Looks like last night's snow/sleet/rain was the last straw for Boston buildings. We've had a partial roof collapse on Columbia Point and a complete building collapse in Readville. And now this: Cars are being flattened by killer death ice. Kristin MacDougall forwarded this photo of a car flattened like a pancake by snow that fell off a building on 3rd Avenue in the Charlestown Navy Yard.
Boston's DPW announced today it's holding off on the annual re-start of street sweeping until after "streets are cleared to the curb and gutters are free of ice and snow."
Fans of cleaner streets in the North End, the South End and Beacon Hill, where street sweeping normally starts in March, will have to wait for "a thaw and large scale melting," the department said, adding that also means daytime parking restrictions will not apply there, either. The DPW says it will send out notices when the streets are fit to sweep
Now that's a book we'd read. Lynne watched a firefighter dealing with an icicle on Beacon Street on Beacon Hill today before it fell on somebody's head.
Fredly reports he came out today to find his Prius's rear window smashed, the spoiler broken, a fender keyed and what appear to be kick marks. He was parked behind the State House.
Guess someone took the space saver away before I showed up. ... If you shoveled it, you should get to use the space, but if someone takes it, just write a note, don't get violent.
Kathleen O'Donnell watched her kitty watching the snow on Beacon Hill this morning.
Catarina Maia took a look out her window and realized immediately she wasn't going anyplace any time soon in this most historic of historic Boston winters. We could get 18 inches out of this snow, but with drifts, God, who knows?
Around 6 p.m., the outbound platform at Charles/MGH looked pretty much the same right after a train pulled out as it did before. As Lindsay Devers reports, the train was so crowded nobody could get on it.
Elsewhere? At least people waiting for trains out of South Station were inside. Ditto for North Station, where Ben Higgins snapped the departure list:
With many Boston roads still not fully plowed, traffic across the city continues to be tied up in knots, as Alison Kenney shows us with her dashboard-eye view of Charles Circle around 12:45 p.m.
In response to a citizen complaint yesterday about an unshoveled sidewalk outside the Kerry/Heinz homestead on Beacon Hill, the city said today:
Case Closed. TICKET: Ticket Issued.
Senator Eileen Donoghue .. claimed the high costs associated with..becoming a host city would be outweighed by the economic gains from increased tourism and business.
Some Bostonians are fighting to keep the 2024 Summer Olympics out of their city due.
That's Charles Street on the left. See it larger.
Plans released by Boston 2024 show most of the Common and a significant portion of the Public Garden - including the Make Way for Ducklings statues - off limits to the public during the Olympics. Construction of a 16,000-seat beach-volleyball stadium and related structures, meanwhile, would shut the ball fields and other parts of the Common for months before the games.
Hundreds of people peacefully marched around the Common and Public Garden this afternoon before marching up Beacon Street for a protest in front of the State House.
Some photos:
A Mongolian hotpot chain that wants to break into the US market is suing Little Lamb, 326 Cambridge St., on charges it's using the chain's name and logo without permission.
In a lawsuit filed last week in US District Court in Boston, Xiao Wei Yang Catering Linkage in Inner Mongolia, Ltd. says it originally signed a franchise deal with the owners of Little Lamb, but that it decided to pull out after learning, it says, the two owners were married, rather than competing restaurant operators. Also, company charges, Cheng Xu and Yonghua Qin then refused to pay the chef the company flew to the US to help them set up their restaurant.
The Boston Parks Department posted this photo of workers taking down a large American elm tree on the Common today because it's become infected with Dutch elm disease, a fungus spread by a beetle.
The Boston Licensing Board yesterday granted a license to a wine store proposed for Charles River Plaza off Cambridge Street.
At a hearing Wednesday, nearby liquor stores and some residents opposed the VinodiVino outlet, saying it would prove unfair competition for locally owned shops and that the eight liquor stores within a half-mile radius could already meet residents' wine needs. VinodiVino attorney Dennis Quilty, however, countered market considerations should not be part of the board's calculus on deciding on a license.
Gov. Deval Patrick left office this evening in the traditional manner: All by himself, through the normally locked center doors of the State House, down the steps and onto Beacon Street, where he officially became another citizen again - which he celebrated with his wife Diane.
Photo by the governor's office. Posted under this Creative Commons license.
An upscale wine store that wants to move into a Cambridge Street mall uncorked opposition from neighboring liquor stores and some residents at a Boston Licensing Board hearing today.
VinodiVino, which already has stores in Brookline, Newton and Needham, wants a license to open in Charles River Plaza, within feet of the existing Simmons Liquor and Jobi Liquors.
VinodiVino attorney Dennis Quilty said the area needs an all wine store that can provide the sort of service an area such as Beacon Hill and the West End deserves.
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
