Ponzi in 1920.
Mass. Moments alerts us that on July 24, 1920, the Boston Post published an article detailing a scheme run by an Italian immigrant named Charles Ponzi that was in the middle of defrauding large numbers of people of millions of dollars from an office on School Street.
UPDATE: BFD reports a spark from welders working on a new vent system on the roof sparked the fire, which did roughly $1 million in damage.
Firefighters in both trucks and boats responded to the Coast Guard base on Commercial Street around 9:40 a.m. for a fire in a three-story warehouse building, next to the Fairmont Hotel on Battery Wharf. The fire was declared knocked down around 10 a.m.
The Dorchester Reporter alerts us that Felix Arroyo is buying spots on Univision and Telemundo.
Meanwhile, Mike Ross is concentrating on an Old Spice Guy-like series of 12-second Instagram video replies to questions posed to him via social media, as well as answers to questions you probably realize after the fact you would have loved to ask him, such as why Good Will Hunting is the greatest Boston movie ever:
NorthEndWaterfront.com reports that Aaron Michlewitz, who represents the increasingly student filled North End and Beacon Hill, says the BRA needs to consider requiring dorms in the proposed garage re-do.
Perhaps Rep. Michlewitz is too young to remember when Beacon Hill residents managed to squash Suffolk's plans to turn the old MDC building across from the State House into a dormitory.
A mother and two babies paddled through the harbor by Puopolo Park in the North End.
Maybe the cooler weather will help restore order to the fetid streets of the North End.
NorthEndWaterfront.com reports that Boschetto's on Salem Street is closing its retail shop after 110 years in business.
Boston Magazine reports an arbitrator ruled the jail guard who accused Williams of choking him during an argument over a 2009 North End traffic incident was drunk at the time, lied about the incident and that if Williams got "aggressive," he had good reason to.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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):
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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