North Cambridge

Thundersnow

Craig C, Colin Steele and Casey Bayer reported thunder and lightning between 6 and 6:30 this morning.

Meanwhile, looks like North Cambridge will be without power until 1 p.m., Ben Becker reports.

Cambridge rejects plan to turn old school into tenement slum

OK, the developer didn't exactly say that's what he wants to do with the former North Cambridge Catholic High School, but the Cambridge Planning Board was left "speechless" (Cambridge? wow!) by the sheer awfulness of his proposal, Cambridge Day reports:

"You're building something that's actually worse than a tenement," [the board chairman] said. "Tenements were reform structures, they were built to prevent things like this from happening."

If you see a couple of teens on bicycles with laptops in North Cambridge

Contact Cambridge Police, who report a spate of housebreaks in the neighborhood of late. The suspects are described as "one dark-skinned, skinny, tall, black male" and another guy of unknown race, both about 16, both riding on bikes and both with a preference for laptops, video game systems, cell phones and wallets, which they reportedly take on after-school burglary runs.

The North Cambridge accent

NewEnglanda reports on what might be a dying dialect: English as spoken in North Cambridge and West Somerville, north of Porter Square within three to four blocks on either side of Mass Ave.

Shooting in North Cambridge

Cambridge Police report a man was shot around 1:30 this morning on Montgomery Street; taken to a Boston hospital for treatment and is expected to live. Police say they are still investigating conflicting stories about what happened.

Discussing crime in North Cambridge

Via Davis Square LiveJournal comes news of a police community meeting Friday, Sept. 14 at 6 p.m. at the Peabody School auditorium:

... Most of you know that there have been a few shootings in North Cambridge in the past couple of weeks (it doesn't appear that anyone got shot), but there have also been assaults and at least one high-speed car chase that wound up with an arrest in a Pemberton Street backyard.

North Cambridge is still a very safe place, statistically, but there is some understandable angst about recent crime, as well as unanswered questions about past crime such as the shooting at Parnell's a few months ago or the Pemberton Street shooting around the same time. ...

Oh, Hess!

Marc follows the saga of the new Hess station planned for Mass. Ave. and what it says about how planning and zoning work in Cambridge.