Snow Emergency Declared

Yup, another one:

Mayor Menino has declared a snow emergency & parking ban effective at 9am, Tues, Feb 1, 2011.

Alternate parking wil be availale at 7am.
Boston Public Schools will be open.
Trash & Recycling are on a normal schedule.
Boston City Hall will be open, all employees are expected at work.

http://www.cityofboston.gov/snow/

Robots on Wormwood St.

According to the Globe, Heartland Robotics Inc. is moving its offices from its current location in Central Square to Fort Point.  Their new space in 27-43 Wormwood St. will accommodate 30 employees initially.

Here's a video of their founder, Rodney Brooks, discussing robots:

Snow Emergency Declared

The City of Boston has declared a snow emergency as of 7pm on Jan 26th.  If your car is on A st., you'll need to move it and can park in one of the alternative lots:

http://www.cityofboston.gov/snow/storm.asp?selNeighborhood=South+Boston

The city's official page with more info is:

http://www.cityofboston.gov/snow/

Vertex to Fan Pier

The Globe and Herald has coverage of Vertex Pharmaceuticals announcing that they're going to move to Fan Pier. They'll receive $10-12m in government funding and another $50m in infrastructure loans to support their move across the river from their current locations in Cambridge.


-----

Vertex OKs Hub deal
Tax breaks help lure Cambridge co. as mayor hails plan
By Thomas Grillo
Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Cambridge-based Vertex Pharmaceuticals has signed a letter of intent to lease two as-yet-unbuilt office towers in the Seaport District’s Fan Pier area and provide 500 new jobs in exchange for tens of millions in subsidies.

“This is great news for Boston,” said Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino in a statement. “I am proud to be mayor of a city that continues to grow, adding jobs and creating new and exciting neighborhoods where residents and visitors can live, work and socialize.”

Vertex was lured, in part, by a Tax Increment Financing offer of up to $12 million in tax incentives and $50 million in public infrastructure improvements in exchange for a promise to hire 500 new workers by 2015. The deal is expected to bring $60 million in new tax revenues to the city.

Read full article at the Herald


-----

City draws Cambridge drug firm to Fan Pier

In one of the largest office deals in recent Boston history, drug maker Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. will move into two new buildings in the Seaport District, catapulting the city’s effort to transform the waterfront into a neighborhood of technology companies, academic institutions, and medical firms.

Vertex yesterday signed a letter of intent to relocate its headquarters from Cambridge to the Fan Pier complex in late 2013. The 23-acre development has just one tower now, but is slated to have eight buildings of offices, residences, stores, and hotel rooms, as well as parks and a marina.

The deal is a watershed in Boston’s campaign to court a biotechnology industry that has largely eluded it, with most drug companies preferring to be closer to Cambridge’s prestigious universities or out in massive suburban office parks that offer cheaper rents and room for expansion.

...
Full article on Boston.com

Four Solos and a Stellar Quarter, Friday, Art@12

Four Solos and a Stellar Quartet:

Forbes Graham, Stephan Moore, Carver Audain, and Andy Hayleck

Friday, January 28th 8 pm

at Art @12 12 Farnsworth St., Boston

admission free - suggested donation $10

Join Studio Soto in the Fort Point Arts Community space for a special concert featuring artists from Boston, New York, Providence and Baltimore as they come together for a mini-tour with this stop in Boston. Graham and Moore are well-known in the Boston scene, and it is always an engaging and unexpected surprise to encounter their music. For this event, there will be four 15-20 minute solos and then the musicians will form a quartet for the finale.  Here are their essential bios:

Forbes Graham is a  performer and a composer of music and sound. His

main instruments are trumpet and laptop computer. He was born in Silver

Spring, MD, grew up there and currently resides in the suburbs of

Boston. He has been playing music for almost 24 years and explores a

variety of themes in his work including numerology, water, poetry,

rhythm, and noise. Festival appearances include High Zero, Festival of New Trumpet,

Vision Festival, and The Wire’s Adventures in Modern Music.

Stephan Moore is a composer, performer, audio artist, sound designer

and curator based in Brooklyn and Providence. His creative work

currently manifests as electronic studio compositions, improvised solo

performances, sound installation works, scores and sound designs for

collaborative performance pieces, and sound designs for unusual

circumstances. Evidence, his long-standing project with Scott

Smallwood, has performed widely and released several recordings over

the past decade. He has created custom music software for a number of

composers and artists, and has taught workshops and numerous

college-level courses in composition, programming, sound art and

electronic music. He curates the annual Floating Points Festival at

Issue Project Room in Brooklyn, where he also serves on the Art

Advisory Board. From late 2004 to mid-2010, he performed over 250

concerts with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, serving as their

sound engineer and music coordinator, and as a touring musician.

Carver Audain (b 1981) is a sound artist who focuses on creating

immersive sonic environments. He produces work comprised of

pre-recorded instrumental and environmental recordings, resulting in

an array of textured fields. In live performances he integrates a

variety of pre-recorded source material as well as sounds of the

physical space for the use of spontaneous arrangement, live sculpting,

and sampling. He has presented works at venues such as The Red Room,

Zebulon, Pyramid Atlantic, and ISSUE Project Room, and has performed

as a part of the Sonic Circuits Festival, and the Floating Points

Festival. In 2009, he was the recipient of ISSUE Project Room's

Emerging Composer's Commission grant care of the Greenwall Foundation.

He lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

Andy Hayleck is an electro-acoustic musician who lives in

Baltimore, Maryland. He uses a Paia modular synthesizer and microphones

in improvisations and compositions, utilizing the resonance

characteristics of a variety of materials. Recordings include: "Two

Gong/Wire Pieces" (Ehse), "Gong/Wire" (Earlids), "Various Recordings

Involving Ice" (HereSee), and "The Disappearing Floor" (Recorded).

