Sharon Machlis finds it pretty ironic that the for-profit owners of MetroWest Medical Center are howling about Newton-Wellesley Hospital wanting to open an orthopedics center on their turf even as they expand their own physical-therapy services in Milford Regional Medical Center's coverage area:
The Herald reports the company that built the fancy-shmancy condos at the mall wants the $12.6 million it says the now bankrupt mall owner still owes it.
General Growth Properties, which operates Faneuil Hall Marketplace and owns the Natick Mall Collection, filed for bankruptcy today.
He might come out from behind his counter and slash all your tires, as the MetroWest Daily News reports:
... "He slashed the tires on the left side of the Jeep, then he went around slashed the tires on the right side. He put the knife back in his pocket, walked away and continued to serve customers." ...
On Saturday, the kidlet and I went out for a drive. We wound up at the boat ramp at Cochituate State Park and were surprised to see a bunch of people out on the lake, including what looked like two families just having a grand old time out in the middle of the lake skating and ice fishing and just sitting around the grill (of course they had a grill).
The MetroWest Daily News reports a concerned resident told police there was "a large crocodile swimming in Fiske Pond along Rte. 135:"
... He said he saw an eight-foot crocodile swimming in Fiske Pond about 10 feet from shore heading toward downtown Natick. ...
Maybe the reptile had just come from the buffet over in Framingham.
Eric Weinstein reports that Vinny T's on Rte. 9 in Natick has closed, leaving people mad for sorta-Italian food no choice but to keep on driving until they get to the Olive Garden in Framingham.
Because this is a family Web site and all. The MetroWest Daily News reports:
A woman riding a MetroWest RTA bus made an unpleasant discovery last week when she sat down, only to find she her seat was covered in feces.
Yvonne Abraham nailed it in her column today about the emptiness that the Uptown Wing of the Natick Mall has become.
The kidlet and I roamed its sparsely populated walkways today and man, was it empty (don't worry, we weren't there to either smirk or check up on Abraham; we happened to be out that way anyway so we stopped in at Sears to get something truly boring and then decided to walk around). Clerks stared out at us bored as can be, when they weren't too busy chatting with each other or, as in the case above, abandoning all pretense that any customers would come in and so just surfing the Web. Even Neiman-Marcus was pretty much empty, which is probably just as well, since the kidlet spent most of our short stay there loudly complaining about how expensive everything was (I admit I snorted out loud when I saw a Juicy infant romper, although I couldn't decide which was worse: The sexualization of infants or the fact that the thing was going for $73).
However, I'm betting Abraham stayed on the second floor, because we did find one retail bright spot on the first floor: The Apple Store, which, while not packed wall to wall, seemed reasonably busy.
Meanwhile, the Ghetto Wing, i.e., the original mall, seemed to have a decent number of people walking around. We actually had to spend 30 seconds scouting out a table at the food court (I recommend the Indian food). I have no doubt people are buying less there, as well, but it still felt like a functioning place of commerce rather than a Potemkin Mall.
Nothing is as devastating to a parent than to bury their child. I hope this family can survive the tragedy.
...the mother of a 21-month-old girl who apparently drowned last month neglected the girl on the day she died.
Oh, come on, you didn't think I was going to break down and use that new name, did you? In any case: naked butt at the mall tomorrow, according to the MetroWest Daily News, which thoughtfully brackets its press release for the store in question with this sobering warning:
Under the state's open and gross lewdness law, the exposure of the buttocks can be a felony. Much hinges on whether the bottom-baring produces alarm, according to Natick Police Lt. Brian Grassey.
So I guess booty shaking is straight out, because you know how alarming that can be. Still, Lt. Grassey might wish to bone up on Commonwealth vs. Ora, in which the Supreme Judicial Court ruled earlier this year that you can dance naked in the middle of even Harvard Square at noon - as long as you provide adequate advance warning to the easily alarmed.
Spotted the other day on Rte. 9 at Oak Street; looks like Sealy hasn't repainted some of its trucks in awhile.
Things aren't going quite as planned at the uptown section of the Natick Mall (as opposed to the original ghetto wing, the one where you can still buy black-light art), the Globe reports, quoting analysts who blame New Englanders:
... While there is ample wealth in this region - the average household income is about $110,000, nearly double the state average - there is still a culture of buttoned-up Yankees who aren't accustomed to indulgent spending on luxury goods, according to Madison Riley, a retail analyst at Kurt Salmon Associates in Boston. ... "There has been a culture in the Boston area of that Yankee thriftiness, even when one had money," Riley said. "That's changed in the city of Boston but the mentality still resides in the suburbs, and that is impacting Natick." ...
Tim F-W proposes a replacement for Redmen:
... According to the Census Bureau, out of the 32,170 inhabitants of Natick, only 134 claim Native American ancestry. If Natick sports fans want to continue the tradition of having mascots named after tribes, why not reflect the actual composition of the town? I humbly suggest the Natick Palefaces. Surely the good citizens of Natick would recognize that name as one without racial overtones at all.
Natick sports teams may have new nickname.
Natick was founded as an Indian town, complete with its own Town Meeting - Speen Street gets its name from one of the leaders (and the first bible printed in British North America was John Eliot's translation into the Natick language). But even though the Natick Indians mostly sided with the British during King Philip's War (Captain Tom's Hill, now home to Jordan's Furniture, is named for an Indian who spied for the English), the revenge-mad colonial legislature exiled the town to treeless Deer Island, where most of the residents died over that winter.
Guy gets taken in by old TV-on-the-loading-dock scam - or, rather, the old 13-TVs-on-the-loading-dock scam (and he drove all the way up from Connecticut with $9,800).
Around Natick considers the possibility of the Registry moving into the old National Guard land on Speen Street near Rte. 135.
Dave reports from the Natick Collection of Overpriced Clothing that a stern woman with a notebook came up to him as he was taking a photo and admonished him that "taking pictures of the mall is not allowed."
What's Natick Mall management hiding? Could it be they don't want you to learn their dark secrets, like that they haven't fully unraveled the yarn that's supposed to be holding up the ceiling?
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