Recent content by DBM

On this topic generally, driving north on Pleasant Valley Pkwy recently, I had quite an eye-opening education re: the transition in socioeconomic status/quality of housing stock as you go north from the Federal Hill plateau toward PC campus and beyond... generally, it seems like Smith Ave is the...

Paging 'Gansett Brewery, your obvious philanthropic initiative has just been issued on the AB forum!: https://www.narragansettbeer.com/blogs/all-blogs/the-return-of-lovecraft-honey-ale?srsltid=AfmBOopcvYde7ICxJ5ZfAiosCiP_9CIzh2o7OYNctOsE6pk3t62JK-Sx

Let me guess: despite your fiery exhortation on May 30 that "everybody on this forum can and must participate in this meeting," you didn't actually attend last night's PLAN Downtown meeting. Thus, to deflect, you drop this gratuitously cynical hot take, which will age about as well as Dewey...

Was anyone able to attend? I couldn't make it, but I've heard that the pro-PLAN Downtown forces were able to muster enough turnout and inspired testimony in favor of PLAN to significantly suppress (if not neutralize) the NIMBY opposition. At this point, in theory it's just a question of which...

https://www.universalhub.com/2025/boston-naacp-calls-end-white-stadium-project In terms of the politics, perhaps not surprising... but still, is this not absurdly late in the game? The City has already been hosting contractor fairs ... this thing is going to happen, folks, absent something...

NIMBYs ain't got the receipts to objectively demonstrate alleged harms? Shocking, just shocking... Judge Mark Gildea rejected the towns’ argument as “speculative,” saying they did not provide concrete examples of the costs multifamily housing would inflict on them. “The Municipalities have...

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/05/30/business/downtown-zoning-plan-boston/ Immensely gratifying to see a *robust* amount of pushback in the comments section vs. some of the more hysterical and preposterous NIMBY assertions being tossed around [as usual without a shred of objective...

And behold, it came to pass, that the Planning Department, a mere (checks notes) 2,860 days after it was ordered to do so by the Legislature, acting with the *immense urgency* required of COVID's permanent long-term impacts on central business districts . . . has decided to hold a public...

Facts are stubborn things. The massive site is already split in three--Markley data center on top right-hand, Hyatt/LCC on the bottom half left-hand, with the very stark property line between Markley and the other owners/uses slicing diagonally through it. You'll notice the Hyatt/LCC rooftop...

Post Office Square also is a privately-owned, privately-maintained park, and thus has been cleaned vigorously and expertly by a professional, salaried staff, since its inception. Thus I definitely would not use it as a comp here...

Sigh. Not surprisingly, consternation is growing in all quarters in Lil' Rhody over the developer's inability to get the desperately-needed renovation rolling... a fairly informative piece that interviews a fair number of influential folks and probably took a while to develop...

Maybe "they" will be "getting away with it" less in the future, thanks to that noted eco-warrior, the caped crusader, Ed Flynn!: https://www.boston.gov/sites/default/files/file/2025/04/Order%20for%20a%20hearing%20to%20discuss%20expanding%20the%20urban%20tree%20canopy%20in%20District%202.pdf

It's easy to dismiss the USS Massachusetts for precisely that reason--"oh, it's just an attraction for Boy Scout troops"--but I contend it's an amazing (even if not possessing the most slick and sophisticated "production values") WW2 museum, with some haunting memorabilia. I'll always be struck...

In the Something Classic category, the following trio remains indispensable: Crabgrass Frontier Asphalt Nation Cadillac Desert (yes, by definition a non-Boston tale--but you can't tell the story of Boston, New England, and the Northeast in general in the 20th-century without also accounting for...

You mean, like Wickford Junction? (58 miles as the crow flies to Downtown Boston; in contrast, 61 miles as the crow flies from Newport to Downtown Boston). ;) P.S. in all sincerity, thank you, as always, for the comprehensive overview...