A woman somehow wound up in Boston Harbor off Steriti Rink around 9:50 p.m. Boston Police officers, the first on scene, quickly spotted her holding onto a piling. Two divers from the Boston Fire Department jumped in the water and got her onto a State Police boat, which took her to the State Police dock near the Charles River Dam for transportation to a nearby hospital.
North End
WCVB reports the woman's body was found on a bench in Christopher Columbus Park early Saturday morning.
The Massachusetts Appeals Court ruled today that a woman who has the right to park in a space at a North End condo building, even though she doesn't live there, has to pay property tax on the space. Read more.
So far this afternoon, MassDOT reports there was a multi-car crash at the entrance to the O'Neill Tunnel northbound that shut the left lane and an "overheight" tractor trailer that jammed up the entrance to the Callahan Tunnel. Both scenes now clear.
Today is, of course, the anniversary of the Great Molasses Flood, when a poorly maintained tank of molasses on the North End waterfront exploded at 12:40 p.m. on an unseasonably warm January day, sending a viscous brown tsunami down Commercial Street, killing 21 people and several horses, destroying buildings and bending the elevated. Read more.
Morrissey Boulevard? Long Wharf? Winthrop Drive? All shut at the morning high tide as wind-whipped waves came ashore. But also Day Boulevard in South Boston. Read more.
Adam Castiglioni watched Santa (and the Italian consul in Boston) ride down Hanover Street today.
Boston Restaurant Talk reports China House on Hanover Street has shut down.
Boston Restaurant Talk reports Ristorante Fiore on Hanover Street is closing - but it looks like the DePasquale family is looking to open a new Umbria in the space.
Jessica Dello Russo watched today as state troopers opened up the special Backup of Shame ramp from the Callahan Tunnel entrance to the Greenway today and then guided another big-rig driver slowly backwards up to the street after he realized his truck wasn't going to fit without a haircut.
A concerned citizen filed a 311 complaint about the graffiti guy he spotted adding to the freshly re-painted wall across from Cutillo Park in the North End around 10:15 a.m. today. He then marked up another wall down the street.
A concerned citizen takes time out of a no doubt very busy schedule to file a 311 complaint about the sign in Christopher Columbus Park that still lists Martin J. Walsh as mayor and to ask that the sign be changed to reflect the name of the current mayor.
A North End resident who says her view would be blocked by a wall just a few feet from her windows today sued to block the construction of a five-story, 134-room hotel along Cross Street on the Greenway edge of the neighborhood. Read more.
Live Boston reports things got a bit out of hand shortly before 3 a.m. at Salem and Prince streets. While one police officer applied a tourniquet to the man's wrist, others were busy arresting a suspect. Read more.
The Boston Public Health Commission reports all the rain has overloaded local sewer mains, to the point that one MWRA outflow pipe, upstream of the North Washington Street Bridge, started pouring sewage-laden water into the inner harbor at 1:01 a.m, "creating a potential public health risk." Read more.
MassDOT officials said tonight workers are busy fixing defective welds on the new North Washington Street Bridge and that they should be done by the end of December, letting non-repair construction resume in January - with a goal of switching three vehicle lanes and sidewalks over from the current temporary bridge in December, 2023. Read more.
MassDOT has announced two public online meetings to discuss the bridge, and we're going to be optimistic and assume they're not going to go to all the trouble just to announce that the project is still dead in the water. Read more.
A federal judge yesterday told the owners of four North End restaurants she's inclined to dismiss their suit over a $7,500 city fee to use public sidewalks and streets for outdoor patios this summer, but that as soon as she files a written document stating that, she'll give them two weeks to tell her why the city isn't correct that they have no legal basis for the suit. Read more.