Boston’s Policy On Affordable Housing Inspires Pittsburgh Task Force

The ultra-chic Residences at Mandarin Oriental in Boston’s Back Bay — a development with its own concierge and marble foyers, as well as rents that range from $4,700 to $17,000 a month — has been the province of the rich and powerful since opening in 2008.

But not exclusively.

Thanks to a 15-year-old city policy, teachers, police officers and other modest wage earners live next door to the wealthy at the Mandarin and other luxurious residential developments in Boston.

Because of the city’s inclusionary development policy, the Mandarin houses 10 affordable apartments — comparable in size and quality to the others — with rents ranging from $1,365 to $2,340 a month. The lucky recipients were chosen by lottery.

Read more:

http://www.post-gazette.com/business/development/2015/02/22/Boston-s-policies-on-affordable-housing-inspires-Pittsburgh-leaders/stories/201502220077

Report: Bright Millennials Flocking To Center City

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The number of educated millennials living in Center City ballooned 78 percent between 2000 and 2010, according to a report released Monday.

“The Young and Restless and the Nation’s Cities,” published by cityobservatory.org, found that 25 to 34 year olds with at least a bachelor’s degree have been flocking to major metropolitan areas, fueling economic growth and stimulating urban revitalization.

Philadelphia ranked sixth among major cities which have attracted young college graduates to their booming city centers. New York City topped the list followed by San Francisco, Washington D.C., Chicago and Boston.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/Report_Number_of_educated_millennials_living_in_Center_City_skyrockets.html#MqLbhuE2OgqeDAdH.99

Pittsburgh’s Commuters Are Walking The Walk

A map of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with its neighborhoods labeled. For use primarily in the list of Pittsburgh neighborhoods. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Suzy Waldo can never call off work with the excuse that her car won’t start. And she can’t really justify showing up late for her shifts, either.

Ms. Waldo lives five blocks from the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh South Side where she is the branch manager, and is among the relatively small but growing number of Pittsburghers who make their daily commutes by foot.

A new Census report looking at data from the past five years ranks Pittsburgh third among large cities with commuters who walk to work.

Five years of data from the American Community Survey show 11.3 percent of Pittsburghers commute by walking — ahead of New York City’s 10.3 percent, and just behind Boston, at 15.1 percent, and Washington, D.C., at 12.1 percent.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/local/city/2014/05/15/Pittsburgh-s-commuters-are-walking-the-walk/stories/201405150327#ixzz31nn7F8Bt

Amtrak Boss Stresses Higher Speeds On Northeast Corridor

Map of the Northeast Corridor, traced on USGS topos. Legend: Red – Amtrak ownership Blue – NEC commuter services and NEC commuter rail agency ownership Black – off-NEC Amtrak lines not owned by Amtrak Green – stations on the NEC (Amtrak only) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

WASHINGTON – Amtrak’s planned new Acela Express trains will carry more passengers and be more reliable than the current ones, even if they won’t travel much faster, Amtrak president Joseph Boardman said Thursday.

Amtrak is seeking proposals, with the California High-Speed Rail Authority, for new high-speed trains that can run at 220 miles an hour on the West Coast and 160 miles an hour on the Northeast Corridor.

Proposals from train-builders are due by May 17. A builder will be selected by the end of the year, Boardman said.

The first of the new Acela trains are supposed to be in service between Washington and Boston by 2018.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/business/transportation/20140328_Amtrak_boss_stresses_higher_speeds_on_Northeast_Corridor.html#v1btxHH7FQXZeq6R.99

Boston Developer Buys Union Trust Building, Downtown Pittsburgh

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A Boston developer with Pittsburgh ties bought Downtown’s Union Trust Building for $14 million in a sheriff’s sale on Monday.

The Davis Companies has developed property in 12 states mostly along the East Coast, but this is its first foray into the Pittsburgh market, said Downtown attorney David Lampl of Leech Tishman Fuscaldo & Lampl, who is representing the developer.

“We are evaluating our purchase of the building regarding its future use and hope to make a decision within a month or two,” said Jonathan Davis, 61, founder and CEO of The Davis Companies.

Read more: http://triblive.com/news/adminpage/5695981-74/lampl-building-developer#ixzz2uvTdS9ky
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JetBlue Profits On Boston-Philadelphia Route

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It’s tough to make money at another airline’s international-flight hub, but JetBlue Airways is doing just that on the popular Philadelphia–Boston route.

JetBlue, Boston’s largest airline with 125 daily flights, has succeeded where three other carriers did not: making a profit and winning over travelers with cheaper fares and in-flight amenities on a 300-mile trip on which US Airways long had a lock.

US Airways, with a hub in Philadelphia, has 19 nonstop flights on peak weekdays from Philadelphia to Boston.

