Business

Peter considers the bare-knuckles fight over who gets to represent Massachusetts to the film industry:

If you know anything at all about Massachusetts, you understand that politics here is a contact sport --- and as with the roughest of contact sports, the biggest battles are about "turf." ... In the red corner, wearing the paisley trunks, Robin "Duker" Dawson, current head of the Massachusetts Film Bureau. In the blue corner, wearing the pinstripes, is Mark "the Masher" Drago, Executive Director of Entertainment for the Massachusetts Sports and Entertainment Commission. I'm not much of a tout, but if forced to bet, I'd put my money on the guy with all the backing. How courageous, I know. ...

Buck-A-Book in Davis Square is closing. The Hanover Street store closed last December, and the Government Center and Arlington Center stores are also closing (if they haven't already closed).

I asked the clerk if the whole chain is going away, and the answer he gave boiled down to "not yet". He said that the chain had fallen behind in payments to suppliers, which resulted in suppliers refusing to send more stock, which resulted in less and lower quality stock, which resulted in fewer customers and less spending .... you get the picture. Sounds to me like a death spiral, and I don't see how they can recover from it.

Their web site is also gone. I wrote to the webmaster to ask what happened to it, and his reply was that the customer had asked that it be taken down. So I can't even tell you which stores are still open.

The Boston Zoning Board of Appeal (ZBA) will hold a hearing on appeals challenging the issuance of a demolition permit for Boston’s historic Gaiety Theatre. Two Boston City Councilors, Felix Arroyo and Chuck Turner, and the Asian American Resource Workshop are the appellants.

The hearing will be held on Tuesday, March 29, at noon, in Boston City Hall Room 801.

The public and press are invited to witness and/or participate in this hearing.  Please plan to come and demonstrate your support. While spoken testimony will be limited, everyone who attends will learn about the issues and receive photos of the theatre.  All interested parties should submit written comments to the ZBA, at the hearing or in advance by fax 617-635-2918.

Out in one of the hardest cities to spell, Brian is gracious about that Globe article claiming Cincinnati is eating our lunch. Instead of gloating over us poor Blue Staters, losing our top companies left and right to, gosh, Ohio, he uses the story to discuss the revival of Cincinnati in general:

... The best part is that the article talks about the city, the cultural elements of the city, but does not push the burbs. This should, I hope, be a sign for the suburbanites to see that the downtown drives the image and poise of the city. If it dies, so dies the whole region.

Need to vent and complain and help others - use this

Yesterday (Saturday), I got this e-mail from Lee Eiseman of Friends of the Gaiety Theatre:

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At 9:20 this morning, after a brief staging process on Lagrange Street, the wrecking ball began the final demolition of the Gaiety Theatre.

The appeal in the Zoning Board of Appeal and the cases in Massachusetts Land Court will nevertheless proceed. Whether Kensington Investments and the City of Boston will make reparations for their offenses remains to be decided.
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I walked around the building this afternoon (Sunday) and saw no work going on and no evidence that any part of the exterior had yet been demolished. But both the Gaiety and another building on Lagrange street (with signs saying "Club New Orleans" and "Good Times") were scaffolded, partially wrapped in some sort of sheeting material, and obviously being prepared for demolition.

Today's Boston Globe reports that Citizens Bank is negotiating to put its name on the Opera House:

Citizens Bank is nearing a deal to put its name on the newly renovated Opera House in downtown Boston, according to people briefed on the talks.

The negotiations are not complete, but are expected to wrap up soon. The deal, if reached, would give Citizens a new and prominent platform in the arts and entertainment community to rival the presence of major competitors, such as Bank of America Corp. and TD Banknorth Inc.
...
No details about either the possible price or the proposed new name for the Opera House were available yesterday.

I don't see the point of this, since the Opera House is fully restored and fully booked. It doesn't need this money. If Citizens wants to put its name on a venue and generate goodwill in the community, how about contributing to restoration of the Modern or Paramount or RKO Boston instead?

Hi! I know this type of thing is better suited to the boston-online forums, but since they are suspended I thought I'd give it a shot here. Sorry if this is inappropriate for Universal Hub.

So I need to get my hands on some calf thymus, otherwise known as beef sweetbreads. I'm not going to cook it, although I found lots of recipes online. I need it for immunological research. [The thymus is one of the most important organs in the immune system.] Since I need to purify proteins from this stuff, it needs to be really FRESH. Definitely NOT frozen. Best case scenario: straight from the slaughterhouse.

Does anyone know of any websites where people post comments/questions relating to boston entertainment. I'm a party planner interested in starting a website/forum where people can go, who are looking to host private parties at Boston area locations/venues. Something besides craigslist.

Goodbye FleetCenter.
It's now going to be the TD BankNorth Garden.

... for the day, anyway. From the front page of FleetCenter.com :

Meet the Farkers

Delaware North Companies, owner and operator of Boston's FleetCenter, announced today that they have reached agreement with Drew Curtis on a naming rights deal to re-name the world-class sports and entertainment arena the 'Boston Garden'. After several less than appropriate name choices from Drew, the approved name selection was one we could all agree on. Drew, who lives in Kentucky, is the founder of a popular website which offers up offbeat news stories and posts to its community members -- TotalFarkers. The deal will both go into effect and expire on Monday, February 28, 2005.

If this article proves to be accurate, Federated Department Stores (owner of Macy's, formerly Jordan Marsh) is about to swallow up May Department Stores (owner of Filene's).

Federated has spent the past few years building up a national Macy's brand name at the expense of former local store names such as Jordan Marsh, Goldsmith's, Lazarus, and Rich's. That doesn't augur well for the future of Filene's. We could soon have a huge, empty, historic department store in the center of town, not to mention what happens to lots of suburban shopping malls.