A breakdown on the Red Line, or really any MBTA line for that matter, isn't a surprise. It happens often. UniversalHub posted a great photo that reported today's glitch and noted it was apparently repaired quickly. What makes this temporary interruption compelling to Bostonist is another news item from the Boston Globe. Congress has to extend funding for transportation before the end of September to keep countless infrastructure projects running. The Globe said Massachusetts could lose 5,000 jobs and $500 million.
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CBS used some creative editing during Boston's Fourth of July fireworks display on Monday. David Mugar, the event's organizer, confirmed the images were altered to showcase famous Boston landmarks. [Universal Hub], [WCVB] Remember to follow Bostonist on Twitter and like us on Facebook.
January was the MBTA's worst month in three years for on-time trains. North End residents are considering making Hanover Street a one-way street. Remember to follow Bostonist on Twitter and like us on Facebook.
Someone turned off the Internets. Turns it out, it was Comcast. Bostonist, like most of you, was without a working internet connection for about two hours tonight courtesy of our friends at Comcast. Universal Hub reports there was a problem with Comcast's DNS servers. We're certain U-Hub is correct. However, we wonder if somebody at Comcast unplugged something. U-Hub also reported a Brookline resident called Comcast for a help and was referred to the internet for service. [UniversalHub.com]
We read about Northeast Utilities' acquisition of NStar on Monday. Today, Universal Hub reported that the first stockholder lawsuit has already been filed. That was quick. We scanned the complaint and found lots of references to "fiduciary" and some latin-type words in it.
The American Planning Association seems to like Boston, or certain parts of it anyway. The APA named the Back Bay as one America's 10 Great Neighborhoods and also listed the Emerald Necklace as a "Great Public Space."
So, Boston, England has a police tractor. As Universal Hub observed, we have a police ice cream truck. We'll call it the ice cream truck of death.
Boston Park Advocates highlighted the 2009 At-Large City Council Debate on Parks and Open Spaces on Monday. The candidates discussed ways to increase funding for parks, expansion of bike lanes, community gardens and seniors programs, and how to maintain sports fields. The debate featured 100 sponsors, which means people love parks. [UniversalHub]
Universal Hub reports on a class action lawsuit filed yesterday in U.S. District Court in Boston by an Illinois man who claims that Zipcar's fees are illegal under Massachusetts law. Among the practices mentioned in the complaint are allegedly excessive late fees, fees for retrieving lost articles, fees for speaking to a live representative, and automatic debits from deposits on accounts that are "inactive." [UHub]
As we predicted, we didn't make it home in time to watch tonight's Boston mayoral debate on Channel 25, which was helpfully scheduled for rush hour. Luckily for us, Adam Gaffin was available to liveblog it. The highlights? Michael Flaherty doesn't know how much it costs to ride the T. Yoon explained why there are four candidates in the race. The moderator asked Menino if he thought he spoke like an imbecile. McCrea yelled a lot. [Universal Hub]
"It comes down to the strong mayor thing," Sam Yoon told a tableful of bloggers today at Flash's, a Back Bay bar. Yoon doesn't just want to be the next mayor of Boston. He wants to completely remake the job.
That the crew at Universal Hub observed the square peg/round hole relationship to technology sometimes displayed by the Globe comes as no surprise here. In this case, the culprit is Alex Beam's Tuesday column. Bostonist remembers the Globe's odd use of an apparent Twitter-esque reporting style. And, don't forget they might think
downloading music is a fad. (FYI, We know it's iPod and not I-POD.)
Universal Hub reports that the NTSB has suggested that Therese Edmonds might have crashed her Green Line trolley due to a "micro-sleep episode" triggered by job fatigue and undiagnosed sleep apnea, not, as was originally reported, the Doxylamine in her bloodstream. Adam Gaffin's headline says it all.
Please read The Philip Markoff story as told in Herald adjectives at Universal Hub right now.
Boston's best blogger just lost his day job. Does that mean an exponential increase in UHub posts coming our way? Or will the Globe take Adam Reilly's advice and give Adam Gaffin a job?
