Forest Hills

Transit Police report arresting an itinerant hot-dog vendor who tried opening up one of the food stands inside the Orange Line station this morning without a permit - but with several outstanding warrants.

Police say a T worker called police around 5 a.m. when he realized something wasn't kosher, because the guy setting up the carts was not one of its usual workers.

Officers managed to ketchup with and grill Dana Reis, 56, of Medford; in fact, he was still at the cart when they arrived:

The Supreme Judicial Court ruled today Suffolk County prosecutors could use heroin seized from a Forest Hills home as evidence against three men charged with selling it, even though a BPD detective's request for a search warrant for the home wasn't really as detailed as it should have been.

This newly researched and opinionated history of the Casey Overpass in Jamaica Plain may serve as useful background information for a community grappling with how and why we got here - and where we're going.

http://fivehundredmonkeys.blogspot.com/2013/05/something-different-casey-overpass.html

The Jamaica Plain Gazette reports residents who want to see the Casey Overpass replaced with another overpass instead of surface roads are considering suing to stop the work:

"No one prefers to go that route if there's a reasonable solution,” he told the Gazette this week. "But all our arrows are in our quiver."

At particular issue: The proposed new location of the exit from the Forest Hills busway near Asticou Road.

This was the tragic scene at the armored Best Buy machine at Forest Hills Sunday afternoon. Joe D., who came up with the headline, reports it was still like that this morning. Aaron Gallo, meanwhile, discovered the same problem at Back Bay.

Fire in the machine room at Forest Hills tonight, which led to lengthy delays.

A concerned citizen reports this morning he doesn't feel like he should have to buy a construction helmet just to board commuter rail at Forest Hills.

UPDATE: The T reports a maintenance crew is on its way to the station.

John Stephen Dwyer put together two videos imagining what it would be like if Iron Man attacked the CSA booth at Forest Hills station (top) and if a giant wrecking ball plunged into the station lobby:

Charlie, Beverly Scott, State Rep. Byron Rushing at Forest Hills.

New MBTA General Manager Beverly Scott bounded up from the Orange Line with hugs for carolers - as well as candy canes. She wore a Santa hat. That unpleasantness the other night was quickly forgotten and the carolers got down to business: As new waves of commuters came up from the train platform, the carolers serenaded them with Christmas classics, from "Silent Night" to "Deck the Halls."

The MBTA reports both new GM Beverly Scott and Charlie the T Mascot will be on hand at Forest Hills around 6 p.m. tomorrow to welcome a group of "church ladies" and kids for some old-fashioned caroling. The originally impromptu carolers were kicked out of the station yesterday because they didn't have a busking permit.

A group of "church ladies" and some kids were kicked out of the Forest Hills Orange Line station tonight when they started to sing Christmas carols without an official MBTA busking permit.

But after learning of the situation, T General Manager Beverly Scott, making one of the first executive decisions of her first day on the job, decided to invite them back, to a "suitable and safe" location.

Rev. Laura Everett, executive director of the Massachusetts Council of Churches, reports what happened around 6:15 p.m.:

Seems some kids who start up Twitter accounts have taken to soliciting followers on a particular support column in the upper busway at Forest Hills - although as you can see, somebody also took the time to critique their work (and no doubt the T itself will soon join in the critiquing - by way of an application of gray paint).

Orange Line repairs yesterday near Green Street. Photo by MBTA.

The MBTA reports crews finished up repairs between Forest Hills and Green yesterday, meaning the end of the speed restrictions that let inbound commuters carefully scrutinize all those emergency-exit distance markers for the past few months.

Jack Freeman tweeted this morning:

Well, I would say the Orange Line construction over the weekend was a success - thanks MBTA!

Hillary adds:

Yes, exciting to see train approach Green St @ full speed, not creeping along like a toddlers' Santa Land ride.

MBTA Transit Police report a guy who didn't feel like getting off the Orange Line at Forest Hills around 1:20 this morning started screaming at workers. And when they told him police were on the way, he screamed even louder, then punched a window on the train, causing a series of cracks.

Police say they caught up with Robert Coveney, 51, in the station's upper busway.

He was scheduled for arraignment today at West Roxbury District Court on a charge of malicious destruction of property, due to the estimated $300 to $500 cost to fix the window, police say.

Innocent, etc.

The Harvest Co-Op, whose sign recently went up on the new Washington Street building where it's planning a new outlet, goes before the Boston Licensing Board next week to seek a license to sell beer and wine along with its groceries.

Hearings start at 10 a.m. in the board's eighth-flooring hearing room at City Hall.

The Jamaica Plain Gazette reports that Bridging Forest Hills, which unsuccessfully tried to get the state to replace the crumbling Casey Overpass with a new overpass instead of surface roads, hasn't given up its fight and is now trying to get Mayor Menino to help it convince MassDOT to change its mind. Menino had previously spoken against replacing the overpass with surface roads.

The inbound track needs repairs, but that requires some special parts, which are currently on order, T spokesman Joe Pesaturo says:

The speed restriction will remain in place until the repairs are made. Upon the arrival of some parts needed to make the repairs, the work will be scheduled for a weekend within sixty days.

Seems somebody told My Big Fat Greek Pizza the name had to go, because this morning it's just Big Pizza. The place had been using the movie-like name since it opened more than six years ago.

No more.

MBTA Transit Police report that when they asked Dennis Banks what he was doing inside a stairway in a building at the Arborway bus depot yesterday evening,

Banks replied he was "taking a s***" or better stated Banks claimed he was going to the bathroom on the stairs.

Then officers noticed "a freshly cut four foot section of half inch copper resting on a back pack." A quick survey revealed the pipe would have fit exactly in a four-foot gap in a section of pipe on the wall:

The Herald reports a Lowell man arrested as an unregistered sex offender at Forest Hills the other day after somebody complained about him taking pictures of little kids turns out not to have a record as a sex offender. As a convicted stabber and prison-guard attacker, yes, but he was released in April after having served his time for those, the Herald writes.

Wheeze. v. To pull into a terminal station on the Orange Line. "The train wheezed into Forest Hills, emitted a loud sigh at its fate in life and then the doors opened."

Somebody keeps complaining to the city about casino-bound Brush Hill buses clogging up the street across from the Forest Hills T stop to wait for chip-crazed riders to board. The city's marked the latest complaint closed with this note:

We have spoken to drivers and asked them to co-operate with us nice people. 15 minute limit will be enforced.

State engineer inspects overpass underside around 5 p.m.

UPDATE: The state Department of Transportation tweets the closed lane was reopened around 4:30 a.m.

Alex Jones reports state highway engineers ordered the outbound side of Casey Overpass shut down this afternoon when parts of it began crumbling to the ground below. Plan your afternoon commute accordingly.

Traffic coming off the overpass this afternoon.

MBTA Transit Police report two minors trying to procure some mid-day booze at a Forest Hills liquor store wound up in a fight with a guy who jabbed himself with a needle, pulled out some blood and then told them they'd better back off because he has AIDS.

Police say Jose Soler, 47, of Hyde Park, originally agreed, shortly after 1 p.m. yesterday, to buy some liquor for a pair of underagers at the Forest Hills Liquor Mart across from the T stop. They gave him $25 and agreed to let him keep $5 as his fee. But he returned to the station without liquor, handed the teens only $3 and then walked into the station's lower busway. And that's when things got ugly:

The Jamaica Plain Gazette interviews a member of the commitee helping to design the Casey Overpass replacement who has built an homage to the overpass in the model-train set in his basement.

He said he will probably add tiny model pigeons, too.