VFW Parkway
The Boston Licensing Board yesterday voted to grant a beer-and-wine license to Wee Angel, a Scottish bistro proposed for the site of the old Zon's in Hyde Square. The pub is also seeking a license from a separate city board for acoustic music. More on Wee Angel.
Also yesterday, the board granted a beer and wine license to 660 Al-Wadi, a Lebanese restaurant under construction at the site of the old Spring Blossom on VFW Parkway in West Roxbury. The board set a closing time of midnight Sunday through Thursday and 1 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. Owner Ghassan Samaha originally proposed a 2 a.m. closing time on weekends, but the three residents who live right next to the location objected at a hearing on Wednesday.
Boston Police tweet the Shell station at 510 VFW Parkway was stuck up tonight.
The 5C's on VFW Parkway in West Roxbury (next to the equally derelict Spring Blossom Chinese restaurant) remains shut despite a new owner because liquor distributors won't send their trucks there due to the $100,000+ in bills the previous owner ran up, the West Roxbury Bulletin explains.
The Bulletin reports the owner of a VFW Parkway building that houses an Albanian social club is evicting the club, partly because their effort to obtain a permanent liquor license doesn't sit at all well with parents of kids at a daycare center in the same building. Also, club members had earlier promised not to serve booze.
ParkwayBoston reports two drag racers crashed into a snowbank around 2 p.m. on Tuesday, forcing authorities to close the parkway near Vincent Road while EMTs hauled away people and tow trucks hauled away what was left of their cars.
Wicked Local Roslindale reports six teens were taken away with minor injuries.
ParkwayBoston reports on a two-vehicle smashup that left one car on its back and the southbound side of the parkway shut between the skating rink and Spring Street during this morning's rush hour.
Spring Blossom never really seemed to recover from the loss of business during the extended VFW Parkway sewer project. And now it's gone, forcing Westie types to drive into Dedham or South Brookline if they want more than just takeout.
Scott Wachtler interviews the neon-sign collector who bought the sign and who now mostly keeps it in a Lynn warehouse as he tries to find a place to put it. Last Halloween, he trucked it down to Government Center and cranked it up.
... "There's something pretty cool about a nine-foot-tall neon chicken wearing an apron waving to people to come on in and eat chicken," Waller said explaining the sign's lasting allure. ...
The chicken in its heyday:
Last week was not a good one for the US Petroleum station at 1465 VFW Parkway. First, the place was held up by a nervous blond woman with a gun who'd failed to hold up two other local businesses. Then, the very next night, the station was held up again, this time by a less nervous blond man with a gun, "a lazy right eye" and a limp, Wicked Local Roslindale reports.
Wicked Local West Roxbury reports the BRA has approved a developer's plan to turn the old Stop & Shop on VFW Parkway in West Roxbury into an LA/Fitness Club. Good news for spin-cycle fans: The laundromat next door will not only stay, but will get a new facade.
For the past several weeks, there's been this amazing brain-like fungus growing on the side of a tree on the VFW Parkway southbound, just past LaGrange. Every time I drove past, I thought it would make a great photo and vowed to stop next time. This morning, around 9:30, I saw the brain and vowed to stop on my way back (from Millennium Park). Around 10:30, I did - only to discover that in the interim, a vegetarian zombie (what else could it be?) had ripped the brain to shreds:
That'll teach me to put things off, right?
The Transcript reports on a spat at the Burger King on VFW Parkway in West Roxbury: A patron told police that when he asked employees to put on clean gloves, the manager came around the counter:
[T]hrew the victim's money back at him, grabbed a soda cup from his hand and grabbed his wrist.
The manager told police he refunded the man's money and asked him to leave but never laid a hand on him.
Toddler found wandering on VFW Parkway. 2 years old, this morning, hopefully in the median strip or on a sidewalk here.
The Transcript reports that state Sen. Marian Walsh managed to deep-six a measure by state Rep. Mike Rush to spend $1.5 million to do something with Havey Beach, that inviting looking area off the VFW Parkway that hasn't actually been useful to anybody except kids having drunken campfires for the past 50 years or so. Walsh claims it's a great idea, but says there needs to be more public input before anything's done.
