Tom Menino signs a woman's windbreaker in Dudley Square today, shortly before participating in an announcement about new bus service. Why? Because she asked him to. He asked if she'd be washing the jacket. Never, she said, adding she'd been looking forward to asking the mayor for the unique autograph.

Around 11:30 p.m., Wednesday, at Warren and Moreland streets. A witness reports the truck was headed outbound, the car crossing from Moreland, was hit on the right side, spun around, its trunk hit a light pole. No word on injuries.

State Rep. Byron Rushing holds up a 1922 newspaper. Photo by Third Decade.

Third Decade reports on what was inside a 1922 time capsule opened today at the Ferdinand building in Dudley Square:

... The Mayor and Rep. Rushing pulled out copies of the Boston Evening Transcript and the Boston Post, furniture advertisements from Ferdinand's Blue Store, and a list of employees from Ferdinand's Blue Store. ...

Next up: Figuring out what to put in a new time capsule.

Third Decade attended the official start of Ferdinand Building renovations in Dudley Square.

Third Decade posts a video of interviews of people who remember when Dudley Square was a "downtown" and when the area had much better public transportation than it does today:

... It would be great if the neighborhoods between Dudley Square and Downtown Boston could coalesce to demand improved public transportation from the MBTA in the same way that Somerville and Medford are doing. ...

Well, Grove Hall and Dudley Square, at any rate: $9.95 a month for wireless access, in the first phase of Tom Menino's citywide wireless effort.

Miss Von Schtoop has been walking to work through Dudley Square recently:

... Dudley Square is lively in a way that reminds me of some of the places I've seen in the Caribbean & West Indies and visually interesting in an old Boston brick & painted signs way. There are lots of cool faded old painted ads on tucked away walls ...

Somehow, I missed the Sunday Globe's report from the latest front in the gentrification wars: An entire paean to development on "the other side" of Massachusetts Avenue that only mentions the dreaded R word once, and then in passing.

... It used to be that Massachusetts Avenue acted as a dividing line. But now developers are breaching the bulwark, chasing opportunities in the neighborhood's cheaper -- and more rundown -- real estate, laying foundations for upscale projects in the direction of nearby Dudley Square. ...

Oh, yeah, Dudley Square. The heart of the West South End.

Thankfully, for those of us too busy with just Parade and the comics (oh and City Weekly, of course!) - or for people just parachuting in from Mars, the Weekly Dig is here to dissect the coverage:

... Look what a few $900,000 condos can do to a neighborhood's name - and history! ... We can't wait until somebody decides it's time to rebrand Dudley as D-Square.