Directions: take the Red Line to South Station and then cross the Fort Point Channel bridge.

Farnsworth Street is one block up from the Boston Children's Museum on the left. 

Art@12 is next to the Flour Cafe.

Bocoup Stays in Fort Point

Bocoup, an open web technologies company, currently in 319 A, has decided to stay in Fort Point and is moving to 355 Congress St. (above Lucky's):

http://weblog.bocoup.com/bocoup-recommits-to-boston-innovation-district

Starry Night up for award

"Starry Night", the installation under the Summer St. bridge by Lisa Greenfield and Daniel J. van Ackere, has been nominated for an award by the New England Journal of Aesthetic Research.  You can vote here:


http://www.gregcookland.com/neaa/

In addition, Studio Soto's "Bumpkin Island Art Encampment" has also been nominated in the "Public Exposure" category.

Southie Hydrant Thieves Arrested

(from BPDNews.com)

At about 12:13am, on Monday, January 17, 2011, officers from Area C-6 (South Boston) responded to a radio call for larceny in progress in the area of 35 Thomson Place in South Boston.  On arrival, officers spoke to security personnel who stated that they observed two males using tools to steal the caps off a hydrant from the rear of 35 Thomson Place. A search of the area enabled officers to locate and stop two individuals who looked like the suspects. Officers promptly noted that the both suspects were carrying what appeared to be heavily weighted backpacks. Moreover, one suspect was carrying a milk crate while the other was carrying a pair of blue pliers. Additionally, in the immediate area, officers observed a second unattended milk crate containing several cast iron caps.    

After the suspects were positively identified by the security personnel who first spotted them, officers arrested Ken Ralphis, 32, of Revere and Jeff Larkin, 33, of Revere and charged both with Larceny (Over $250), Possession of Burglarious Tools, Willful & Malicious Destruction of Property (Over $250) and Trespassing.
A search of the backpacks enabled offices to locate several more iron caps. All in all, officers were able see and seize two fire hydrant tops with side covers, four side covers, three plugs, eight building stand pipe covers, two hammers, one pipe wrench, two channel lock pliers, one wire cutter, one bike chain, two black backpacks and two black milk crates.

A search of the immediate area enabled officers to locate and observe several more hydrants missing caps and plugs in the area of 22 Thomson Place, 4 Stilling St, and 22 Boston Wharf Road.

BRA Mtg on Melcher St. Project, Monday 1/10

From: "Kara, Kristin" <Kristin.Kara.bra@cityofboston.gov>

Date: January 4, 2011 5:14:17 PM EST

Subject: 319 A Street Rear and 49/51/63 Melcher Street

Good afternoon:

I wanted to give you a brief update on the 319 A Street Rear Project and the 49/51/63 Melcher Street Project.  On December 14, 2010, the BRA Board approved the 319 A Street Rear Project.  The 319 A Street Rear Project requires the approval of and a public hearing before the Boston Zoning Commission (BZC).  The BZC hearing regarding the 319 A Street Rear Project will take place at 9AM on January 19, 2011 and will be held on the 9^th floor of City Hall, in Room 900/BRA Board Room.  Everyone is welcome to attend and speak at the hearing.

A Notice of Project Change and a First Amended and Restated Development Plan for the 49/51/63 Melcher Street Project, which propose a phased approach to the 49/51/63 Melcher Street Project and residential use at 63 Melcher Street, were submitted yesterday.  Both submissions are available on the BRA’s website.  Here is the link to the Notice of Project Change:  http://www.bostonredevelopmentauthority.org/DevelopmentProjects/PipeDocs/49-63%20Melcher%20Street/NPC/49-63%20Melcher%20Street_NPC.pdf and here is the link to the First Amended and Restated Development Plan: http://www.bostonredevelopmentauthority.org/DevelopmentProjects/PipeDocs/49-63%20Melcher%20Street/PDAAmendment/49-63%20Melcher%20Street_PDAAmendment.pdf  

There is a required 45-day public comment period in connection with the Amended and Restated Development Plan.  The Notice of Project Change will also have a 45-day public comment period.  Both comment periods will end on February 17.  As a reminder, the BRA-hosted community meeting in connection with the proposed changes to the 49/51/63 Melcher Street Project is next Monday night, 1/10, 6:00pm-7:30pm, at Bargmann Hendrie + Archetype, Inc. (BH+A), 300 A Street (Conference Room, 1^st Floor). 

 

Landmark Meeting, 1/13

The FORT POINT CHANNEL LANDMARK DISTRICT COMMISSION will hold a public hearing:

Thursday, January 13, 2011
5:00 P.M.
BOSTON CITY HALL, CURLEY ROOM

Fort Point Landmarks jan2011

Variance for Hotel at 364 Congress St.

Notice is hereby given that at 10:30 A.M. on Tuesday, January 11, 2011 a public hearing will be held by the Board of Appeal of the City of Boston in:

Room 801, City Hall, upon the appeal of Norwich Partners of Boston LLC seeking with reference to the premises at 364-372 Congress Street, Ward 6 from the terms of the Boston Zoning Code (see Acts of 1956, c, 665) in the following respect: Variance, GOOD & IPOD Permit  Article(s): 8 (8-7-15) 20 (20-1) 23 (23-1) 27P (27P-5)
32 (32-4) 24 (24-1)  Change the legal occupancy from print and photography
studio, offices to Hotel with retail space.
If you wish to express an opinion in regards to the above proposal either in
favor or in opposition, please detach the lower portion of this announcement
or mail to:

Board of Appeal
1010 Massachusetts Avenue, 4th floor
Boston, MA 02118

Please feel free to call the Board of Appeal at 617-635-4775 if there is
a question or concern you might have regarding this matter.