Every time there's a heavy rain, this woman, who lives on the southbound side of the VFW Parkway, just past the West Roxbury Parkway, dons her boots and raincoat and goes out with a rake to try to keep the storm drain and "dry" catchbasin outside her house clear, to minimize the damage from flooding. She's been doing that a lot lately. Read more
The Sad Car of VFW Parkway has gone to the big junkyard in the sky.
Tammy must have one of those old Amphibicars. How else to explain how she survived flooding and a Florida-style sinkhole on the West Roxbury Parkway near where it meets the VFW Parkway after today's storm?
A school bus carrying students from the West Roxbury Education Complex crashed into another WREC bus around 2 this afternoon, ParkwayBoston.com reports (with photos). At least four students taken away in ambulances.
Looks like self-appointed Protector of Public Virtue Bob Joyce and a few of his friends will actually be picketing Gary's Liquors on the VFW Parkway tomorrow to protest Gary's refusal to stop offering copies of the Phoenix.
They're scheduled to be there between 1 and 5:30 - should you find yourself in sudden need of some beer or wine and a chuckle or two. I spoke briefly to Gary today; he says Bob has been great for business, because some people have gone out of their way to start patronizing his store. Directions.
And this despite the fact the Phoenix is back in boxes along Centre Street again.
Earlier:
The hypocrisy of West Roxbury's morals squad.
UPDATE: The Globe says it was careless disposal of a cigarette on the fourth floor, not the barbecue on the second floor.
Channel 4 reports a 3-alarm blaze at an apartment building on the northbound side of the VFW Parkway in West Roxbury may have started when a resident decided to fire up his grill on his balcony around 3:30 p.m on one of the windiest days of the year.
The fire damaged the relatively new Marshview Place at 1522 VFW Parkway, next to the Jennifer Convertible store, and caused major traffic tie-ups when State and Boston police blocked the parkway in both directions to give fire crews easier access to the building.
Lyss reports that despite all the police cars and police, idiot Massholes kept trying to get onto the parkway at Bridge Street anyway:
... What did they not understand about the police cars and the patient officer directing traffic? (Those of us going straight on Rte. 109 were supposed to follow the traffic light.) The officer saw that the idiots were totally screwing up the traffic pattern by their insistence that they HAD to get on Rte. 1 South, that he seemed to start directing them to a sort of waiting area near the cruisers. ...
There's probably an interesting story behind the wreck that's sat for years in somebody's driveway on the VFW Parkway in Roslindale (northbound, between the West Roxbury Parkway and the Hebrew center). But in the meantime, Alyssa wonders what it does to property values as she drives past on the way to work.
To get this, you need to know that there's a large sign on the VFW Parkway for Havey Beach, even though Havey Beach hasn't been open since, oh, the 1950s.
I'm in the checkout line at the Home Depot (buying a replacement sliding screen door for our back porch). The two guys ahead of me have obviously just bought a house, since they're buying a collection of things you would only buy if you just bought a house - a hose, various pruning implements, a couple of plants, a hammer, etc., etc. After they pay, one asks the 20-something cashier (in a charming British accent): "Are there any swimming beaches around here?" She looks at him like he's suddenly grown a second head. An older cashier overhears him and says "There's the ocean. But around here? Only the murky Charles."
They leave, and as they do, she laughs, "Yeah, there's Hahvey's Beach." I say oh, so brightly "Yep, and that's been closed for, what, 50 years?" She answers: "No, Hahvey's Beach. Haven't you ever seen the movie? Hahvey? The rabbit? It's invisible." And she laughs even harder.
Jessica Smith reports that the giant yellow funnel destroyer-of-worlds Transformer bot (or whatever the hell it is) that had been sitting on the road to Millennium Park is now at the VFW Parkway and LaGrange Street:
The VFW Parkway is looking the worst I've seen it in the past few weeks. ...
Hang on, Westie: Allegedly, the interminable MWRA sewer project will be finished in 2008.
Charles Glassberg flashes his lights:
Just a reminder to you Boston-area drivers that the traps at the VFW Parkway/West Roxbury Parkway rotary and by the Putterham Golf Course are still in full effect. ...
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