Cambridge Street

The van in Union Square. Photo by Melina Schuler.

Update: The Globe reports the victim, 12, died.

A pedestrian was hit by a van shortly after 7 a.m. on Cambridge Street near the intersection with Brighton Avenue, right by the fire station. Scott Eisen reports the person was in "traumatic arrest," which is not a good sign.

Traffic quickly gridlocked as police closed streets to allow EMTs to care for the victim and so that they could investigate what happened.

An irate citizen complains:

News boxes, dirty, faded and affixed with stickers on the window, along with graffiti on the top or elsewhere, have been dumped along Cambridge St. across from Center Plaza, on the sidewalk near pay phone at City Hall Plaza. One has a town of Belmont sticker, the other a city of Newton sticker. These are boxes for a paper from Martha's Vineyard I've seen in last year or two, but I don't believe the papers are even being distributed in Boston in these filthy boxes any longer. Yet other towns are dumping dirty and unwanted boxes in Boston. Plus, those are from Newton and Belmont, according to permit stickers on the front.

Marjorie Arons-Barron reports on an incident near Charles Circle yesterday involving ten kids on bicycles riding abreast on Cambridge Street, and an increasingly impatient driver who finally had enough:

It didn't work out too well. The white car sideswiped a weaving cyclist, who flew in one direction, his bike in the other. The car never stopped or pulled over. Fortunately, the bicycle rider picked himself up, retrieved his bike and his helmet and, somewhat shakily, rode to rejoin the other riders in the pack, who had stopped not far from the Liberty Hotel.

Channel 4 reports you can look down through the sidewalk to the train tracks below - where trains have been ordered to slow down to minimize vibrations on the decrepit span.

Boston Police tweet one inbound lane on Cambridge Street is shut this morning due to a water-main break at 1 Center Plaza. City Hall is open. Channel 25, however, reports that 1 Center Plaza is closed because the main supplies the building's sprinklers.

Cambridge Police report that around 6:45 p.m. yesterday:

A Cambridge resident reported being assaulted on Cambridge Street by a member a social club located on that street. The victim stated that he was struck over the head by a bottle of beer causing a laceration over the top of his head.

On a more positive note, police also report nabbing a Dorchester resident in the act of breaking into a car on Norfolk Street around 2 a.m. after the car's owner noticed him there. Cheval Holmes, 38, was charged with breaking and entering to a motor vehicle in the nighttime. Alas, seven hours later, an Upland Road resident awoke to find all four of his car's tires missing.

Innocent, etc.

Cambridge Police report finding a man with multiple stab wounds around 8:49 last night at Fulkerson and Cambridge streets.

Shirley explains why it's the stretch from the Liberty Hotel to the Longfellow Bridge, where pedestrians have to battle with drivers coming out of Charles Circle, in particular, motorists coming off Cambridge and Charles streets:

... These people are hitting their gas pedal to accelerate on the on ramp onto any of the Storrow Drive entrances and being already frustrated by the long red lights, they are not letting any measly pedestrians stop them from where they need to be going. It is scary because most of them do not use their signals, or even if they do, a pedestrian cannot really tell which way the vehicle is heading. I urge Boston to please, reconsider pedestrianizing this intersection. ...

BipolarLawyerCook is loving what's happened along lower Cambridge Street, from the new T stop to the new stores. But, she pines for Buzzy's, nestled against the old jail that is now a new hotel:

... Because turning a notorious prison that stands for miscarriages of justice and inhumane treatment of prisoners is a fun theme for a hotel. Better to have torn the thing down or turned it over to the ACLU to run tours, and left my Buzzy's alone.