Downtown

Arrogant Italian filmmakers pester Bostonians

adamg — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 23:20:45 -0400

Suddenly, this Hollywood East thing is starting to wear a bit thin. Sam Baltrusis reports some Italian crew making a TV movie took over South Street today and tried to push innocent Bostonians around:

... Similar to "The Surrogates" production assistants, this crew is equally abrasive and I had an unsavory run-in with one of their wannabe PAs. Words of advice to location scouts: If you want a closed set without pedestrians moving in and out of frame try shooting on the weekends when this street is literally a ghost town. ...

Justified assault and battery?

adamg — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 18:09:17 -0400

Man, the weather's got everybody cranky.

Man shot, man exposed, man upset, man in fight

adamg — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 18:05:32 -0400

Boston Police report a man in a van was shot shortly after 8 p.m. yesterday at Columbia Road and Devon Street in Dorchester by a shooter with bad aim who was attempting to gun down somebody else. The man is expected to survive.

Around 6:45 p.m., yesterday, a Lynn man crossing River Street in Hyde Park wound up arrested after, police say, he got into an altercation with a motorist who thought he was taking too long to get across the street and began pounding on the guy's hood.

About 10 minutes later, police arrested a totally naked Malden man who was reportedly lying on his back in the Boston Common by Boylston Street and shaking his stuff at passersby.

Also yesterday evening, police arrested three people in a three-way shoving match on the Greenway at Edinboro and Kingston streets. Police say the three had pooled their resources to buy a bottle of vodka but that the male member of the group then decided to keep the whole thing for himself.

Police crack cocaine ring

adamg — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 21:53:02 -0400

Boston Police and Massachusetts State Police report arresting 33 people on charges they ran a drug distribution ring out of the Theater District, focusing mainly on crack cocaine:

Intelligence received indicated that many of the suspects involved in this activity Downtown originated from all parts of the city with gang affiliations and prior arrests or convictions for drug distribution or acts of violence.

Gang connections? Of course.

Because of the location, officials dubbed the four-month investigation Operation Curtain Call. Suffolk County DA Dan Conley waxed poetic in discussing the arrests:

The poet WH Auden said that all good drama has two movements – the making of a mistake and the discovery that it was a mistake. These defendants, having learned the error of their ways, are leaving this stage for good.

Click on the link above for a list of those arrested, who come from Dorchester, Roslindale, Mattapan, Chelsea, Cambridge, Framingham, Medford, Somerville and Washington, DC. A 14-year-old from West Roxbury was among those arrested - for possession of an illegal firearm and possession with intent to distribute marijuana in a school zone.

Does downtown really need another expensive tunnel?

adamg — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 21:31:45 -0400

Third Decade cannot believe the MBTA has a spare $1.2 billion lying around to dig a bus tunnel to connect the two Silver Lines:

... [T]he MBTA is determined to build a tunnel where no one wants it for a transit route that the people who live near it don't even want. ...

Truth in advertising

adamg — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 18:41:28 -0400

John Greiner-Ferris reports it seemed to be working for one Downtown Crossing panhandler today.

Trees don't grow on trees, you know

adamg — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 22:11:01 -0400

Alyk grows weary of all the "but there aren't any trees!" carping about the Greenway; posts a photo of what the Comm. Ave. mall in the Back Bay (you know, tree-lined Comm. Ave.?) looked like in 1872, after it was built.

Massholes don't let being behind the wheel of a mini-van stop them from being Massholes

adamg — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 22:04:20 -0400

Jeff Cutler reports on an encounter of the mini-van Masshole kind in a Big Dig tunnel.

Stupid Boston cabbies

adamg — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 23:08:12 -0400

ChezNiki posts a copy of a letter to the Boston transportation commissioner:

Early this morning (July 12th 4:20am) when I returned to Boston at South Station, Medallion Number 1107 of Independent Cab refused to take me to my home which near North Station.

When I got in his car, he turned on the meter but refused to drive. He rolled the window down to complain to the other drivers that I was not going far enough to make a good fare. When I asked him again to take me to North Station, he yelled at me and told me to get out of the cab. I had to take another cab AND give directions, because the second driver was "new" and pretended not to know how to get from South Station to North Station.

This is unacceptible. Unfortunately, this is not the first time Ive had trouble, been refused service, or been driven in the wrong direction on purpose to "run the meter up." ...

The death of an anonymous man

adamg — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 08:54:14 -0400

The Globe's Milton Valencia reports on what little is known about Timothy Finch, the homeless man beaten to death in front of tourists outside Faneuil Hall on July Fourth.