Roslindale

The Dorchester Reporter alerts us that Meetinghouse Bank plans to put its second ever branch in one of the spaces at 4238 Washington St. - where Domino's failed to ease the square's critical pizza shortage.

Two non-profits that have been trying to turn the hulking brick husk of an old trolley substation in Roslindale Square into something useable say they now want to buy the funeral home next door for housing.

In an e-mail update this morning, Steve Gag and Stephanie Cave of Roslindale Village Main Street say the FJ Higgins Funeral Home on Washington Street is now up for sale - and that the Higgins family has agreed to give the group and Historic Boston first dibs on the property as the family prepares to move the funeral home to a new location.

Gag and Cave say they don't want to let the property fall into the hands of a developer who would use it for something un-Roslindale-Square-like - such as a fast-food drive-thru:

Boston Police report they are looking for this guy in connection with a Roslindale purse snatching.

Police say the guy is shown after he'd just used a credit card that was in a purse grabbed around 12:15 p.m. on Nov. 29 at 719 South St.

Know him? Call E-5 detectives at 617-343-4595 or 617-343-4328 or contact the anonymous tip line by calling 800-494-TIPS or texting TIP to CRIME (27463).

The scene at Washington, Walworth and Beech. Photo by Lauren A.

Somebody was stabbed on an outbound 34E bus at Washington and Walworth streets in Roslindale about 12:30 p.m.

Gasner Jean, 49, of no particular address, was arrested on a charge of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and is scheduled for arraignment tomorrow in West Roxbury District Court, MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo says.

The victim, 24, was taken to Brigham and Women's and is expected to survive, he adds.

Innocent, etc.

Jen Langley tweets:

Just noticed Arbri Cafe is def gone + grand opening sign on Belgrade for Prime Time Pizza.

Over the past few years, that Belgrade Avenue location, near Walworth, has been home to various incarnations of Albanian (and Albanian owned) restaurants.

Why can't we have things like this now?

From a discussion of the Washington Street trolley and the car barns that sat where the Domino's by the parkway is now.

For years, we've wondered about the green towers on the hill behind the Stop & Shop on American Legion Highway in Roslindale (they're visible from most of the other hills in the area, including ours). The kidlet and I decided they were Towers of Doom - they were big and mysterious (there's no obvious way to get up there) and kind of ominous.

This afternoon, on a trek to the store, we noticed what looked like a bench up a little rise from the new Walgreens at the far end of the Stop & Shop strip. Hmm, could there be a path up to the Towers of Doom? The bench turned out to be a cinderblock perched on a concrete block, but there was indeed a path headed up.

And right into a lost road:

As seen from our back porch high atop Grew Hill in Roslindale.

Conley School in Roslindale around 7:30 a.m.

Polls opened in Boston this morning with long lines of waiting voters. What are you seeing when you vote? Add a comment.

Ed. note: Carter Wilkie sent in this "letter to the editor" after the City Council on Wednesday approved a new map for ciy-council districts:

Roslindale loses in redistricting -- again. The neighborhood had one city councilor (District 5) but is now split three ways (districts 4, 5, 7). Even worse, the new center of gravity in district 5 shifts so heavily towards Hyde Park/Mattapan that it virtually ensures no candidate from Roslindale will be able to mount a base of support to win this district in the future.

Incumbent politicians from other neighborhoods have repeatedly carved up Roslindale in redistricting, disenfranchising a neighborhood. In the last round of redistricting on Beacon Hill, Roslindale was carved up among four state representatives from other communities (Coppinger from West Roxbury, Sanchez and Malia from Jamaica Plain, and Scaccia from Hyde Park).

Roslindale, with a population of 34,000, is the largest community in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts without a resident in any elected office. No other community in Boston is as splintered on electoral maps, and no other community has less of a voice when it comes to protecting its interests.

Through redistricting at City Hall and Beacon Hill, Roslindale has been transformed into an afterthought for politicians who live in other places.

Boston Police, state troopers and the State Police helicopter flooded the Arnold Arboretum tonight after somebody tried to hold up an off-duty cop around 9:00 p.m. at South and Bussey streets, Stanley Staco reports. After 45 minutes of intense searching, however, police called off the search without a suspect in custody.

Enrique Camilo, 38, of Roslindale, was ordered held on $100,000 bail today on charges he was the owner of a pound of cocaine police say they found in his Claron Street home.

Camilo was already out on bail in a drug case out of Norfolk County when he had his bail changed to personal recognizance because it turned out the chemist in that case was Annie Dookhan, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports, adding it had asked for $1 million bail.

Camilo had been arrested in Weymouth on drug-trafficking charges in 2010.

The DA's office reports he was arrested yesterday at Logan Airport on his way back from a trip to the Dominican Republic.

Innocent, etc.

The JP Gazette opens the journalistic faucet on the Ice Box across Washington Street from the Emporium when it talks to an employee about the people who buy water there. The Gazette reassures us:

The Ice Box, which is housed inside a tan-colored, warehouse-looking building, also fittingly offers ice to customers.

