Kenmore Square

Small chemical explosion on the third floor, 590 Comm. Ave., around 8:45 p.m., hazmat team on the way.

Red Line, Green Line both having problems, the Twittersphere reports: People sitting in trains that aren't moving or jamming stations waiting for trains that aren't coming. Green Line especially fun: Switching problems at Kenmore at rush hour on a Red Sox game night.

Boston Restaurant Talk reports the seafood place at Kenmore Square's Hotel Commonwealth is closing this week.

Earlier:
Aujourd'hui deviendra Hier.

Cool photo from yesterday's rain.

Who knew the T was having problems with sightseers and swimmers in the Kenmore busway? Maybe that's why the project is so behind schedule. Saul Blumenthal is perplexed.

Copyright Saul Blumenthal.

UPDATE: Not a bomb, but a dummy used to lock customers inside the bank branch by people protesting the bank's energy policies or something.

Looks like somebody heard about the fake bomb in Wellesley, so decided to try it out at the Bank of America branch in Kenmore Square this morning. Traffic and the T are, of course, affected.

POTUS32 had a camera trained on the Citgo Sign at 8:30 p.m. for Earth Hour:

Boston University Police report a man walking on the stairs Blandford Street to Beacon Street was mugged by a couple of Hispanic males. However, he managed to fend them off and they were unable to wrest his backpack from him.

Kat reports she was on a sardine-like C trolley this morning that stopped at Kenmore but didn't let anybody out:

... 10 seconds pass. Doors don't open. A business-suit guy next to me yells to the driver, "BACK DOORS!" 20 seconds pass. The train moves about 10 feet farther up the track, and then stops again. I look to the front of the train and see the doors up there aren't opening either. 30 seconds. More people start screaming "DOORS!" The train then starts up again and moves onto Hynes. Lots of grumbling and "Wait, seriously? Did the train just SKIP Kenmore?" ensue. ...

Technology Review reports that Kenmore Square start-up MTPV (yes, Kenmore, not Kendall) has won $10 million in funding to develop a new way to turn sunlight into energy - by using the light to heat up a special material that gives off light in a particular wavelength, which is then turned into electricity by standard solar cells.

... A conventional solar panel absorbs light from the entire spectrum, but it only converts certain colors efficiently. Much of the energy in the other wavelengths of light goes to waste. As a result, the maximum theoretical efficiency of a conventional solar cell is 30 percent, or 41 percent if the sunlight is first concentrated using a mirror or lens. In a thermal photovoltaic system, light is concentrated onto a material to heat it up. The material is selected so that when it gets hot, it emits light at wavelengths that a solar cell can convert efficiently. As a result, the theoretical maximum efficiency of a thermal photovoltaic system is 85 percent. ...

Boston University Police report a woman walking in front of 189 Bay State Rd. was jumped from behind around 8:45 p.m. last night by two guys trying to steal her cell phone:

[T]he male suspect came from behind her and put both arms around her and held her as he attempted to take her phone from her pocket. The victim put her arms down in order to protect her pockets and began to scream. The suspect then fled down Bay State Rd.

Police say they are looking for two men, both described as black males, one wearing a black hoodie and black pants, the other wearing a red winter jacket.

Stephen Baldwin dares the toughest of the tough:

Although Roald Amundsen was the first man to conquer the North Pole, he died regretting that he never managed to complete his circumnavigation of Kenmore Square in Boston, Massachusetts. This infamous icebound New England neighborhood proved to be one frozen hell too far even for that brave explorer. Kenmore's giant ice floes, inhospitable tundra and man-eating college students were a frigid challenge the intrepid Norwegian simply could not face. ...

Except the odd snail, turtle or glacier. Beth Adelson reports waiting 40 minutes for a trolley to BU today - and then, when the train got to Kenmore, the conductor announced it was an express train to Packard's Corner.

Jocular Schlemiel reports on a conversation with two desperately lost Christians near Kenmore Square.

Short circuit blamed for brief blaze that left soot marks on one side.

Korn over Kenmore.

Boston Foodie, late of New Jersey, gives a thumb's up to the pastrami at the Bleacher Bar, that place built into the side of Fenway Park:

Bleacher Bar is now ranking as my favorite Fenway hang out.

You know, the one with all your papers and cassette tapes in it, when you went into the Citizens Bank? Well, sorry, but the police bomb squad blew it up.

A veteran MBTA worker was arrested this morning on charges of skimming money from fare boxes after Red Sox games, the MBTA reports.

Gilberto Carrasquillo, 43, of Dorchester, will be arraigned tomorrow in Boston Municipal Court on a charge of larceny over $250.

The MBTA says Carrasquillo, a senior revenue collection agent in charge of returning post-Sox "drop boxes" to a T vault, was caught in a sting operation last night.

The T sets up these boxes at Fenway and Kenmore stations to expidite fare collection for passengers without cards or tickets after Sox games. Last night, police put marked bills in the fare boxes. When an audit this morning showed all but one of the bills missing, police arrested Carrasquillo.

Carrasquillo has worked for the MBTA for 22 years, the T said in a statement.

More delays, more mess, more excuses.

Stephen Laniel adds this to a list of T construction and maintenance issues. And as somebody who moved back to Boston because he missed it so much, he gets frustrated:

... It all smells very much like politics: buried deep within the MBTA and the city government, someone has paid someone else off; or the union won't fix something because one of its members is pissed at Grabauskas; or there's a feud going between the Italian wing and the Irish wing of city government. Something. If someone knows the politics, I'm sure that's 99% of the story; I would love to hear it. And I would love for the Globe to dig down to this next level. When a bridge is effectively running at 25% capacity for a few months, I want my local media to explain the root cause, rather than constantly turning to "MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo."

What I want to know is: as someone who loves this city very deeply, what can I do to fix what's broken? I'm not leaving this place. I want to make it better.

New England Coffee ad(d)s to the pre-game congestion in Kenmore Square buying time on a fuel-guzzling, carbon-spewing billboard truck.

What is it with cool drink vendors and hating-on-the-environment? At least New England Coffee doesn't pretend to be a green company.

E-mail them at and suggest that they try some less annoying ad campaign. Like pop-unders or tele-marketing.

Boston Police report a man was stabbed in the men's room at the Cask 'n Flagon around 1:30 this morning:

According to witnesses, they observed a male suspect (5'07", light skinned black male wearing a light green shirt, jeans and sneakers) run out of the bar holding a small knife. Witnesses further stated that the suspect appeared to have blood on his hands.

The victim was taken to Brigham and Women's for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries.

Tom Fulry wishes the Sox would forget about gentrifying Boylston Street for a moment and turn their attention to that steaming whale excavation site in the ground that is Kenmore Square:

... At least slap a coat of paint on the old bitch Kenmore Sq and dress her up in her fancy hooker skirt so that the first sight these morons coming to Fenway see isn't akin to Snow White giving herself a brazilian before the Icescapades at Disney.

Alan "Bubba" Daughtry of Dorchester pleaded guilty last week to a string of robberies of bakeries, convenience stores and other small shops last year, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office announced.

Steve S. gets that real secure feeling when he notices the armed security guard asleep at the Bank of America kiosk - and he explains why, in the end, he decided not to knock over the bank.