NAG Holiday Party; Herald tomorrow

Posted by John B. Kelly

Herald reporter Marie Szaniszlo, who did the Huntington brick sidewalk story last August 26, got a very friendly photographer to accompany me on my trip to Symphony Plaza East for the NAG holiday party. It turned out that the little orphan sidewalk at the end of my service road, and the main sidewalk heading towards the Westland Gates were icy and slushy, but barely passable. I thought we were home free until we arrived at the Westland Gates, where a cleared area looking like a curb cut turned out to be the area between the two curb cuts.

As we sat there, an Inspectional Services Division car went by, and Lisa recognized the official. He turned out to be Christopher Southridge, a.k.a. "Tiger," whom Lisa had followed for more than a year in what looks to have been a pretty successful attempt to lose lots of weight. Tiger is the (an?) acting captain of ISD, and told us it was he who followed up on the violations pictured in the Flickr set from December 15. Inspectors wrote a number of tickets, including Cappy's Pizza, Burger King on Huntington Avenue, and Symphony Plaza West -- an especially egregious violator because it is a housing development for elderly and disabled people. It was gratifying to see a clear curb cut in front of Cappy's for the first time in 10 days.

I told Tiger that the island on Huntington Avenue between Horticultural Hall and Symphony Plaza East (Menino Island) was blocked yesterday, and he asked whether I had checked it today.

I will do a longer post soon on all that I learned from him.

Not able to get down the corner at Westland , I turned south down Hemenway Street, and struggled over a stretch of ice also belonging to DCR, then went left onto Symphony Road (snowed under sidewalks, but they're unusable even in the summer), and another left onto St. Stephen street, with its tree-heaved sidewalks. We got over to Menino Island, which was untouched since yesterday and totally icebound. So I had to wiggle past a car on Huntington Avenue, and use the U-turn lane to get over to Symphony Plaza East.

Lisa left after we arrived at Symphony Plaza East, and we had a fun little party, complete with Boston Globes from the morning. Fox news showed up towards the end of the party, and a cameraman interviewed Eileen and me, and his crew was going to follow us in the street on our way back home, but we didn't get out there as quickly as we thought we could, and the truck left. For some reason, there was no story on the 10 o'clock news, which runs for a whole hour.