Forest Hills

State officials didn't add a $200-million rehab of what was supposed to be a temporary facility to their capital budget, the Jamaica Plain Gazette reports.

Java Jo's across from the Forest Hills T stop is being transmogrified into an outlet for the Needham-based Fazenda Coffee Roasters, which promises "small batch-roasted coffee with a sandwich and pastry menu."

Via Boston Restaurant Talk.

Ed. lame note: If they called it Tazenda, they could attract fans of Azimov's Foundation series, although that might not be a large enough market on which to base a business.

Why the overpass is so high: It had to go over elevated train tracks. From the Library of Congress.

The state Department of Transportation holds a meeting on Wednesday, April 6 to discuss the beginnings of its planning to do something about the perpetually under-repairs Casey Overpass in Forest Hills. Among the options MassDOT is looking at: Building a new overpass or replacing it with an at-grade intersection where the Arborway, Washington Street and South Street come together.

The session on the overpass, built in 1952, starts at 6:30 p.m. at the Agassiz School Community Center,
20 Child St..

In 1929, only the train tracks were elevated in Forest Hills:

Acting on complaints from neighboring residents about unregistered cars on their streets, city inspectors and Boston Police last week swarmed Boston Best Auto, 3575 Washington St., Capt. John Greland at District E-13 reports.

Greland said that when inspectors arrived last Wednesday, they found numerous unregistered cars being advertised for sale to the public. And one, he wrote, was leaking oil into a catch basin:

A test conducted by the Boston Fire Department’s Hazmat Team showed oil in the catch basin. As a result, the business was ordered closed until the damage could be addressed and remedied.

The Inspectional Services Department will set up a hearing for the owner of the business where violations found on the property will be further discussed and addressed.

The machine this morning with new wood bars: Yeah, somebody finally tried to rob it.

SmithMBTA Transit Police report a Dorchester man smashed the glass front of the Best Buy vending machine at the Forest Hills T stop around 11:10 p.m. last night, put some goodies in a bag he had, then got arrested after he apparently returned for more.

Police say that on his second visit to the machine, officers were already in the station, investigating the smash-and-grab and that one began to chase Jamal Smith, 23.

According to a police report, Smith ran out of the station towards the overpass - and right into the path of an oncoming bus. Fortunately for both him and the officer following him, the alert driver managed to slow and not hit either, the report says.

According to the report, Smith made it to South Street and St. Mark Street on the other side of the overpass when a wooden stockade fence he tried to scale collapsed, dropping him to the ground and making enough noise for the pursuing officer to zero in on his location. The report says Smith surrendered only after the officer drew his gun, and that the officer recovered a pink folding knife from the vacant lot where Smith was arrested.

According to the report, on booking, officers found a shard of glass in Smith's rear pocket that matched the tint and width of the Best Buy glass.

Innocent, etc.

Jamaica Plain Patch reports the 39 driver passed the test but was taken off his route pending an MBTA investigation.

Boston Police report arresting a man who allegedly broke into four cars along Tower Street by smashing their windows early this morning.

The Forest Hills Educational Trust has sent e-mail to supporters announcing the departure of its executive director and its two other paid staff members and that:

The Forest Hills Educational Trust will take a break from its busy calendar of public programs to focus on strategic planning in 2011. The Members of our Board invite the Trust's supporters to make a valuable contribution to our efforts; please share your ideas during this time of transition as we develop the Trust's future direction.

In addition to the well known summer release of memorial lanterns on Lake Hibiscus, the trust has long sponsored concerts, poetry and talks at the historic cemetery.

Thanks to Ron Newman for forwarding the e-mail.

The complete message from Chairman Robert Macleod:

People arriving at Forest Hills station today were puzzled by the sudden appearance of a vending machine selling digital cameras, iPods, GPSes, Bose headphones and video games (and, of course, portable devices to play them on). Knots of people kept congregating around the new "Best Buy Express" machine to gawk.

And then the questions started. "What's that doing at Forest Hills?" one guy exclaimed as he walked by. A girl went up to one of the T cops hanging around by the old information booth to ask how they'd keep people from getting jumped after they'd just bought, say, a $300 digital camera.

The guy who installed the thing this morning actually gave me and the kidlet a brief tour of its security features - from the special anti-smash-and-grab plastic film he'd put on the front to the way it uses a robot arm to grab your selection, located relatively far away from the front. He added there's now a similar machine at Alewife. And then we impressed, OK, bored, the kidlet with tales of our youth, when all you could get from vending machines were bottles of Coke and cigarettes.

