Newbury Street
City Councilor Sal LaMattina (East Boston, North End, Charlestown) says he knows firsthand what it's like to get run into by a Segway - and wants to keep it from happening to people on busy commercial streets in Boston.
LaMattina told the council today that when he worked for the city transportation department, when Segways were new, he and transportation Commissioner Tom Tinlin went to Segway headquarters in New Hampshire to check them out. Company officials told them a pedestrian couldn't get hurt if hit by one - he was wanted hard proof, so he told Tinlin to get on a Segway and ram him. "Let me tell you, it hurt," he said. Read more
254 Newbury St.: Center building, between Fairfield and Gloucester.
Surinder Singh, owner of Mantra on Temple Place, is looking to re-open a bankrupt inn at 254 Newbury St. Read more
Dryer fire in the basement around 11 a.m. Extinguished quickly; guests didn't have to be evacuated.
Brrr
Paul Keleher watched the annual Santas in Speedos run around the Back Bay today.
Copyright Paul Keleher. Posted in the Universal Hub pool on Flickr.
Another photo.
Leaders of the Santa pack.
Santa and his reindeer.
Boston Police report arresting two men early Tuesday on smash-and-grab charges. Read more
Newbury Line is all about new stuff on Newbury Street:
... The purpose of this blog is to keep the public updated with the latest news from The Newbury Line, its retailers, and Newbury Street in general. Despite the belief of The Boston Globe, the death of Newbury Street has been greatly exaggerated. Our retailers will use this blog to present offers only available to blog readers. ...
Don't worry, though, the blog is not afraid to take a stand: They are staunchly opposed to more nail salons on Newbury Street:
... To the owner's of 170 Newbury Street (Everyone say this together) WHAT WERE YOU THINKING? ...
Via Beantown Bloggery.
Boloco CEO John Pepper tweets:
Just in - our landlord wants to raise Newbury St rent 25% to $122/sq ft. Speechless. Who will break the news to him that 2007 is gone?
The vacant storefronts of Newbury Street.
Mats Tolander goes for a stroll with a camera and an eye for the "for lease" signs.
Dave Alpert introduces us to the guys selling "art" out of the back of "a newish Audi with Connecticut plates" (so don't confuse them with the dude out by JP Licks or the cheap-prints guy at Dartmouth Street):
... The scene was so AWESOME! Nothing makes street art seem more appealing than when it is sold out of the trunk of a 75 thousand dollar car. ...
Natural Bean is no more, Liza reports:
... I don't know how, why, and when this all transpired, but I was devastated. The tragedy was first of three that day, and while MJ's death put up a good fight (Farrah's not so much), the termination of Natural Bean affected me more deeply than I ever could have anticipated. So there I stood, crestfallen, forcing my feet to turn in the direction of Starbucks, cursing The Man all the while. As I sat at my desk painstakingly taking mouthfuls of my mouthful-of-a-coffee-to-pronounce caramel macchiato from Starbucks, I wondered why the good things in life never last. RIP Michael. RIP Farah. RIP Natural Bean.
Via MenuPages Boston.
Kevin McCrea senses a certain inefficiency in a Boston DPW that lets a major commercial thoroughfare be torn up every single year for different utility work, rather than requiring it all get done at once:
... I went to Johnson Paint on Newbury Street to pick up some paint for a job. They were repaving Newbury Street which seems to happen often.
I went inside and said to the guys "this repaving isn't good for business, how often do they do this?" The guys exclaimed, "this is the FOURTH year in a row they have repaved the street, and it is terrible for business." I asked if they really have repaved it four years in a row and they insisted it had, and explained how 3 years ago they replaced gas lines, then the next year they opened up the street for water lines in the same place, and now they are redoing it again.
Also see today's Globe piece on the mayoral candidates and the efficiency of city agencies (and the city's efficiency in tracking their efficiency).
Sure, City Weekly is gone and the Globe newsroom is getting sliced in a million different ways and the whole paper could go poof next week, but none of that matters: Sarah Schweitzer is back on the Lifestyles of the Rich beat!
Today, she reports that the recession is even hitting people who shop on Newbury Street!
Tamer tastes can be glimpsed up and down Newbury Street. At Ralph Lauren, men are shying away from orange-patterned dress shirts and favoring blue gingham ones, opting for charcoal pinstripe over glen plaid suits.
