Roslindale

You'd think somebody like John Nucci would be familiar with Boston neighborhoods. After all, he spent several years on the School Committee and then got himself elected an at-large city councilor. He used to work for ABCD. Most recently, he served on the committee that came up with a new BPS school-assignment system. And yet, in a column today in the Herald on why suburbanites should care about the Boston mayoral election, he writes:

Boston is not just the commonwealth's capital city. It's the state's economic engine and the very heart of the region. So whether you live in Harvard Square, Quincy Center or Roslindale Square, this mayoral race is your race, too.

A nose-holding citizen reports from Roslindale:

Porter potty needed for field- athletes have no facilities and are using the tunnel that connects Fallon field to Belgrade ave to relieve themselves. It smells like urine and is unnerving for walkers.

And in the South End, a disgusted citizen posts a photo of a hole in the ground:

Homeless people have dug this foot-deep hole in Chester square park and use it as a restroom. It is roughly across the street from 553 mass ave, next to a small tree.

In an editorial, the Jamaica Plain Gazette rhapsodizes about how Roslindale completes JP, in part because Roslindale hosts all the trailer-trash kind of chain stores that would otherwise try to muscle their non-local way into the pristine Elysian fields of Jamaica Plain:

It has been easier for local-business-minded JP to fend off the likes of Family Dollar when we all know we can go to the one already in Roslindale Village. And while a big-box store coming to JP would face protests, many of us have popped into the Rozzie Staples, which is not much farther from central JP than Jackson Square is.

Roslindale ed. note: Maybe it's time for a field trip to the JP Whole Foods to see what a real local, non-big-box store is like, one that managed to get built without any protests, let alone arrests. Well, no more than three, anyway. And it's not much farther from Rozzie Square than Grew Hill is.

Boston Police say a Dorchester man shot somebody on Brook Street in Roslindale on Monday over a money dispute.

Conrad Blake, 35, of Dorchester was arrested on two counts of assault with intent to murder. According to police:

Witnesses told officers they heard a dispute over money owed. Officers were also told the suspect had come to the residence several times looking for the victim when he was not home.

After the shooting, witnesses said the suspect fled on foot. The suspect later turned himself into police.

Innocent, etc.

UPDATE: Dorchester man arrested.

Somebody was found shot this morning on Brook Street. The victim was taken away in bad enough shape to have the homicide unit called in, just in case. The victim was found just a few doors down from the scene of a fight that ended in gunfire last night.

AlertNewEngland reports a fight at 56 Mt. Hope St. ended with shots fired around 9:50 p.m. For some reason, everybody disappeared before police arrived, but officers found two shell casings.

A little excitement in Roslindale Square at lunchtime when somebody called police to report a disposable aluminum food tray covered in tin foil sitting under a car near the Citizens Bank on South Street. The area was taped off, the bomb squad summoned and determined the object was "inert."

The Times reports on the story behind the grisly photo from yesterday.

Capt. John Baker, died in 1781, aged 75.

Roslindale is not the sort of place you associate with the Revolution, but it turns out a cemetery there, by the side of a road Washington's forces used to ferry supplies from Dedham to Boston, was the final resting place for a number of Revolutionary War soldiers.

You can see the remains of the Walter Street Burying Ground on Peters Hill in the Arnold Arboretum. Go into the Peters Hill entrance of the Arboretum where South Street meets Walter Street and start up the path on the hill. As you walk, keep in mind that back in the day, Roslindale as a place didn't exist - the area was a hinterland of the town of Roxbury. And Walter Street, then known as the Dedham Road was a key supply route for the Americans.

Boston Police report that one of the bullets from a fusillade shortly after 8 p.m. on Archdale Road penetrated a living-roomn wall at 173 Brookway Rd.:

The round went through the wall and went into the television. Officers recovered a round on the floor near the television about two feet from a baby carriage with the owner’s foster child sleeping in it. Neither the child nor the caretaker in the home were injured and did not require medical attention.

