North End

It's Boston vs. the suburbs over what roads fuel tankers can take, the Herald reports.

Earlier:
City study: North End streets no place for trucks with hazardous cargo.

The waterfront used to look a bit different. This photo, taken by Leslie Jones in Feburary, 1930, shows Long Wharf on the right (the three-story building just past a cluster of cars is now the Chart House), a giant warehouse where part of the Marriott Long Wharf and Christopher Columbus Park are today and the now gone T-Wharf (part of which does live on as a section of Long Wharf, near where the ferries dock).

Fishing boats docked at T-Wharf (lots and lots of fishing boats), people lived on the wharf, and the downtown skyline was rather different (consisting, as it did, of exactly one building).

• More photos of lost T-Wharf, from the Boston Public Library's online photo collection
• T-Wharf through the decades
• T-Wharf painting
• 1914 crisis for North End fishermen

Photo posted under this Creative Commons license.

Just another night in the North End.

A man who celebrated winning $500 on a scratch ticket in the North End yesterday by jumping on the roof of somebody's car was arrested for allegedly damaging the roof - and for the marijuana officers who watched his victory dance found in his pocket, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports.

Joseph Taglieri, 31, was arrested by officers on routine patrol on Prince Street last night:

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The purpose of the redistricting Olympics is threefold: to educate the public about the steps in the redistricting process, to initiate public participation in the political arena, and to pressure the legislature to draw the districts so that the citizens are appropriately represented.

Help show the legislature that redistricting is about our interests, not theirs. By participating in our redistricting Olympics and learning how to draw your own fair districts, you can acquire the tools you need to expose attempts by public officials to politicize the state’s new legislative maps.

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Participate in our democracy!

NorthEndWaterfront.com reports on a soused swimmer who evaded the dozen or so rescue craft that went in search of him when he jumped into Boston Harbor, then climbed out and ran away.

State officials met with the owner of the building housing the Romney presidential campaign. Outcome: Romney campaign doesn't want parents using their parking lot to drop off kids for the tennis/literacy summer program next door and that's that.

Tenacity, which runs the summer program, informed parents that the city is willing to give parents 15 minutes' worth of parking in resident spots to pick up, but one parent said there are no spaces right next to the tennis courts where the program is run. The garage across the street is also willing to let parents park briefly to run their kids across busy Commercial Street.

"Whatever happened to politicians kissing babies?" the parent asked.

NorthEndWaterfront.com reports that for the second time, Gov. Patrick has vetoed a bill to override a city public-health ordinance that will force cigar and hookah bars to shut down by 2018.

The proposed law was co-sponsored by state Rep. Aaron Michlewitz, D-North End, whose district includes the Stanza dei Sigari cigar bar on Hanover Street.

Romney's enforcers took no guff this morning.

Tenacity runs a summer tennis and literacy program for North End kids at the park at the corner of Commercial and North Washington streets. Parents who dropped their kids off on the way to work would pull into the parking lot next to the tennis court to let them off.

Until recently, that is. The Romney presidential campaign, based at 585 Commercial St., next to the lot, is now blocking it off to everybody but campaign workers, forcing parents to stop in a turning lane for the Charlestown Bridge and get their kids out. This morning, a couple of glowering guys enforced the no-lot policy. They told one irate parent there'd been a "hit and run" in the lot. Hit and run? Why, yes, somebody scratched a car and then left without taking responsibility. A parent? Well, nobody'd seen the "hit and run."

Another parent writes:

Matthew got to go into the spire at Old North Church the other day and took this photo from the top.

Copyright Matthew. Posted in the Universal Hub pool on Flickr.

An argument over access to information on a computer last month led to a fight that left a worker at Bova's Bakery on Salem Street with a black eye and a bloody nose.

Anthony Bova, co-owner of the North End institution, acknowledged his son, also named Anthony, got into a disagreement with another worker on May 2 that ended with his son punching the guy out and lunging at him with a knife.

