similarly covered up; MIT only began restoring it last fall):

Citizen complaint of the day: Grumpy school-department worker is grumpy

Grumpy mini-van

Well, maybe if you were assigned a mini-van from the city motor pool, you'd be grumpy, too, but in any case, a blocked-in citizen reports from a parking lot on Commercial Street in the North End:

Spots were available, yet the school employee chose to block the whole lot, didn't respond to honking, and then yelled at the people he had trapped in the lot when he finally came out.

Citizen complaint of the day: Cone being held captive

Our municipal cone crisis continues. A concerned citizen (ed. note: Please note I did not write "cone-cerned" again) reports somebody used steel wire to attach a traffic cone to a tree on Charter Street.

The city replies a worker removed the cone, but this earlier report suggests whoever tied the cone to the tree will do it again, since they've done it before.

Human seismograph picks up Canadian earthquake in the North End

At 9:50 a.m., CarCarli tweeted from her North End apartment:

Did anyone just feel an Earthquake? Home sick in bed & just felt that earthquakey JiffyPop shaking sensation.

The USGS reported a 4.4 earthquake north of Ottawa at 9:43 a.m. In addition to the North End, it shook upstate New York.

After getting confirmation of the quake, CarCarli added:

I'm a precision instrument.

Some North End parents want tall fence around neighborhood playground to keep vagrants out

The North End/Waterfront Mothers Association says fight-happy homeless people in Christopher Columbus Park are becoming a menace to their children and that one answer is a six-foot-tall fence around the park's playground - locked every night from May through November.

In an e-mail to members, organizers say they reached their breaking point last month after a fatally injured man was pulled out of the harbor near the park, possibly as the result of a fight in the park.

The e-mail is a call to action to have members show up in force at a community meeting on Tuesday with city councilors. The session starts at 6:30 p.m. at the Pilot House, 2 Atlantic Ave.

We have to let the councilors know that protecting children is our first priority as a neighborhood. A packed room of concerned, involved residents will do that.

Make way for Bidens

Stopped traffic on the Zakim

Southiegirl captured the scene on the Zakim this afternoon, when police stopped traffic as the Biden motorcade departed the memorial for MIT police officer Sean Collier.

Man pulled out of harbor off Christopher Columbus Park, dies; might have been pushed in during a fight

A good Samaritan jumped into Boston Harbor near Long Wharf shortly after 11 this morning and helped keep somebody foundering in the water afloat until a State Police boat arrived and troopers pulled both out. Boston EMS treated the man at the scene and then transported him to Mass. General for further care, Boston Fire spokesman Steve MacDonald says.

The Herald reports he died not long after his arrival at the hospital and that police are investigating.

NorthEndWaterfront.com quotes President of the Friends of Christopher Columbus Park that the man may have been pushed by somebody he was brawling with.

They were going to pray for Boston anyway

But an annual "Pray for Boston" procession through the North End took on added meaning on Saturday.

Sounding the alarm

Paul Revere

Paul Revere hoofed it out of the North End this morning to warn the colonists the Redcoats were coming.

Afterwards, Minutemen stood at attention in front of the Paul Revere statue and Old North Church as Taps were played and a wreath laid at a memorial for fallen patriots on the Prado.

Skateboarder attacks Greenway worker trying to get him and pals off the Greenway

NorthEndWaterfront.com reports on an altercation last week.

The shifting geometry of the Greenway

NorthEndWaterfront.com shows us that just because they don't often change the configuration of that geometric thing on the Greenway doesn't mean they can't.

The disgusting slobs on Cooper Street in the North End

NorthEndWaterfront.com holds its nose while showing us the sordid conditions on Cooper Street:

Early this morning, I observed a rat eating something and as I approached the rat, saw that he was eating a roasted chicken disposed of in front of 19 Cooper Street. I scared the rat away and went home and got some rubber gloves and put the chicken back in it's plastic container. As you can see from the photo, I put the chicken back into it's plastic container. As I was doing so, several young people exited from 19 Cooper Street and looked at me as if I was crazy because of what I was doing, they shrugged their shoulders, looked down at me while I was bent over attempting to mitigate this disgusting sanitary situation and walked away.

Downtown turkey continues tour of Boston; takes in the North End

NorthEndWaterfront.com posts a photo of the traveling turkey on Lewis Wharf today.

If legislators are looking for a darker official Rock Song of the Commonwealth

Just out: "The Great Boston Molasses Flood" by the Dead Milkmen:

Sweet holy Jesus, there's a wall of molasses coming for me and my fam-i-lee.

Listen to the lyrics at the beginning, and you'll notice that whoever wrote them obviously read their Puleo.

H/t Liam Sullivan.

Former Romney HQ could become city's newest K-8 school

The Boston Business Journal reports the city is looking to buy the furniture store turned failed-presidential campaign headquarters at 585 Commercial St. for use as a K-8 school.

The possible purchase comes with the Eliot school bursting at the seams, Back Bay and Beacon Hill residents clamoring for a school of their own and downtown becoming an increasingly popular residential neighborhood.

Ed. note: Wouldn't it be something if they named the new school after Scott Prouty, the bartender who took the infamous 47-percent video and somebody who grew up in Boston?

Drunk Massholes scream at old lady in a wheelchair who asked them to not park in a North End handicap spot

The North End Regional Review reports on the two intoxicated 20-something 6-footers who unleashed "a torrent of screaming and cursing" on the 4'5" elderly lady in a motorized wheelchair.

Did a piece of a demolished North End church end up on Craigslist?

NorthEndWaterfront.com ponders the provenance of a carving that recently went up for sale on Craiglist: Did it come from St. Mary's, demolished in the 1970s?

GLAD Summer Party

Join Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders at our annual Summer Party held outside in the heart of Provincetown, MA on Saturday, July 27 from 4:00-7:00PM. Enjoy the view of the harbor, mingle with other GLAD supporters and learn more about our ground-breaking cases.

Tickets are $75 online | $85 on site | $30 student
Purchase at www.glad.org/events.

Don't miss our amazing auction and celebrity auctioneer Kate Clinton. You don't have to be present to win. Travel packages, restaurants, massages, and much more - something for everyone!

Children are welcome to attend (at no charge) and will enjoy a range of fun activities.

Delicious summer fare and refreshing cocktails provided.

More information, tickets and sponsorships are available at www.glad.org/events.

Suffolk student learns that unless your father's the commissioner, police aren't going to care who your parent is

Police report a Suffolk University student was arrested on assault and battery charges early this morning when she allegedly slammed her door on the shoulder of an officer investigating a loud party in her apartment.

Police say officers responding to loud-party complaints at an apartment at 28 Fleet St. in the North End knocked on the apartment door for 20 minutes without an answer:

North End state rep signs onto Roadrunner campaign, but he almost doesn't have a choice

State Rep. Aaron Michlewitz will support efforts to make "Roadrunner" the official Rock Song of the Commonwealth. Mark Krone posts a copy of a note Michlewitz sent him:

I am a full supporter of making Roadrunner the official Rock song of the Commonwealth.

To give you a little history, my aunt Ellie was a member of The Modern Lovers from 1977-1983 and Jonathan actually sang at my first birthday, so I am certainly happy to see him getting this type of recognition after all these years.