The Globe reports. Why not throw Wonderland in, too, while they're at it?
Suffolk Downs
The MBTA reports "moderate" delays due to an inbound Blue Line train at Suffolk Downs that needs to be taken out back and shot.
Matthew Robare doesn't much like the initial concept of Suffolk Downs being replaced by an Assembly Square clone, because that would mean another car-centric "cargo cult urbanism" type mall with giant garages and pedestrian-forbidding streets that would just suburbanize parts of two cities:
The North End is how Suffolk Downs should be redeveloped. No parking, high lot coverage, narrow streets. Actually urban instead of the "Ye olde towne centre" fakery of Assembly Square.
The new owner of the old Suffolk Downs sketches out mixed-use redevelopment plans for the site that would be modeled on the success of Assembly Row in Somerville.
The State House News Service reports on the approval by the state Gaming Commission. The move clears the way for the massive redevelopment of the site on the Revere/East Boston line, although racing should continue for another year.
The Supreme Judicial Court today backed letting voters decide whether a man who has an agreement to buy a mobile-home park near Suffolk Downs should be allowed to apply for a slots-parlor license for the parcel. Read more.
The Globe tracks down the backer of a proposed ballot question that would allow a slots parlor on land near a racetrack - a guy who bought a mobile-home park near Suffolk Downs, which had insisted it had nothing to do with the proposal.
Curt Nickisch watched the sunset at Fenway tonight.
Of course, it wasn't just over Fenway that the sunset was amazing.
Rachel Anne Miller took in the sunset over Kendall Square: Read more.
Horse racing is struggling across America - look for our own Suldog at 0:50.
Via Jim Sullivan.
Lorianne DiSabato muses on what she now knows is her last visit to the Suffolk Downs race track:
When J and I arrived at Suffolk Downs the weekend before last, there was a little girl loudly cheering for her favorite jockey as she made her way into the Winner’s Circle: Janelle Campbell, the same jockey I’d photographed last year as she sat beaming atop her mount. Being a jockey, I explained in that post, is every horse-crazy girl’s dream job. After Suffolk Downs is shuttered, who will horse-crazy little girls cheer for? Their favorite poker stars or blackjack dealers?
In 2012, Robert Greim interviewed jockeys at Suffolk Downs.
Next Thursday, the state Gaming Commission plans to discuss the imminent shutdown of the track and what to do about it - and the workers who are losing their jobs:
WBUR reports on the fate of the horses at Suffolk Downs when the track closes at the end of the month.
WBUR reports on the decision between Suffolk Downs/Mohegan Sun in Revere and Wynn in Everett - two months before voters decide whether to allow any casinos in the state at all.
Mayor Walsh today announced an agreement with Mohegan Sun under which the proposed Revere casino would pay the city at least $18 million a year plus another $3 million a year just for capital stuff in East Boston - should the state approve it as the Boston area's resort casino, rather than a competing plan in Everett.
In addition, the mayor said the owners of Suffolk Downs have agreed to keep their race track open through the life of the Mohegan Sun license. Also, Mohegan Sun will spend $45 million on traffic improvements around the casino.
In a statement, the mayor says:
MassLive.com reports the city is proclaiming it just as good as the sort of agreement it would have gotten had the state ruled Boston was still a "host" community.
Lawsuit? Mayor Walsh issued this statement today on the Massachusetts Gaming Commission's decision yesterday that Boston isn't a referendum-holding host community for either of the proposed local casinos:
Based on the ambiguous and arbitrary process the Gaming Commission has pursued, we believe that we have multiple options available to us at this time.
We are continuing to work aggressively to determine the appropriate action to continue our fight for the people of Boston. My position has not changed: Boston is a host community to both sites, and the people of Boston -- of Charlestown and East Boston -- deserve the opportunity to vote and have their voices heard.
Yeah, sure, casinos right on the city line will have major impacts on Boston, but Boston is not a "host community" for either of the proposed casinos, the Massachusetts Gaming Commission decided today. The vote means Boston will not be able to hold referendums on the casinos that could block them permanently.
Commission members unanimously rejected arguments by Boston officials that the Suffolk Downs racetrack, which mostly sits in East Boston, is an integral part of the Mohegan Sun proposal.
Sure, neither the Mohegan Sun nor the Wynn sites are actually in Boston, but they're right on the line and neither could survive without Boston's transportation and world-classness, so the mayor wants the state gaming commission to give Boston the same sort of "host community" status Revere and Everett have, the Globe reports.