Boston Fire and Boston EMS both confirm this account that a woman sustained serious enough injuries falling off a Segway Sunday evening that she needed transportation to a local hospital:

The formerly healthy rider was just taken away on a stretcher, on a backboard, in a neckbrace, bleeding.

Spokespeople for both departments, however, did not have additional information on what might have caused the fall, around 6:20 p.m. by Joe's American Bar.

Last week, the City Council voted to severely restrict Segway use by people without disabilities in Boston, citing the potential menace to senior citizens and other pedestrians. Two days later, however, a Segway tour company operating out of the North End sued over the regulations, saying in part the council could offer no proof the two-wheeled vehicles were unsafe.

The FBI is looking for this guy for the holdup of the Sovereign Bank branch at 278 Hanover St. around 3:45 p.m. on June 15.

He's described as mid-30s, 5'10" with a medium build and wearing a blue Adidas Italia jacket, featuring a green, white and red stripe across the front (Ed. question: Wonder what he'd wear to a holdup in Southie?). He was also wearing glasses and blue jeans when he fled on foot.

Look familiar? Contact Special Agent Jeff Rolands at 617-223-6228.

NorthEndWaterfront.com posts video of last night's Parade of Lights in Boston Harbor.

Boston Gliders, which leads tourists on Segway visits around downtown and the North End, yesterday filed a federal lawsuit to try to block the city's new regulations on Segways and similar wheeled devices.

Eastie ladAll five were arraigned today in Boston Municipal Court, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports.

The one local was Christopher Prader, 20, of East Boston, who was charged with inciting a riot, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest after his arrest before the Bruins game had even ended - around 9:30 p.m. at Causeway and Beverly streets.

According to the DA's office, Prader began loudly declaring he wasn't a punk and daring police to arrest him. When they refused, he began cursing them out, took his shirt off and threw his belt at them, prosecutors say:

Boston Restaurant Talk reports.

NorthEndWaterfront.com reports on an argument that ended with one man being transported to Mass. General with a split-open forehead late on June 4.

AlertNewEngland reports somebody was stabbed tonight at Salem and Cooper streets.

Attack bird lurks, awaits next victim.

From Citizens Connect:

A very aggressive bird (bluejay maybe) attacks anything, human or dog, that comes through this part of the Harborwalk between 40 Battery and Union Wharf. Can animal control do something about it?

NorthEndWaterfront.com reports district A-1's printed up cards asking the high-volume set to be more courteous to the people who live in the neighborhood:

Residents complain that loud groups of people "disturb the peace" when talking (or screaming) on the streets late at night. The density of North End / Waterfront buildings tends to amplify voices in the street. Police intend to target visitors gathering in groups or walking to their cars (or the T) after a night out in the neighborhood.

The Boston Fire Department reports a careless smoker sparked a fire this afternoon on the roof deck of 16 Parmenter St. that spread inside the building.

The fire caused an estimated $250,000 in damage.

The fire was only a few blocks from where another smoker destroyed a waterfront law office through careless disposal of a cigarette earlier this month.

How did they get there? Nobody knows, NorthEndWaterfront.com reports, adding somebody took one home tonight for dinner.

NorthEndWaterfront.com gets briefed on what's in a consultant's report on re-routing of trucks along Atlantic and Commercial avenues. In fact, the report goes further - urging all hazmat trucks to stay out of the city altogether and stick to 95 and 128 unless they're making deliveries to local businesses.

The city had banned hazardous cargoes from the North End, but the feds overruled the city last year. Truckers want the right to detour through the city around I-93, from which they're now banned because much of the highway is in a tunnel, from which trucks carrying potentially explosive materials are banned.

Imagine City Hall or the Hynes covered in vines.

If Nate Swain has his way, it could happen. For the past couple of years, he's been covering eyesores in the North End with vinyl canvases covered with high-resolution photos. See if you can spot his work in the photo above.

His first project was in a building facing Salem and Prince streets in 2009. He photographed and then printed scenes such as a cat on a windowsill with flowers in pots; a goldfish swimming in a bowl, printed them onto a mesh vinyl back, then installed them over the windows. The idea is to create a sort of an "idyllic" concept, as he calls it.