Burrito Battle Escalates Into War

First, there was Boloco, a burrito joint on Beacon Street in Cleveland Circle.

Two years ago, Chipotle moved in down the street and the first Burrito Battle of Cleveland Circle was joined.

And in a few weeks the battle for the burrito dollars of Boston College undergraduate students will escalate into outright warfare.

The Boston Restaurant Talk blog announces that El Pelon Taqueria, a store damaged by fire -- twice! -- in the Fenway, is moving to the top of Lake Street at 2197 Commonwealth Avenue, the former site of the College Sub Shop and across the street from BC. They plan to open March 15, although no word as of yet if they will be handing out free burritos on the first day like Chipotle did.

What kind of weaponry will El Pelon bring to the battle? Their menu can be found at The Burrito Blog, natch.

The only question I have is this: Do you eat your burrito with the outer end of the strip up or down?


Image:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jbloom/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

DCR Chain Gang Shoveling at Cleveland Circle

A few years back the Metropolitan District Commission did a lousy job -- basically no job whatsoever -- in shoveling snow on the sidewalks on Chestnut Hill Avenue, Beacon Street, and Commonwealth near to the Reilly Memorial Rink and other property (Chestnut Hill Reservoir) it owned at Cleveland Circle. They wouldn't even bother clearing the leaves from the sidewalks in late Fall, resulting in a trampled down mess of wet leaves that would then get trampled down with unshoveled snow into an undulating, slippery mess for pedestrians.

When the MDC disappeared and morphed into the Department of Conservation and Recreation, not much changed.

But lately, I have seen those streets shoveled more often and in a timely fashion. But why? Is the DCR all of a sudden doing a phenomenal job at shoveling sidewalks, now that they no longer are in charge of plowing the parkways in town?

Sunday night I learned the secret to their recent sidewalk shoveling success: the DCR brought in a chain gang from the Department of Corrections.

Well, not exactly a chain gang. Nobody was shackled hand and foot to each other. But they were wearing orange jumpsuits with big, black letters "DOC" on the back, and there were two vehicles -- one from DCR with equipment, the other a van from DOC for the passengers -- slowly following the shoveling men as they worked their way around the ice rink and reservoir.

Unfortunately, I didn't have a camera with me to, um, "capture" the guys for posterity. So I had to settle for a stock photo from Creative Commons.

Sounds to me like a good solution to address something that used to be a big problem.


Image of guantanamo jumpsuit orange cropped from an image by gierszewski, used through a Creative Commons license.

Armed Robbery at Cleveland Circle Store 24

Boston Police are seeking public assistance in identifying armed robbery suspects who held up the Store 24 on Beacon Street at Cleveland Circle early Tuesday morning:

The store employee described one of the suspects as a Hispanic male, about 5’8”, weighing 170lbs, wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt, a black t-shirt and a dew rag; the other as a black male, about 5’10”, weighing 250lbs, wearing a black hat and a black jacket.

Surveillance photos of the two suspects can be found here.

How Walkable Is Your House's Location?

There is a cute little gadget on the web: a site that will take any street address and calculate the "walk score" for it, i.e., how "walkable" your location is. Scores are 0-100, with 100 being the most walkable location imaginable and 0 being the North Pole.

It factors in the distances to the nearest parks, grocery stores, libraries, etc.

The Global Center of Universal Brighton Centered-ness, not to be confused with Brighton Center itself, gets an 88. That's why my wife and I wanted to live in a place like this: she commutes to work on the bus (hates driving rush hour with Masshole drivers), I bike to work, we both walk whenever possible to shop for daily things. Brighton Center itself gets an identical score of 88.

Harvard Square: 97. Our old address near Central Square: 98. Cleveland Circle: 97. Walden Pond: 15 (Thoreau would be proud).

Courtesy of Newton Streets and Sidewalks.

From Linebacker to Alleged Line-seller

Usually, the Allston-Brighton TAB's police blotter listings of drug activity consist of people caught with "personal" quantities of a single drug, more often than not caught in the Allston Village neighborhood.

So I was a bit surprised to see this listing of a perp allegedly caught with three drugs (where the street value of the cocaine itself is $2800), an electronic scale (which might lead an ordinary person to suspect dealing), a wad of cash, and all this happening a block from Cleveland Circle:

Former BC athlete busted

Former Boston College linebacker Raymond Henderson, 23, was arrested on May 17 at his apartment at 29 Sutherland Road after a warrant search turned up a sizeable quantity of drugs. Police reportedly recovered approximately 28 grams of cocaine, several bags of marijuana and hallucinogenic mushrooms, a large electronic scale, and $3,612 in cash. Henderson was arraigned Friday morning in Brighton, charged with trafficking in cocaine and possession of class C and D substances with intent to distribute, and held on $5,000 cash bail. He’s due back in court on June 19 for a probable cause hearing.

Post a comment with your own version of a title for this post -- mine is certainly not the best one around.

Boston Marathon Trudges Through Brighton

Yesterday's 111th running of the Boston Marathon had better weather during the race than anticipated. The pace was, nonetheless, slow for all categories. The lead men were still in a 5-man bunch by the time they passed us in Cleveland Circle -- the lead group is usually split up through the Four Hills of Newton.


(Photo: Boston Globe / John Tlumacki)

Crowds were also thin. The spectators at Cleveland Circle can be 4-5 people deep during good weather, but they were only one-deep (at best) yesterday.

Race officials were effective at directing the wheelchair athletes safely across the tracks at Cleveland Circle, but one cyclist was observed to fall while negotiating the tracks at too shallow an angle. In case you're wondering, bicycles are theoretically not allowed on the course.

The six-time wheelchair winner, Ernst Van Dyk, failed to defend his title, being blown away by mile 4. Newton wasn't nice to him: he hit a deep pothole, blew one tire, and knocked the other wheel off his chair (which he was able to repair). I think Newton needs to work on their roads a bit more...