Oh, Sarah, we've missed you so. But dammit, I'm not giving up my orange-patterned dress shirt no matter what sort of looks people give me. It just too much a part of who I am.
But, yes, even a hard-hearted blogger in his underwear like me had to shed a tear on reading of the sheer generosity in the Back Bay these days: Why, one "wealthy Bostonian, who asked that he not be named, so as not to appear to be flaunting," said he gave up his yellow Ferrari because his neighbors were all losing their jobs. The black Maserati he traded it in for is just so much more understated.
The Outraged Liberal writes that if the Globe goes under, Schweitzer could probably get a job churning out a new reality show: Survivor: Newbury Street:
... The Running of the Scarves at Burberry. Getting a table at Stephanie's. Looking for close-outs at Louis. ...
140 Newbury St., fire coming through the roof, reported around 10 p.m., Boston_Fireman tweets.
A group of volunteers trying to show you the importance of clean drinking water will be painting a three-mile-long blue line down Boylston and Newbury streets today. They're promoting the Tap Project, which attempts to bring clean water to folks around the world not fortunate enough to be served by the MWRA, by getting restaurant goers to donate money for UNICEF water projects.
Organizers say the paint is actually based on a chalk compound that will disappear by month's end.
John Ford discusses a Boston Courant article (not online since the Courant quaintly refuses to acknowledge the InterWeb's existence) in which Tom Menino proposes the idea of shutting off car traffic on select days in July and August.
Finance Foodie reports that Cafeteria, the post-hip, ironically named Newbury Street restaurant, serves some really good food and some really bad food:
... The scallops were quite large and well seared, but had a slight hint of freezer burn. Last time I checked Boston was not landlocked, so obtaining fresh seafood should have been easy as pie. ...
Jeff Cutler reports on the phenomenon of new mothers leashing their dogs to their baby's strollers, at least as observed on Newbury Street:
... I'm pretty certain if a life-size Chuck Wagon truck or a wild deer dashed through downtown, these dogs would be galloping across busy streets dragging mothers, infants and strollers through traffic to certain doom.
And if not doom, definitely destruction.
Where did common sense go off the rails? The likelihood of the Chuck Wagon or the deer showing up on Newbury Street in Boston is a fantasy. But a pickup truck with dogs in the back could happen. And the reality of nearly identical mommy/stroller/puppy combos on the other side of the street is common. ...
Tom Menino wants to limit building heights along the Greenway.
Ablarc discusses (with photos) appropriate scale of buildings along Newbury and Boylston streets.
Vanshnookenraggen calls for a new role for the BRA:
... The BRA used to work along the top-down approach. They were the educated elite and their new plans for the city would fix all its problems. As time has proved over and over this is the wrong way to do things. We need a bottom up approach. But can a massive bureaucracy work bottom-up? I think it can and it has to if we are going to seriously start fixing the problems of the city. ...
Fox in Detox reports on a Malkovich-looking drunk at Joe's American on Newbury who skipped out on his tab - and the bartender who chased him onto the street.
Jenny naively believed the schedule that said a number 1 bus would depart Mass. Ave. and Newbury Street for Harvard Square every 14 minutes.
Naturally, she wound up waiting 42 minutes - and then two of them showed up at once.
Newbury Street icon Louis seeks someplace trendier.
No, smartass, it's not moving to New York. But is it time for a Newbury Main Streets program to revitalize the area?
Boston Police report on trouble on Newbury Street:
At about 12:15am, on Monday, October 29, 2007, officers assigned to the Fenway area for the Red Sox World Series game, received a radio call for a large group vandalizing cars along Newbury Street. On arrival, officers observed and counted 16 cars that had been vandalized. Most of the damage consisted of broken or ripped off side view mirrors, broken windows and damaged windshield wipers.
Boston Police report arresting a total of 22 people - mostly under 24; State Police arrested another 15.
Boston Police also report on an incident on Huntington Avenue around 2:20 a.m.:
According to the victim, he was driving along Huntington Avenue when a large crowd gathered in front of his motor vehicle. Victim further states that when his car came to a stop, an unidentified white male ran jumped onto the hood of his car and, then, ran over the car from front to back. According to the victim, the suspect shattered his rear window.
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