Longfellow Bridge
This morning around midnight on the Longfellow Bridge, according to Boston.com. Note to Globe: Red Line cars are not "subway trolleys".
JJ Leslie was among the unfortunate who spent more than 30 minutes in a dead inbound Red Line train on the Longfellow tonight. He live-tweeted the experience: Read more
The Massachusetts Court of Appeals today reversed a Boston man's gun-possession conviction because prosecutors failed to prove he owned the gun in the friend's car he was driving at the time - or that he even knew the weapon was there. Read more
The Boston Fire Department tweets the body of a man who jumped off the Longfellow around 6:30 p.m. was recovered on the Cambridge side of the Charles. Wicked Local Cambridge reports foul play is not suspected.
Dan Tobin was facing the Citgo sign on the way home from Cambridge this evening:
... It's a landmark I invariably associate with the Red Sox and tonight I realized that, no matter how the season ended up - with us as champions or the hated Yankees taking the crown - this is the time of year when baseball is in hibernation. It won't be long before being outside itself is a chore and means braving the nasty winter that comprises half the Boston year. It made me a little sad facing up to this reality. But it also made me thankful to know that one day the Sox will come back, the cold weather will lift, and the city will become a beautiful place once again.
State Police are at the Longfellow Bridge right now, checking out a "suspicious package," Boston Police tweet. Presumably, it is not made of Lite Brites.
But that's what somebody did early this morning - and after he was fished out of the Charles, he was taken away in the custody of the State Police, Boston_Fireman tweets.
Channel 5 reports the two alleged yutzes charged with selling 91,000 pounds of ornamental scrollwork from the Longfellow Bridge as scrap last year are expected to plead guilty.
According to the Middlesesex County District Attorney's office, Richard Stewart of Saugus and Joseph Falzone of Nashua, NH are scheduled for trial on Aug. 11
The two are, of course, charged with selling almost 100,000 pounds of decorative trim for scrap last year - using a state-owned dump truck to haul the metal from the Stoneham yard where it had been stored while the state repaired the bridge - to a scrap-metal yard in Everett.
More from the Middlesex County DA's office.
According to a press release that I received from the DCR yesterday, the upstream (south) sidewalk of the Longfellow Bridge reopened yesterday.
Here's the full text of the press release: Read more
Jonathan captures the Longfellow in a moody moment.
Used under this Creative Commons license.
All lanes now open, Channel 4 reports.
Cool photo of the sun going down over the Longfellow Bridge and a flock of geese.
A pair of Conservation and Recreation workers were arrested today on charges they sold decorative railings from the Longfellow Bridge for scrap, the Middlesex County DA's office announced.
The two allegedly made $12,000 for the 91,260 pounds of metal, which they loaded and hauled away with a state Bobcat and dump truck over several Saturdays in July and August, prosecutors say. The state estimates it will cost $500,000 to $700,000 to replicate the castings, which were melted down by an Everett scrap dealer and which had been stored in a Stoneham yard while the bridge underwent repairs.
Richard Stewart, 42, of Saugus, and Joseph Falzone, 43, of Nashua, NH, were arraigned in Malden District Court today on 12 counts of receiving stolen goods and 12 counts of conspiracy.
Stewart is the DCR Middlesex Fells District Manager and Falzone is a DCR employee.
Prosecutors did not say if either of the two was the DCR worker suspended for eight days last week for selling non-Longfellow scrap from the same yard to pay for a party for co-workers.
Innocent, etc.
State re-opens bridge to trucks heading from Boston into Cambridge.
What else would thieves do with 2,300 feet of decorative trim that had been stored in Stoneham while the bridge was being repaired?
The delay maker.
At least one person burst out laughing, because, really, what else can you do?
For the same reason trucks have been banned from everybody's favorite rusted-out hulk of a bridge. Ron Newman asks; Joe Pesaturo at the T answers: It's 10 m.p.h. for Red Line trains until the Department of Conservation and Recreation tells the T otherwise.
A brand-new press release from the DCR:
DCR CLOSES INSIDE LANES OF LONGFELLOW BRIDGE TO ALL TRAFFIC
Agency also bans large trucks from the bridge
Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) officials today announced that effective Saturday morning, June 28, the inside lanes in both directions on the Longfellow Bridge will be closed to all traffic.
Also, all large trucks will be prohibited from the Longfellow, and will be detoured to other bridges across the Charles River. Cars, buses, and light trucks will continue traveling on the outside lanes of the bridge. Read more
Fenix posts photos of repair work on our favorite troubled bridge, the Longfellow - from nighttime T work to replace ties to a crew inspecting the bridge from below.
Joe Pesaturo at the T reports that workers finished the emergency tie replacement work on the inbound side of the Longfellow Bridge this weekend (700 brand spanking new ties) but that they still need to do some track tamping and surfacing tonight and tomorrow night. Once that's finished, it's full speed ahead for the morning commute into town come Wednesday, he says.
The afternoon commute, however, will continue to afford passengers extra time to enjoy the Boston skyline: Workers will be replacing ties on the outbound side on the weekends of July 12 and July 19.
Stephen Laniel reminds us it's another weekend of no service across the Longfellow as the T works to keep the trains on the tracks and out of the river.
Series of photos showing how Flat Stanley stays that way: Flat Stanley moments before getting run over by a Red Line train, Flat Stanley moments before jumping off a South End rooftop, etc.
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