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New lawn really opens up the only Boston building ever cited by angry parents

By adamg on Mon, 09/29/2014 - 10:04am
Peter Bent Brigham building in Longwood Medical Area

Phil shows us how all that renovation work in front of the old Peter Bent Brigham building at Brigham Circle has opened up the space to highlight the classic building.

Copyright Phil. Posted in the Universal Hub pool on Flickr.

Neighborhoods: 
Roxbury
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Brigham and Women's Hospital
Brigham Circle


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Comments

By Allstonian on Mon, 09/29/2014 - 10:09am.

Angry parents? I feel like this should ring a bell, but it doesn't.

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By SwirlyGrrl on Mon, 09/29/2014 - 10:43am.

Verb rather than proper noun ... but a localish thing? It was, apparently, immortalized in The World According to Garp, but I've heard it from other sources:

One day, the joke goes, a Boston cab driver had his taxi hailed by a man who staggered off the curb toward him, almost dropping to his knees in the street. The man was purple in the face with pain; he was either strangling or holding his breath, so that talking was difficult for him, and the cabby opened the door and helped him inside, where the man lay face down on the floor alongside the back seat, tucking his knees up to his chest.

"Hospital! Hospital!" he cried.

"The Peter Bent?" the cabby asked. That was the closest hospital.

"It's worse than bent," the man moaned. "I think Molly bit it off!"

WOW - that makes the area look so much less foreboding and industrial! I fully expect BWI and HSPH employees to be munching lunches there as soon as the grass is open!

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By Allstonian on Mon, 09/29/2014 - 11:13am.

Yeah, I get "peter bent," it was the angry parents part that lost me.

Yes, it's gorgeous and I'm glad the long wait is over. Will be enjoying lunches there myself!

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By kvn on Mon, 09/29/2014 - 11:26am.

All we need is a few trolleys going back and forth, Swirls , and its déjà vu all over!

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By Cranky on Mon, 09/29/2014 - 10:52am.

I was thinking it was like when you were really in trouble and your parents called you by all three of your names. "Peter Bent Brigham! Who made this mess?" that sort of thing.
Just a guess!

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By mklj on Mon, 09/29/2014 - 11:02am.

Please explain. The standard Peter Bent joke doesn't reference parents, so I assume this refers to something else?

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By adamg on Mon, 09/29/2014 - 11:12am.

"You cut that out or I'll bend you like Peter Bent Brigham." Or so I've been told.

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By Dave on Mon, 09/29/2014 - 11:44am.

You have to read Adam's reply in Jay Leno's jokesplaining voice.

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By Cranky on Mon, 09/29/2014 - 11:48am.

Huh. I've never heard that.

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By Suldog on Mon, 09/29/2014 - 12:06pm.

Yes, Adam. That was a standard parent joke around some of these parts when some of us were kids. And it usually worked to get the bad behavior stopped because it would get a kid with a sense of humor to start laughing instead of whatever else he was doing.

Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com

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By JCK on Mon, 09/29/2014 - 10:48am.

Like 15 years?

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By Allstonian on Mon, 09/29/2014 - 11:18am.

About 2.5 years, actually.

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By cw in boston on Mon, 09/29/2014 - 11:22am.

but I guess it's only been 2 1/2. There is a new patient parking garage under the new park. They did a nice job with this project.

http://www.brighamandwomens.org/About_BWH/locations/construction/bgpp.aspx

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By JCK on Mon, 09/29/2014 - 11:29am.

I guess it was always so ugly over there that my brain just assumed it was under constant construction for 15 years?

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By Brian Riccio on Mon, 09/29/2014 - 10:50am.

of my Irish grandmother who lived on Cummins Highway. "Lovey, my sister worked as a scrubwoman at the Peter Bent Brigham for years and loved every second of it".

Yup, it really is just the old townies who still call it the Peter Bent Brigham.

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By kvn on Mon, 09/29/2014 - 10:54am.

You need a scorecard to keep track of all the old hospitals , and what they have become today.

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By kvn on Mon, 09/29/2014 - 10:53am.

Righteous !

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By bcrowell on Mon, 09/29/2014 - 11:08am.

Lived there back in 2011, can't believe what a huge difference they've made...
https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3341995,-71.1049054,3a,75y,18.22h,81.83t/data=!3m5!1e1!3m3!1sj_bb1SNx9ziCTfERAz-7zg!2e0!5s2011-11

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By kvn on Mon, 09/29/2014 - 11:32am.

Should have seen it in the 60's, very impressive !

http://www.boston.com/blogs/yourtown/boston/dirty-old-boston/2013/10/

http://www.boston.com/blogs/yourtown/boston/dirty-old-boston/assets_c/20...

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By Kathode on Mon, 09/29/2014 - 11:33am.

to distinguish between the Peter Bent and the Robert Breck Brigham.

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By Mr Punch on Mon, 09/29/2014 - 1:07pm.

The Peter Bent Brigham Hospital was referred to by its full name to distinguish it from the Robert Breck Brigham Hospital up the hill.

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By kvn on Mon, 09/29/2014 - 2:53pm.

How's this for some engineering......
Hydraulics Facilitate Repairs on a 12,000-Ton Moveable Roof

The day after the Milwaukee Brewers finished their final game of the season at Miller Park in September of 2006, a different team went into action. This time the coaches were engineers, and the first-string players were millwrights, ironworkers, operating engineers and laborers.

The task for which they had been preparing was a major repair job on the stadium’s movable roof: replacement of the ten bogies (powered carriages) on which the five moveable sections of the roof are carried. The 12,000-ton roof is designed in a fan shape, with each of five movable sections pivoted at its home-plate end and riding on two bogies at its wide (outfield) end 600 feet away.

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The 22-foot long original equipment bogies, two at each of the far corners of each fan-shaped roof section, were fitted with pairs of double-flanged wheels to ride on an eight-inch-wide circular track approximately 138 feet above ground level. Three-phase power for the bogie drive motors is fed out along each roof section from the home plate pivot end, eliminating any need for sliding contacts.
The two double-flanged wheels on each bogie were arranged to ride the single track in an in-line fashion. Additional safety is provided by guide rollers that follow single tracks mounted on both sidewalls of the main track bed.
The original equipment bogies proved inadequate for their massive burden, and the day after the Brewers’ September 2006 home finale, the roof had to be left in a partially open position when a bogie guide roller shattered. Additionally, a drawback of the old bogies was that their wheel faces were cylindrical. “The problem was in the cylindrical wheel with a relatively wide bearing surface where the outside of the wheel wanted to travel farther than the inside, about 5.5 inches in the worst case. It was this anomaly that may have caused the snapping sound as the bogies rolled along the rail,” explains Jim Ronning, a consulting engineer responsible for specifying the jacking arrangements.
“The wheels on the new bogies have spherical rolling surfaces to allow for minor bogie tilt, and the wheel axles are turned such that the bogie naturally follows the curved track,” says Ronning. “Additionally, the new bogie design employs four wheels arranged in two pairs, instead of the previous two-wheel design.” The new bogies are 24 feet long and each weighs either 49 or 66 tons, depending upon its location. They are powered by 60-hp motors via gear boxes and massive roller chains.

http://www.grainger.com/content/supplylink-hydraulics-repairs?cm_mmc=EMP...

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