Sullivan Square

Looks like the Charlestown roadway is getting the same treatment as the Forest Hills overpass: The city announced today it's going for the surface-road approach rather than an underpass:

"In partnership with the Charlestown community, we're working to transform Rutherford Avenue from a highway to a neighborhood-friendly, urban boulevard," Mayor Thomas M. Menino said. "Residents will be able to take advantage of new connections to the MBTA Orange Line, new greenspace for children to play, and safe access to the Charles River. The new Rutherford Avenue will offer these and countless other opportunities to enhance quality of life for the people of Charlestown."

NorthEndWaterfront.com has more, including a discussion of whether the proposal will mean more traffic in the North End.

The 6:30 a.m. inbound train died. As of 9 a.m., it still hadn't made it into Boston.

Photographynatalia photographed Park and Tremont streets this morning. Melissa Gibson watched an Orange Line train pull into Sullivan Square:

Or maybe we're just noticing these stealthier predators after years of paying attention to their flashier, daytimier cousins, the hawks. The above is not some impressionist painting of what an owl might look like, but an impressionist-like photo of an owl in a tree near Sullivan Square in Somerville on Saturday night, taken by Bill Ritchotte. "Hedwig?" he asks.

Then there's this owl in the Fens.

Earlier:
An owl in the Park Street T stop and one in East Boston.

Donut & Donuts, Sullivan Square T stop. Photo by Truck Stop Tea Party.

Boston Police report arresting five people "in various levels and forms of undress" on drug charges at a Sullivan Square home early this morning. A sixth person was arrested on a warrant for motor-vehicle violations.

Police say 87 Cambridge St. had become a place where those in the know could buy drugs and partake of "sexually-themed instruments and costumes."

Two people filed complaints this weekend about Teamster parking habits outside the Schrafft building, at the bus stop and in the rotary:

Every time the Teamsters meet they park their bikes there and they are NEVER ticketed. If an ordinary citizen parked their bike there try would be towed They also park their cars in the Sullivan Circle rotary and, again, are never ticketed. Why is this allowed to happen?

Also:

There is a parking lot across the street where they can legally park. Why are they continually allowed to disregard street signs??

Elizabeth DiRusso posts a photo of a woman and her ferret at the Back Bay Orange Line station, adds:

It would probably be safer if the ferret stood behind the yellow line.

Meanwhile, and totally unrelated, except it also happened at an Orange Line stop, Andrea reports:

Some guy at Sullivan Station just turned into a corner and starting peeing 2 feet away from me.

An MBTA menagerie: Cats, hawks, parrots, turkeys, pet rats, pigeons, snakes.

MBTA Transit Police report arresting one of three men who allegedly held a woman up at knifepoint just past midnight Sunday at the Sullivan Square T stop - after a police dog bit him in the ass.

According to a police report, a woman was standing by the upper busway when three Hispanic men approached her, pulled out knives and demanded her money. For good measure, they called her a "nigger." She told them, in Spanish, that she was Hispanic herself, but that didn't work. After they fled, and police arrived, she got in an cruiser with an officer - and Marco, the police dog.

A federal appeals court ruled today that MBTA cops had the right to arrest a Mexican man at the Sullivan Square T stop after the Madrid bombings because he and other "Middle Eastern" men in his van seemed to be doing the same things terrorists might do before trying to blow up the station.

MBTA Transit Police report arresting a Somerville man for an attack on two women on the Orange Line last month.

Joseph Balistreri, 36, was arrested at his home around 1:30 p.m. today after Transit Police say they received numerous tips from people who recognized him from grainy photos posted yesterday. Balistreri will be arraigned Monday in Charlestown District Court on charges of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon - a shod foot.

According to an MBTA police report, the women said they were sitting on an inbound train near Sullivan around 11 p.m. on Nov. 19 when Balistreri approached them and called both of them "lesbians" and one of them a "nigger:"

Both victims then stated that the suspect kicked them both, hitting [one victim] in the bottom lip, causing the laceration and swelling and [the other victim] in the chest. After the altercation, the suspect spat on both the faces of [the victims] and left the station in an unknown direction of flight.

The report says video cameras showed he gotten on the train about ten minutes earlier by jumping over the fare gates at Malden.

He is currently being held in lieu of $7,500 bail, the MBTA reports.

Read the police report on the incident.

Innocent, etc.

The Boston Fire Department reports crews were called to the Sullivan Square T stop around midnight after somebody was hit by a train there. Not long after, the department reported the person was dead. The MBTA started running shuttle buses between Haymarket and Wellington after it shut power in both directions to let firefighters attempt to extricate the person.

