The Globe reports the family owners of James Hook & Co. are looking to replace their current seaside digs on Atlantic Avenue with a 22-story residential tower - and space for them to keep selling lobsters and other seafood in a new restaurant.
The Herald reports on parking concerns from the Municipal Harbor Plan Advisory Committee.
A steam pipe in the basement of the New England Aquarium burst around 10 a.m. today, forcing officials to close the attraction for the day and evacuate visitors already inside.
A spokesman reports:
Like many buildings downtown, we use steam for a variety of our utility functions. After a few minutes, it resulted in a power outage as well. With no power, we evacuated the building and notified the fire department as well as the steam company and our electric provider. After about 50 minutes, the steam was turned off and emergency electrical power was restored.
Chris Rich recently visited Eastport Park, an open-air sculpture garden on the South Boston waterfront.
Copyright Chris Rich. Posted in the Universal Hub pool on Flickr.
A Union-backing citizen complains about some graffiti on a bench along the water near the Aquarium:
Weird pro-confederate propaganda graffiti on the benches by the water.
NorthEndWaterfront.com reports the trustees of Harbor Towers have come out swinging against Donald Chiofaro's proposed towers next door, saying they're just too damn big:
Since modern urban planning began here in Boston in the early 1960s, it has been customary and an article of faith that we do not build huge skyscrapers and excessive density on our waterfront; the recent, professionally conducted Greenway District Guidelines, supported by broad public participation, reinforced that principle.
Rendering by Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates. See it larger.
Developer Don Chiofaro, whose efforts to replace the Aquarium garage with a $1-billion pair of towers were thwarted by archnemesis Tom Menino, today proposed a $1-billion pair of towers for the site.
Greg C. photographed a road in the old South Boston Naval Annex - now known as the Boston Marine Industrial Park - the other night.
Colby TC photographed the same stretch in daylight.
Copyright Greg C. Posted in the Universal Hub pool on Flickr.
MassLive reports on plans to move the tiny Our Lady of Good Voyage Chapel from Northern Avenue to space next to the Children's Museum, to make way for Yet Another Mega-Development.
Sink hole behind Fed Courthouse Northern Av pic.twitter.com/aN6BYFCRHe
— John GrelandBPD (@captaingreland) March 12, 2014
John McLachlan walked along the Charles yesterday, noted the puddling caused by warming temperatures, but also the unusual ice floes pushed up onto shore. The river today.
Brad Kelly, meanwhile, noted a possible sign of spring: Whiskey Priest poking its head up above one of the snow piles along the South Boston waterfront.
A citizen stuck in traffic complains:
Please do something about the traffic out of the Seaport. It's taken almost 30 minutes to drive from the WTC to Vertex. Insane. It is literally crawling. But mostly dead stopped. Do not ask any other companies to move here until this is solved. Thank you.
NorthEndWaterfront.com reports on a recent BRA planning meeting at which an architect for the Hook family discussed how it would like to build some sort of tower on the current property - with the lobster place staying in the first floor.
NorthEndWaterfront.com shows us the bridge in its new nighttime colors.
Photo posted under this Creative Commons license and tagged as universalhub on Flickr.
Capt. Greland at C-6 reports somebody's been going around the Seaport area stealing those metal brackets used to attach banners to utility poles. As of last week, some 45 sets of brackets, worth $5,000, have disappeared from area poles.
City and state officials today announced a series of traffic-improvement steps to keep the burgeoning Innovation District from choking on its own success, ranging from the mundane - better lane markers on the Moakley Bridge - to a new ferry service between East Boston and South Boston, scheduled to start sometime next year.
The city will use a $1.3 million federal grant to help pay for two ferries to shuttle commuters between the two waterfront communities; East Boston had long been promised ferry service.
Searching the water. Photo by Kelly Simon.
Update, 1:30 a.m.: BFD crews getting ready to leave, no man found.
Firefighters and police officers started searching the water off Whiskey Priest around 12:45 p.m. on a report a man had jumped into the water from a boat between the bar and the Spirit of Boston boat docked next to the World Trade Center.
At 1 a.m., the crew of a Boston Fire boat reported they were unable to find anybody in the water; the search was to continue along Commonwealth Pier.
The Boston Harbor Hotel wants to offer ice skating in the Rowes Wharf rotunda this winter.
The hotel goes before the Mayor's Office of Consumer Affairs and Licensing next Wednesday to seek permission to operate a skating rink between Nov. 29 and and Feb. 28. The hearing starts at 10:15 a.m. in the office's eighth-floor hearing room in City Hall.
Newly elected state Sen. Linda Dorcena Forry says she'll continue predecessor Jack Hart's effort to give Boston Police the right to patrol land along the South Boston waterfront owned by Massport.
Her vow comes after the Herald reported State Police, who now have sole jurisdiction over the land, sat on information about a woman being picked up by a gypsy cab driver who then drove her to Newton and raped her, because of an ongoing spat with BPD over South Boston waterfront jursidiction.
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