North End

Sometimes drivers there don't take turns too well.

Darryl Houston captured the daylight-powerful lights on Fairmount Hill in Hyde Park - put up by a guy who rents an aerial lift to ensure no surface is unilluminated.

Uma Mirani photographed Cambridge Common:

NorthEndWaterfront.com introduces us to Bostoniano.

They call him Stevie Wonder.

Michael Mercogliano, the founder of Mike's Pastry in the North End, passed away this week. The restaurant posted the news to their Facebook page on Tuesday.

According to his remembrance page from the Boston Harborside Home, a visitation and the funeral Mass will be open to the public on Monday and Tuesday, respectively.

Although maybe it helps when you say you're from the Boston Transportation Department. In any case, somebody complained about somebody else saving a space on Henchman Street in the North End with a traffic cone. A city minion marked the case closed tonight:

[T]old resident to remove cone and did.

Jenna Camman reports her apartment at 139 Salem St. in the North End was broken into, along with another apartment, around 3:45 p.m. yesterday and that her landlord's surveillance camera captured this guy inside the building about that time (the suspect also tried but failed to get into a third apartment in the building).

She reports she's now missing two MacBook Pros, an iPad, a Canon Rebel T3 camera, a bookbag and about three pounds of leftover Halloween candy. Thankfully, she says, the guy's not a Nascar fan - he left her a framed Nascar photo she had on a wall.

If you see him, drop a dime to A-1 detectives at 617-343-4248 or contact the anonymous tip line by calling 800-494-TIPS or texting TIP to CRIME (27463).

Denizens of pricey Lewis Wharf condos are none too happy with the houseboats that have started showing up in the Lewis Wharf marina, NorthEndWaterfront.com reports.

NorthEndWaterfront.com reports the North End/Waterfront Residents' Association has put its foot down and is saying no more liquor licenses for the North End.

With 91 restaurants and bars already pouring libations, the group voted recently to oppose any new pouring licenses. It will refuse to meet with anybody seeking a new license and will instead file an automatic letter of opposition with the Boston Licensing Board.

The licensing board requires applicants for liquor licenses to try to meet with neighborhood groups but is not bound by local recommendations. In May, board Chairwoman Nicole Murati Ferrer said she would no longer automatically comply with a similar moratorium request from the Back Bay.

It's the Craigslist roommate ad of the month:

$1000 Huge North End Bro Pad (North End, Boston, Down Town)

1 bed available in a 4 bed apartment. Amazing apartment!!!! 2 floors, 2 living rooms, wrap around couch, surround sound, big screen, free hbo and showtime! unofficial roof access with a great view of the city. A small private allyway attached to the room. granite counters and bathrooms. It is huge and amazing. 3 roommates. 23,23, and 25. 420 friendly, football, the house can get rowdy on weekends but all in good fun.

As Matt Conti at NorthEndWaterfront.com, who found this gem, puts it:

I am going out on a limb and saying these North End residents on Noyes Place (at Salem Street) are not in favor of the proposed Nuisance Control Ordinance.

Busted

Cops were on the scene for sorting out this tree that snapped and fell onto the car under it. Photo of the offending tree

With a little help from Mayor Menino, a North End parks advocacy group has gotten the OK from the Greenway to plant lots of bulbs in the park, NorthEndWaterfront.com reports. Greenway officials had initially said the request would have to wait until February or thereabouts, which would have been too late for bulb planting.

NorthEndWaterfront.com has photos of a "hug station" the Dasaro family set up on Salem Street over the weekend.

Should be a fun time on Commercial Street, especially if they're met by these guys.

NorthEndWaterfront.com reports the tourist spot on Hanover Street now has signs telling you what things cost. You may recall the flap earlier this year when some guy just in from Worcester complained about missing prices.

NorthEndWaterfront.com reports on an incident early on Oct. 6.

NorthEndWaterfront.com reports on discussions between the Friends of the North End Parks, which wants to use its own money and volunteers to plant several thousand daffodil bulbs to replace dead and dying plantings along the Greenway and the Greenway Conservancy, which says whoa, not so fast, it might consider that in February - or about four months too late to ensure blooms this spring.

NorthEndWaterfront.com reports an uptick in break-ins in the North End, with police saying many of the entries are by burglars who find easy pickings among the neighborhood's old locks and unlocked doors or who simply ring all the apartments in a building, knowing the odds are good somebody will simply buzz them in.

And not the normal rat-bringing kind, either.

The Irish tourist who allegedly stole a North End cannoli at knifepoint will not have to face trial if he stays out of trouble for nine months - and performs 50 hours of community service - the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports, adding he can fulfill that requirement back in Ireland.

That should help Robert McTernan, 25, of Newbridge, County Kildare, comply with another part of the agreement - to stay away from Bova's, where he decided he urgently needed a cannoli at 3:30 a.m. on Sept. 13.

The DA's office reports McTernan's father flew over from Ireland to bring his alleged fool behind back to Ireland. A spokesman adds that prosecutors agreed to resolving the case without jail time because the Irish Garda told authorities here that McTernan had a clean record, no one was injured in the incident, the monetary value of the stolen cannoli was not great and Bova's agreed to the proposed resolution.

NorthEndWaterfront.com reports on a letter the Rose Kennedy Greenway has sent to neighborhood groups that were expected to name representatives to a new Greenway board of directors - which calls on those reps to pledge at least $5,000 each in fundraising. Although fundraising expectations for non-profit directors is common, the site notes that the legislators who helped write the law expanding board membership intended for it to increase neighborhood participation, not raise funds.

Donut & Donuts, Sullivan Square T stop. Photo by Truck Stop Tea Party.

A man just arrived from Ireland is charged with stealing a cannoli at knifepoint from Bova's on Salem Street shortly after 3:30 a.m., the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports.

The DA's office says Robert McTernan, 25, of Newbridge, Ireland, was only a few hours off a plane from the auld sod on the start of a two-week vacation when he walked into the bakery and then into its kitchen, where he grabbed a knife.

He then demanded a cannoli, which an employee handed to him before backing behind a counter. McTernan allegedly told the victim to "shush" and placed his finger to his lips.

The DA's office adds that while McTernan took the cannoli, he may have also tried to leave with the knife - police were unable to find it.

Boston Municipal Court Judge Mark Hart Summerville set bail at $2,000 for a single charge of armed robbery and ordered McTernan to surrender his passport and stay away from Bova's. He is due back in court Sept. 17.

Innocent, etc.

Boston Restaurant Talk reports the demise of the North End branch of El Triunfo, about a year and a half after it opened in what was formerly a raw-food restaurant, which also didn't last.

Wonder no more.