Business

Via Allston Rat City.

More specifically, the Logan Square area down Fairmount. Mike Ball surveys the grooming scene, marvels at all the different salons and barber shops for all kinds of hair in the two-block district:

Perhaps symbolic of the vitality of this genre was that Qadosh (oriented toward black women) just took over TC's Coffee. It had been next to one of those odd little churches. TC's space is airy, has big windows and benefits from the rehab the restaurant owners had performed on what used to be the preeminent hotel on the Neponset River before it decayed. After a month with not even a hand-written sign of the salon name, Qadosh has painted its door and taken the old TC's Coffee sign out of its frame, surely in preparation for its own lighted one.

The Boston Business Journal reports some entrepreneurs are now setting up shop in Downtown Crossing rather than pay rents that have jumped dramatically along the waterfront.

The company now building its headquarters on the South Boston waterfront today announced a science-education program at Boston Green Academy and Excel High School in South Boston, the mayor's office reports:

[The] programs will aim to increase student participation and achievement in advanced placement (AP) courses and prepare teachers for the national “Next Generation Science Standards” being implemented next year. Vertex also today announced the dedication of a new 3,000 square foot learning laboratory being constructed at its future headquarters in the Innovation District. The learning laboratory will be available for use by BPS and other community groups, allowing students and teachers to conduct scientific projects alongside Vertex scientists.

Up to 20 students at the schools will be selected as summer interns at the company once it moves from Cambridge; the company will also award two scholarships a year and create a research fellowship program for science teachers at the schools.

CentralSquare.com reports the Harvest Coop on Mass. Ave. will be replaced with an H Mart, which specializes in Asian foods. Renovations will take about six months.

The Harvest is moving into smaller quarters across the street.

The Herald reports.

Perfect Curve, a Chinatown company that sells accessories for maintaining your collection of baseball caps, is suing the owner of a mall chain that sells baseball caps for selling allegedly patent-violating knockoffs.

In its lawsuit, filed yesterday in US District Court in Boston, Perfect Curve said it had long sold cap storage devices and deodorizers to Hat World, Inc. - which owns the Lids stores typically found in malls - without problem. In 2005, the two companies even discussed Hat World buying Perfect Curve. But, negotiations failed and then last year, Hat World stopped buying Perfect Curve products. And then, Perfect Curve charges, Lids began selling similar looking and named products - one of which even came with an instruction booklet identical to the one Perfect Curve distributes.

Perfect Curve says one of the products violates its patent for:

The Globe reports the BRA wants to give State Street an $11.5-million tax break to move into the Innovation District (so there must be innovative new ways to service the financial needs of the bank's rich clients, no?). It would be spread out over several years, the city would make a boatload of taxes on the building and, besides, the CEO made $16 million in salary and other compensation last year.

Mark Levy at Cambridge Day noticed that three of the winners in a Boston Magazine "Best New England Craft Beers" article are based in Cambridge and Somerville, so he called them up to talk about local brewing:

There seems to be a lot of Cambridge and Somerville in the package. Is there a reason?

It's really difficult in terms of red tape to rent space to brew in Boston. I don't know if Slumbrew is in a cooperative workspace, but I know Pretty Things is, and that's kind of indicative of an attitude in Cambridge and Somerville that helps these grassroots companies thrive.

EastBoston.com is aggregating Suffolk Downs news.

The Herald reports on the possible impending sale of the doomed mall. Poetic justice, of course, demands they turn the Cheesecake Factory into the cardiology wing.

Cambridge Day reports the Harvest Coop and the Clear Conscience Cafe lose their Mass. Ave. leases at the end of August. The Coop is moving across the street to the old Jax - half the size of the current coop - but the cafe may be gone for good.

Lays off entire staff.

The Boston Licensing Board today gave the Avenue Bar and Grill on Comm. Ave. permission to extend its closing time from 1 to 2 a.m.

Some residents of a neighboring condo building objected, as did the offices of the mayor and City Councilor Mark Ciommo, but the board agreed with owner Douglas Bacon that he's run a fine operation with no problems since he bought the place a year ago and that he deserves to offer service as late as other nearby establishments for customers getting off late shifts. Bacon told the board he would serve food right until closing.

The Globe reports the chain is looking at the old Filene's Basement location on Boylston Street for a Nordstrom Rack.

Mark Levy at Cambridge Day puts Cambridge businesses on record: If you put a giant "Going Out of Business" sale in your window, he's going to write about it, even if you ask him not to. He's tired of getting scooped on stories he knew about first.

Hollywood East Connection talks to Deborah Gregg, owner of the Polka Dog Bakery, about the newfound fame that comes from being featured in a national TV ad for Target.

The Boston Business Journal reports the Phoenix has sold WFNX to Clear Channel and that pretty much everybody but news anchor Ted Baxter Program Director Paul Driscoll has been let go. The station could go to Spanish or country and western.

BostInno interviews Greg Selkoe, CEO of Karmaloop and founder of something called the Future Boston Alliance, which wants to transform Boston into a city that doesn't roll up its sidewalks every night. Starting with gyms. Why doesn't Boston allow all-night gyms? And no, Boston Bowl doesn't count.

Massachusetts has failed solar companies and Rhode Island might soon have Curt Schilling. The Providence Journal reports Gov. Lincoln Chafee spent his weekend trying to figure out how to keep Schilling's game company "solvent," because otherwise the state might be out the $75 million it loaned it to get it to move from its original home in Maynard. Schilling has often said he doesn't want government handouts.

Forbes interviews the Harvard Book Store's new owner, Jeff Mayersohn.

I respected his mission, even if I didn’t quite believe in its future. So, Jeff shocked me a couple of weeks ago, when he told me with a certain amount of pride and pleasure that he has been seeing double digit sales growth month by month over the last year.

At a hearing next week, Boston councilors will demand answers from NStar on two recent transformer problems in the Back Bay, one of which left much of the neighborhood without power for several days.

Council President Steve Murphy says he wants more than just soothing words from the utility - he wants somebody independent of the company to start monitoring the way it delivers power in Boston.

State tax officials seized and closed one of the few remaining Brigham's restaurants today, claiming that it owed over $92,000 in meals taxes dating back to 2009.

Another Brigham's on Trapelo Road in Belmont, owned by the same people, closed in January. That location is now the home of Moozy's Ice Cream.

The Arlington Heights Brigham's could reopen if its owners make a significant down payment on their taxes within the next few weeks.

My new employer offers a choice of Aetna vs. Tufts PPOs. I know we have a few health care workers here; does anyone have opinions about the general quality and breadth of the two networks, access to specialists, and how much "utilization review" red tape I'll have thrown at me? I have a number of chronic, difficult-to-diagnose symptom clusters, and I've been lucky enough to have Blue Cross for 10 years - they'll approve anything once they see a medical necessity letter.

Brookline Booksmith announced today it's bought out the Globe Corner Bookstore - which had become an online-only venture - and is using its assets to open a "Globe Corner Travel Annex" at its Coolidge Corner store.

The move means impending travelers can now buy any of 2,000 different maps of regions around the world. globecorner.com remains a separate Web site, at least until Booksmith can integrate it into its own Web site.