A 16-year-old was stabbed and another teen attacked during an altercation at the Forest Hills MBTA station around 3 p.m., T spokesman Joe Pesaturo said. Both were taken to local hospitals for treatment; both are expected to survive.

He said a third teen was arrested in connection with one of the attacks. Transit Police are continuing to investigate.

The view from high above the Arborway.

The MBTA and a neighborhood planning group showed off plans for a $200-million reconstruction of the 18-acre Jamaica Plain facility that could mean a new park along with new housing and stores on what is now basically a giant field of asphalt.

The Overpass is slated for replacement in 2012, the Jamaica Plain Gazette reports.

Channel 4 reports Roland Carr, 51, was arrested on a charge of domestic assault and battery on a child after a witness saw him punch his seven-year-old son this afternoon. AlertNewEngland reports the two were on a 16 bus at the time.

Transformation planned for former bar

Coran McCormack says his proposed Tonic, across the street from the Forest Hills T stop, would be a neighborhood bistro aimed at medical workers in the neighborhood who now have to travel all the way into the South End for something to eat after their night shifts end.

McCormack has the backing of the Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Council in his bid to convert the old Griffin's Pub into a "nouvelle American" bistro that would be open until 2 a.m.

The JPVoice reports that federal and state bug officials will put a half-acre tree-grinding facility at the MBTA's Forest Hills bus yard to grind branches and trunks - and any beetles and larvae they may house - into tiny little chips.

For possibly the next four years, people and businesses within a roughly 1.5-mile radius of Faulkner Hospital - where a number of the tree-killing beetles and their demonspawn were found earlier this month - are forbidden from carrying anything coming from their trees out of the area. The giant wood chipper would be just for people within the zone.

Channel 7 reports on a Monday incident at the Orange Line station, involving a pregnant woman trying to exit the station in the face of a woman who objected to her existence:

"[The alleged puncher] did state to the officers that she did do it, and she wished she had done more, and she was proud she did it," said Lt. Michael Shea of the MBTA Police.

The Singing Spare Change Guy (not the Grating Spare Change Guy) is back; he was outside DeLuca's on Newbury Street today.

The birds inside the Forest Hills T station were singing up a storm.

The "seasonal special" on sandwiches at the new bagel place in Quincy Market is now $6.96, compared to the $4.94 "seasonal special" for the same exact sandwiches two weeks ago.

Trains that have been crawling into and out of Forest Hills should be a bit perkier effective today, an MBTA spokesman says.

Train operators had been ordered to go no faster than 10 m.p.h. for the past week as the T repairs the crossover tracks right before the station - and riders report they would often just stop right before or after the station.

MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo said the T's signal department gave operators permission to get up to 18 m.p.h. for the remaining two months of the crossover work. Once the work is done, trains will be able to glide into and out of the station at the normal 25 m.p.h., he said.

To try to help somebody out, I wanted to see which bus lines go from Forest Hills to the Dedham Mall and when (yeah, I know, the 34 and 34E go there, but when?). So on the handy little form right on the MBTA home page, I typed in "forest hills" as my starting point and "dedham mall" as my destination, and got back this:

Really, MBTA Trip Planner? Come on.

UPDATE: The T's fixed the digital clocks, at least - when I got back to Forest Hills at 3:59 p.m., they read 3:59. The giant hanging clocks are still an hour behind, though.

I got to Forest Hills around what I think was 12:30 p.m. today for a trip downtown. The large ceiling clocks inside the main part of the station all read 11:30. The clock above the stairs down to the platform read 12:30. The digital clocks on the platform read 1:30.

No doubt they also had a clock set to the year 2001 - which would explain Beth Bresnahan's tweet this afternoon:

Must laugh about the lady w/baby who approached me in D'town Xing yelling "Oh my god, can you help me? What happened to Filenes's Basement?"

A Roslindale man was charged with open and lewd grossness on Thursday after several passengers on his Orange Line car told police he stood up, opened his fly and began masturbating as the train hurtled through Roxbury and Jamaica Plain, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports.

The Jamaica Plain Gazette reports the parking lot across the street from the Forest Hills T stop will be put up for a foreclosure auction on March 3.

Boston Police tweet.

Capt. John Greland at E-13 reports police are looking for somebody who broke into at least nine cars in the Weld Hill area, possibly after 5 a.m. - the last time a cruiser patrolled the area. Only change was taken, even though some of the cars had GPS units in them, he says:

Whoever did the breaks is liable to mention it to others about the GPS's left in the vehicles.

A brawl that erupted around 2:45 p.m. yesterday at Forest Hills disrupted bus service through the station as MBTA and Boston police tried to clear both combatants and groups of teens who gathered to watch, according to the Suffolk County District Attorney's office.