In addition to that bullet, police also recovered bullets from three cars - two parked on Archdale and one of which was occupied by three people at the time, who decided to drive away rather than to see who was shooting at them.

An old house at Metropolitan Avenue and Poplar Street in Roslindale sat on a lot large enough for construction of a new house (that rarest of rare things in Roslindale). With the new house nearing completion, workers last week jacked up the old house, possibly to reposition it on the lot - or, who knows, possibly just for a little spring cleaning.

It's right up Metropolitan from the Fox house, which had a third of it carved off and turned into a new house after William Fox lost the house during the Depression and stopped taking the train up from New York for the fresh Roslindale air in the summer (back when there was a train stop right down the street).

A concerned citizen complains:

Can someone PLEASE do something about all the unleashed dogs in the Arboretum? I should be able to take my kids there without being accosted multiple times by dogs bigger than them running full bore at them. Nobody to enforce?

Averton Street scene. Photo by Lauren Ali.

Already stretched thin by a massive investigation into a midday shootout in Roxbury, Boston Police still flooded the area around Averton Street, where somebody being sought by police for some sort of incident on Walworth Street dumped the stolen SUV in a driveway, then ran away. In addition to several cruisers, BPD sent in a tracking dog to try to find the suspect.

Sarida, on Birch Street, is closing in June.

The Dorchester Reporter reports Steven Godfrey of Roslindale has taken steps to run against the city's longest serving city councilor - who has yet to announce whether he'll run again or maybe run for something else.

Mozart School in Roslindale in the snow shortly before 8 a.m. Photo by Jean-Marie Lovett.

For the past few years, Boston's erred on the side of caution when it comes to snow. But today, BPS decided school must go on. Grr. I'm typing this at the Blue Star in Roslindale Square, where I stopped for breakfast after running the kidlet up to Forest Hills for her bus to school, since there's no way I'm getting back up our hill, which we slalomed down on the way to Forest Hills. Even Hyde Park Avenue was a mess.

UPDATE: At noon, BPS announced that any kids who missed school today would get an automatic excused absence. No word if kids who did make it in will get a gold star or something.

Ed Grzyb tweeted last night:

Enjoyed dinner tonight at Shanti in Roslindale. Food: great. Service: good. Tables: Mostly full. No alcohol license yet.

Matthew Wilding reports a harrowing experience around 12:45 p.m.:

I just almost died when a manhole blew off on Washington st. In front of Dragon Chef.

He reports both he and dog are fine; they were clear when it blew.

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Shanti goes before the Boston Licensing Board on Wednesday to request a food-serving license for the old Rialto site, 4197 Washington St. Restaurants seeking only food-serving licenses usually only go before the board when they are within a couple of weeks of opening.

Shanti is proposing hours of 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. for what would be Roslindale's only Indian restaurant. Jamaica Plain currently has two Indian restaurants; West Roxbury has one.

The board's hearings start at 10 a.m. in its eighth-flooring hearing room at City Hall.

Compare this note left on a space saver, captured by Stephanie-Marie in Roslindale today, with this note, left on somebody's car whose driver dared to move a space saver in South Boston yesterday.

And somebody's got it bad on Beech Street in Roslindale.

The Boston Fire Department reports one of its fire-box workers received electrical shocks around 11:20 a.m. near where Canterbury Street crosses the Northeast Corridor when the non-powered wires he and a partner were working on came in contact with a 25,000-volt Amtrak wire.

Bot Fire Alarm Construction workers were taken to Brigham and Women's hospital to be checked out but have been released, the department says. Although only one received a shock, the other reported a loud "bell ringing. The department says that was "a result of being in close proximity to where the shock happened; it caused a loud bang."

The two were working on a non-electrified wire that is part of the city's call-box network at the time.

Wicked Local Roslindale reports the third victim of whatever it was that happened last week at the Roslyn Apartments on Cliffmont Street died yesterday. Officials have released few details about what claimed the lives of two men last week and the woman this week.

Around 11:20 p.m. at Albano Street. The suspect is described as a black male, about 5'10" with really bad breath.