It's one of those mornings on the Orange Line. Tom Lee tweets:

I've been stuck in the Sullivan Square Orange Line station For the past 30 mins while the Fire Dept investigates why an alarm is going off!

Channel 4 reports Somerville Police have arrested a man for a series of recent robberies on women, including one in which a woman was stabbed outside the Sullivan Square T stop.

Wicked Local Somerville posts a police drawing of the guy wanted for stabbing a woman in the chest Monday night when she wouldn't give up her handbag.

At Sullivan Square around 9 a.m.. Service has since been restored, according to mbta.com.

That makes three people hit by T trains in three days.

Good Lord:

A passenger noticed a man holding the child's hand. That passenger says she overheard the girl say she was hungry, and the man told her to "Please be quiet."

T police say there was no criminal conduct. They consider the case closed.

Ed. Been There note: I feel for the guy.

Faegirl notices a mullet warning at Sullivan Square.

Flann reports on a knife fight on one of the shuttle buses the T was running instead of trains along the Orange Line north of Boston on Saturday:

... Meanwhile, in the back, [Old Guy] is bleeding, [Knife Guy] has blood all over his jacket. KG's gf was jumping on his back to try to get him off OG and he just shoved her off. KG then headbutted OG in the face and OG fell back, dazed and gushing blood now. KG took this lull as an opportunity to pull out his friggin switchblade and start waving it around. I took the lull as an opportunity to get the hell outta there. ...

Call it the straw that broke the Orange Line commuter's back: Karl vows to never ride the line again after his train got stalled at Sullivan Square:

... What really pissed me off and got me to storm out of the station and never ride that line again is that the operator gave different excuses each time she got on the intercom. The first one was "traffic up ahead" which was bullshit as everyone there (myself included) was waiting almost 20 minutes before it came in. Then a few minutes later they said "switching problem at Oak Grove", which I also didn't buy because the so-called switching problem was reported at a time where Forest Hills bound trains should not even yet be affected. I mean, if it occurred about an hour ago, that would make sense. So I say adios to the Orange Line and don't know when or if I will ever ride it again. ...

EnuhCork reports what happened when some fool tried to get on the Orange Line too soon this morning:

... I saw an older woman "heisman trophy" a guy this morning so she could get off at Sullivan Sq. before he walked on. She sorta patted him on the chest after the stiff arm. He smiled a bit, and bowed his head in repentance.

Because if they did, Tape might have gotten off at his normal stop instead of having the driver on the 89 bus scream at him and demand he never step foot on that bus again.

Update: Channel 4 reports a big hoax involving mooninites. The Weekly Dig points to the upcoming Aqua Teen Hunger Force Movie.

Channel 4 managed to capture some images of the thing the bomb squad blew up at Sullivan Square this morning. Kind of an odd etching on an IED, no? Thanks to the folks at B0st0n LiveJournal, we can now report it's a depiction of a mooninite - a successor to the creatures from "Space Invaders."

Compare to this image of a mooninite from Adult Swim's Aqua Teen Hunger Force:

Now look at the Flickr images Brian dug up of LED circuit boards that show flashing mooninites:

This, this and this

Somebody might have some 'splainin' to do.

Update: The Globe and Channel 4 now report that officials are finding these things all over the place. Storrow Drive is shut down. The Red Line is shut down between Park Street and Kendall.

On a morning when the lead story in the Globe announced the T's new random-bag inspections have turned up nothing, the Sullivan Square T stop and I-93 both get shut down so police could blow up a suspicious device found on a girder above the station. The Globe quotes a guy who ran toward the station to see what all the commotion was about:

"It was nerve racking," said Robert A. Ellington, 29, who ran to Sullivan Square to investigate when he heard whirl of television news helicopters. "It's scary, but exciting though."

Private Idaho reports:

So a friend of the family, Christie called my wife at home to say "Please help! my cell phone is running out of power and they've closed the subway and I'm stuck somewhere called Wellington Station!!! Can you come get me?" ...

Kimberly wound up walking to work because the buses got so overcrowded:

... It's only about 3 miles but crossing the bridge with the wind off the Harbor is a bit much but I trucked it and feel great! I should keep it up, an extra 3 to 6 miles a day would do wonders plus my daily workout. ...

Question of the day: If you are going to bomb a subway station, why on earth would you pick Sullivan Square?!

Cindy and Jeff at SmartRoutes made it official: This morning was an eventful Wednesday.

Note: Channel 4 has the best photos so far of the thing in question.