Cafe Rialto on Washington Street is shutting its doors, apparently as soon as it can sell off all its beer and wine.

Cafe Rialto goodbye special! Tues-Friday all beer bottles $3.50, all draft beer $4.00 (except bud light $2.50) and all glasses of wine $6.00!! Come on down and get your Cafe Rialto fix before we close our doors!

The location was long the home of an abandoned restaurant that gave way to the Square Corner Cafe, which shut down only to be replaced by the cafe, named for the movie theater that used to be where the health center is now. Ed. note: What are the odds the liquor license will be snapped up by some chain seeking to build some hoity-toity place on the South Boston waterfront?

H/t Hank Layfield.

Somebody on Grew Avenue in Roslindale is really into Halloween. Their house, their front yard and their large side yard are all decked out for the end of October (note to fans of giant inflatable holiday decorations - the house on Hyde Park Avenue by West Street in Hyde Park is, once again, obscured by giant inflatable Halloween decorations).

A roving UHub photographer forwards this shot of the remains of a car involved in a crash in the 400 block of Hyde Park Avenue in Roslindale - about the same time as emergency crews were responding to a body on the train tracks behind Hyde Park Avenue a few blocks to the south.

Just as the Roslindale Day parade was starting in Roslindale Square, the rain let up. By the time the parade was halfway through Belgrade and Walworth, the sun was coming out.

The Somerville High marching band marched in Roslindale:

There were politicians and there were babies, and sometimes they met:

A man with a handgun held up the gas station at American Legion Highway and Mt. Hope Street around 9:15 p.m. He's described as black, about 6'2" and wearing a black doorag and a red shirt under a gray sweatsuit with loose-fitting pants - witnesses could see his boxers. He was last seen running towards Cummins Highway.

The owner of a Domino's franchise on the Roslindale/West Roxbury plan has decided against plans to open up shop next to the Subway franchise on Washington Street, across from Adams Park, Roslindale Village Main Street reported this afternoon.

The announcement is a victory for Roslindale merchants - led by Roslindale Village Main Street - and residents opposed to the chainification of the square. Some 200 people attended a meeting at the community center last month to voice their opposition - and many were planning to attend a Boston Licensing Board hearing next month on a request for a food-serving license. In an e-mail today, Roslindale Village Main Street said:

Boston Police report seizing a cache of "seven high powered weapons and more than a thousand rounds of ammunition" on Seymour Street in Roslindale today.

Among the weapons seized: an AR-15-style assault rifle, an AK-47-style assault rifle, a .357 revolver, and several large-capacity feeding devices capable of holding armor-piercing ammunition. Also seized: More than 1,000 rounds of ammo, including armor-piercing bullets, more than 50 shotgun shells and "numerous grenade type projectiles for a grenade launcher." Also grabbed: Holsters and gun-cleaning kits.

Shortly before 8 p.m., a man who'd just gotten off a bus on Washington Street was robbed by three men on Wellsmere Road near Kittridge. He told police they put a knife to his throat and took his phone.

They're described as black, in their late teens or early 20s. Two were above 6' tall.

An aggravated citizen reports:

I took a cab from my home is roslindale to Logan arriving at 5am. I tried to pay w. credit card but the driver insisted the system wouldn't work until 7. Taxi 592 forest hills independent taxi service. I have been in too many Boston cabs where "the system isn't working" for credit cards.

A neighborhood retail area that relies on foot traffic is no place for a pizza place that claims most of its business consists of deliveries, Roslindale Square residents and businesspeople told Domino's, which wants to move from a mini-mall off the West Roxbury Parkway to a storefront in Roslindale Square.

Close to 200 people packed a basement meeting room at the Roslindale Community Center tonight to oppose the proposed new location in the office building next to the library, across from Adams Park. Local businesspeople, residents and the city haven't spent 20 years turning Roslindale Village into today's electic collection of mostly locally owned shops and restaurants just to let a delivery business move in, they said.

Fauxyote

We were headed south on the VFW Parkway the other day when, whoa, was that a coyote hanging out by the VA Hospital? We did a quick uey, pulled into the parking lot and discovered that, no, it was not a real coyote, just a plastic replica of one. Hokay.

Compare to this photo of a real coyote, taken on Friday in the Arboretum.

AlertNewEngland tweets the idea is to try to scare geese away - like those fake owls you can get to scare pigeons off your roof. Lin Dolin tweets the fauxyotes work just as well as the bogus owls - geese may be stupid, but they're not that stupid:

There was one where used to work. Geese quickly figured it was fake.

The Supreme Judicial Court today denied a Roslindale man's request to expunge court records showing he was arrested and arraigned on what turned out to be a bogus claim he'd used a gun to threaten a worker - who made up the whole story to try to extort money from him.

The court said the man, identified only by a pseudonym in its ruling, could, however, file a request to have the records of his arrest and court proceedings sealed, so that they could not legally be used to deny him a state job or shown to anybody.

In its ruling, the court described the start of the man's troubles: