This morning, Shamus Moynihan spotted a Honda Fit, on South Huntington Avenue outside the VA Hospital, whose owner won't be going anywhere soon.
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This morning, Shamus Moynihan spotted a Honda Fit, on South Huntington Avenue outside the VA Hospital, whose owner won't be going anywhere soon.
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Comments
Scary if you're stuck late at
By whiskeylover
Thu, 06/08/2017 - 11:35am
Scary if you're stuck late at night in a questionable area with your car immobilized like that.
This can happen anywhere...
By avi
Thu, 06/08/2017 - 1:24pm
It's scary to be stuck, regardless. However, I tend not to think of So.Huntington as a questionable area. It's no East/West/Northwest Baltimore.
Someone stole several wheels off my Honda Fit back in 2008, off Washington Street in Brookline. Auto crime happens everywhere that cars exist.
yup
By anon
Fri, 06/09/2017 - 11:29am
It happens in quiet suburbs, too. I know two people who have had their wheels jacked from their own driveways.
Uh
By erik g
Thu, 06/08/2017 - 1:49pm
That's the VA Hospital on the JP/Brookline border. You know, the place full of $800K townhouses? If that's your definition of a "questionable area," you're going to want to clutch those pearls tighter if you head up Mission Hill on the other side of the hospital.
Anybody who grew up in Boston would certainly define it as
By anon
Thu, 06/08/2017 - 11:27pm
a pretty dangerous area in which to find oneself alone at night. Sucker out-of-town medical professionals paying inflated prices for crap housing stock notwithstanding.
As one who grew up in Boston in the 80s
By Waquiot
Fri, 06/09/2017 - 12:35am
Nope.
That stretch of South Huntington has always been fairly safe. Now we're it Heath Street, it would be a different deal.
And since I'm reminiscing about that place during my youth, I will noted I used to bike down that street, and the rails never got me.
Worked in the area 15-20 years ago
By anon
Fri, 06/09/2017 - 8:47am
Not a problem if you don't automatically classify anybody "not white" as "scary".
Walked by there late at night all the time.
Then again, I never drove in the neighborhood with my husband while pregnant. That could be dangerous.
You realize that it's 2017,
By anon
Thu, 06/08/2017 - 6:15pm
You realize that it's 2017, and cellphones and Uber exist, right?
Do we live in East St. Louis?
By Stevil
Thu, 06/08/2017 - 12:31pm
Maybe somebody with better embedding skills than me can find a link to the original Chevy Chase Vacation clip?
We booked a hotel at a river casino about 20 years ago in "East St. Louis" at the Casino Queen for a wedding in St. Louis. We figured it was a part of the city and didn't realize it was on the other side of the river in Illinois in a part of the world you really don't want to be in after dark. The hotel was perfectly fine. But getting there was an adventure driving through post-apocalyptic America. The parking lot was surrounded by concertina wire with guard house towers and looked like a prison camp from WW II. The casino was a mock up Mississippi River steamboat - and oh - the characters there. The other wedding guests (locals) thought we were out of our minds when they heard where we were staying.
We didn't spend much time there except to sleep - but we survived and lots of great jokes and stories came from that trip.
You mean this scene
By roadman
Thu, 06/08/2017 - 12:38pm
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ip11Dk8tCBI[/youtube]
Thanks Roadman
By Stevil
Thu, 06/08/2017 - 12:51pm
There ya go - and it looked exactly like that - except without the people. I'm sure there were a few random souls wandering the streets - but I'll be damned if I remember anybody out and about until we pulled through the gate of the hotel/casino.
Who knows - maybe today it's full of hipsters reviving the place and real estate prices are skyrocketing as the market in hubcaps and wheels declines.
Who knows - maybe today it's
By DTP
Thu, 06/08/2017 - 1:00pm
Nope. Still on the decline. The casinos and the light rail line have helped, but there's only so much you can do to reverse that level of economic decline.
Looks like theyve done a
By J
Thu, 06/08/2017 - 2:16pm
Looks like theyve done a fantastic job of greening the place up.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/East+St+Louis,+IL/@38.6255687,-90.1449528,3a,60y,163.97h,82.37t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sZjfR4DsE9PXyi7bsnxU69A!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!4m5!3m4!1s0x87d8ac4375b5735f:0x8d1aa65674cc6d0!8m2!3d38.624514!4d-90.1506465
OMG
By Waquiot
Thu, 06/08/2017 - 5:11pm
Looking at the map, it's kind of close to downtown, but then I can't figure out where downtown is. A short walk to the train to downtown St. Louis. Were this Boston, condos would be sprouting like, like, well what is sprouting on this street.
I mean, if people are looking for an example of a place needing regeneration, this would seem to fit the bill to a T.
The thing is St. Louis as an
By anon
Fri, 06/09/2017 - 7:35am
The thing is St. Louis as an entire city got hit, hard, with the whole white-flight / inner decay issue. It's only very, very recently that living in the city itself has been seen as safe or acceptable - and there's plenty of distressed neighborhoods in the west side / actual city to gentrify first. Give it 15 years and the inevitable yuppie regeneration might happen but there's a lot of even more convenient areas to hit first.
(Also, the STL train sucks and goes to a really limited number of places so unless you've got a guaranteed job at one of those it's not worth moving for "transit". Still a car culture out there.)
Stupid
By anon
Thu, 06/08/2017 - 12:59pm
VA has cameras pointed all over that lot for its own security. There's approximately zero chance that the thieves weren't caught on at least one of the tapes. If they'd just gone a few blocks further down it's more likely they'd have gotten off scott free.
Always
By cat
Thu, 06/08/2017 - 2:55pm
It's ALWAYS Honda wheel-theft season in Boston.
This has been a chronic problem for over 10 years. Includes Toyota rims too.
I find it weird that there
By anon
Thu, 06/08/2017 - 5:16pm
I find it weird that there are still so many slightly different sizes for car things like tires, wheel bolt patterns, batteries, oil filters, air filters, mufflers instead of more standardization to a limited variety of sizes.
At least there is good standardization of rim sizes in increments of whole-inches. This is probably because none of the car companies sell their own tires. How did that happen?
Getting worse
By anon
Fri, 06/09/2017 - 8:50am
Automakers are pulling out all the stops on "my bolt pattern is my intellectual property so you can't repair your own car or take it to a non-dealer shop".
Look up "right to repair".
The "right to repair" issue has to do with diagnostic codes
By roadman
Fri, 06/09/2017 - 2:52pm
and the equipment required to read those codes, which the auto manufacturers have consistently refused to make available to independent repair shops and the general public. It has absolutely nothing to do with the bolt pattern of a wheel.
And yes, this is a serious issue that greatly infringes on consumer rights and protections.
OK...
By B
Thu, 06/08/2017 - 3:36pm
...kids, roll em' up!
Afternoon update
By adamg
Thu, 06/08/2017 - 5:16pm
Well
By Waquiot
Thu, 06/08/2017 - 6:52pm
It's not like they can just get in and drive away.
Just wondering ...
By anon
Thu, 06/08/2017 - 10:14pm
... what is the market for stolen tires+rims? Are the tires the primary target or the rims or both?
Depends. A used steel rim
By anon
Fri, 06/09/2017 - 12:46pm
Depends. A used steel rim might sell for $20, but alloy rims can sell for hundreds.
It's kind of silly that Honda doesn't make 15" steelies standard on all trims of the Fit. Theft has been a headache for years, and for 15" rims alloy doesn't save much weight compared to steel anyway.
this particular Fit model
By tape
Fri, 06/09/2017 - 3:01pm
has 16" alloy rims.
well, it used to, anyway.
It's BTD's new program
By GoSoxGo
Thu, 06/08/2017 - 10:09pm
Instead of a boot, they just take your wheels if you park more than a foot from the curb and have unpaid tickets.
Park?
By anon
Fri, 06/09/2017 - 8:53am
The car was probably lifted away from the curb.
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