Eagle-eyed Universal Hub caught city councilor Michael Flaherty prematurely announcing his candidacy for mayor via Youtube. See the video-within-a-video here.
Eagle-eyed Universal Hub has noted that the City of Cambridge is offering free cab rides to those who drink in Cantabrigian bars and restaurants this New Year's Eve. The so-called safeRide voucher can be obtained from any Cambridge bar or restaurant and will cover the first $35 of your trip. (Don't forget to tip.) Crossing the river this New Year's might be easier to manage than staying in Boston.
Dominic Luberto, the Jamaica Plain man responsible for the annual Christmas castle that blinds drivers on the Arborway, owes $123,833.37 in back child support, according to the Mass. Department of Revenue. His Tudor-style castle, which, ironically, his current wife owns, has become an international landmark for the Christmas-addled. [Herald, via UHub, which ran an interview with Luberto last year.]
Mirko Geffken is the President and CEO of the technology consulting firm Aspiant. He is also a terrible employer. According to a memo provided to the internet by Jeff Cutler, Geffken didn't like the way that Massachusetts voted in the most recent election. So, he took away his employees' health and transportation benefits. It's something that you have to read to believe. Workers in Boston, take heart. Your boss could be much, much more unstable than he or she is. [via Universal Hub]
Universal Hub has a map of election-day events reported by readers. Most of the updates focus on wait times (and there are some long lines), though one reader has posted a concerning tale of voters being turned away at polling places. Many folks are sharing their votes online, but Sarah Palin, for one, is keeping her vote under wraps. Maybe she is a maverick. Maybe she is secretly pro-hope. Or maybe she just doesn't like to wash her hands. [Other coverage: Brookline TAB, Cambridge Chronicle, Fark, Globe.]
If you can't keep track of the cast surrounding State Senator Dianne Wilkerson's arrest on federal bribery charges and subsequent decision to continue the sticker campaign to retain her seat, you are not alone. Bostonist's head has been swimming for days.
The piece was a nightmare of disorganization. Globe reporter David Abel penned an article in today's Globe Magazine about the cop who hit a baby stroller in a JP intersection, a story that Bostonist broke in August. Abel's piece is sort of about blogs, er, "increasingly popular echo chambers [that] have provided a means for those long walled off from one another in siloed lives to search for answers," and it's sort of about the incident itself—he can't quite make up his mind. (Quickly: the cop got a slap on the wrist; the child seems to be doing okay; the internet rumor mongers made life in JP unlivable for the mom, who has since moved to Newton and is looking to buy in the suburbs.) The online version of the piece, which cites Bostonist as well as the "more widely read" Universal Hub and the JP Moms mailing list, doesn't contain a single hyperlink. The house style at Boston.com reportedly doesn't allow them, but, as one Bostonist noted, "this is one of those cases in which it's crazy not to link, or at least to give a full domain name. If they denounced a book I suspect they'd at least give the barest of bibliographic citations (author, publisher, year)."
Over at b0st0n.livejournal.com, a user put two and two together after getting an email about a horrible moving experience over a local college's alumni list. The upshot? The drivers at Broadway Express moving company might have some trouble reading the arcane Massachusetts clearance warnings printed in nearly invisible black block letters on a difficult to discern bright yellow background. Either that, or they reckon using the metric system. At any rate, some hapless Bostonian is out a lot of stuff.
--Prosecutors in Malden District Court have charged a 57-year-old employee of Everett High School with child rape. He is accused of molesting a boy over a seven month period last year. He has worked for the school as a janitor and coach of the junior varsity basketball team. [Boston Globe]
-- Police arrested the Dorchester man responsible for the February 27th lunch brawl at West Roxbury High School. Edwin Reyes, 39, surrendered to police yesterday. Police say that Reyes led a posse of four adults, including his two brothers and an unidentified woman, to assault a West Roxbury student who had allegedly beat up Reyes's son.
--Logan Airport is getting wind turbines. And we look to opponents of Cape Wind to ask, "So, what's your issue with wind power again?" [Boston Globe]
The Globe is blushing right now. Columnist Adrian Walker, most frequently seen getting Universal Hub's dander up, was arrested early Sunday on an OUI.