JetBlue’s arrival in May with five daily Boston nonstops immediately lowered airfares, once as high as $800 round-trip on US Airways, to $55 to $154 one-way on Jet Blue, depending on the day and time of travel.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/business/transportation/20140205_JetBlue_profits_on_Boston-Phila__route.html#3zudCRGpPAqpmMmJ.99

Comcast Could Buy Time Warner N.Y. Cable Franchises

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Comcast Corp. could acquire Time Warner Cable Co.’s New York cable-TV properties, along with other franchises on the East Coast, in a deal with Charter Communications Inc., according to sources in the industry.

A deal would expand Comcast’s market power along the I-95 corridor between Boston and Washington.

Comcast, the nation’s largest cable-TV company, already offers cable and Internet in Boston, Philadelphia and Washington.

Charter declined to comment Monday. Comcast also had no comment.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/business/20140128_Industry_sources__Comcast_could_acquire_Time_Warner_Cable_N_Y__franchises.html#HAyimeAaYY2LBdix.99

Winter Storm Brings 2 Feet Of Snow, Kills At Least 9

BOSTON — A storm dropped a blanket of light, powdery snow across the Northeast and ushered in frigid temperatures Friday that were unusual even for cities accustomed to blasts of winter weather. The storm, which shut down major highways temporarily and grounded flights, was blamed for at least nine deaths in the eastern half of the country.

The nor’easter was accompanied by plummeting temperatures that on Friday morning reached 8 degrees below zero in Burlington, Vt., with a wind chill of 29 below and 2 degrees in Boston, with a wind chill of minus 20. It dumped 23 inches of snow in Boxford, Mass., and 18 inches in parts of western New York near Rochester. Thirteen inches of snow fell in Boston, while Lakewood, N.J., got 10 inches and New York City’s Central Park got 6.

On a mostly empty Main Street in Concord, N.H., Kathy Woodfin hustled to work, a tall iced coffee turning to caramel-colored slush in her left hand. It was 7 degrees at 9 a.m. and the wind zipping through alleyways blew a fine, stinging snow in her face.

“I just run from heated car to heated building,” the New Hampshire native said. “It’s just like down South, where they run from air conditioned car to air conditioned building.”

Read more: http://www.pottsmerc.com/general-news/20140103/winter-storm-brings-2-feet-of-snow-kills-at-least-9

A Hard Look At The Future Of Chinatowns

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People who stroll through Chinatown on Saturday nights bathe in the lights of intriguing new restaurants, hip tea shops, and stylish lounges.

But moving beneath that shiny exterior, as strong and powerful as an underground river, is a torrent of forces that threaten the neighborhood’s very existence.

An influx of luxury housing, rising rents and land values, a soaring white population, and slipping Asian population could mean the end of Chinatown’s 140-year role as a gateway for immigrants and a regional hub for culture and family.

That’s the conclusion of a new study by a civil rights and education group that examined two decades of property and demographic records in the three big eastern Chinatowns – New York’s, Boston’s, and Philadelphia’s.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20131111_A_hard_look_at_the_future_of_Chinatowns.html#ra7F8e0Rev0gffuc.99

Funeral Home: No One Wants To Bury Bomb Suspect

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BOSTON – A funeral home director was scrambling to find a cemetery that would bury a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings, ignoring protesters gathered outside his business and saying everybody deserves a dignified burial service no matter the circumstances of his or her death.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, died from “gunshot wounds of torso and extremities” and blunt trauma to his head and torso, said Worcester funeral home owner Peter Stefan, who has Tsarnaev’s body and on Friday read details from his death certificate. The certificate lists the time of his death as 1:35 a.m. on April 19, four days after the deadly bombing, Stefan said.

Tsarnaev died after a gunfight with authorities who had launched a massive manhunt for him and his brother, ethnic Chechens from Russia who came to the United States about a decade ago. Police have said he ran out of ammunition before his younger brother dragged his body under a vehicle while fleeing.

Tsarnaev’s family was making arrangements Friday for his funeral as investigators searched the woods near a college attended by 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was captured less than a day after his brother’s death.

Read more:  http://www.philly.com/philly/news/nation_world/20130504_ap_funeralhomenoonewantstoburybombsuspect.html

BOSTON BOMB SUSPECT IS CAPTURED

BOSTON — The teenage suspect in the marathon bombings, whose flight from the police after a furious gunfight early Friday morning sparked an intense manhunt that virtually shut down the entire Boston metropolitan area all day, was taken into custody Friday night after the police found him hiding in a boat in the backyard of a house in Watertown, Mass., a senior law enforcement official said.

Two law enforcement officials said that the suspect, Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19, was found in a boat parked behind a house there.  It was not immediately clear what condition he was in.

A police officer at the scene said that the man was covered in blood when he was captured.  An ambulance was already there. The Boston Police Department announced on Twitter:  “Suspect in custody.  Officers sweeping the area.”  And Mayor Thomas M. Menino posted, “We got him.”

As around 30 law enforcement officers — wearing helmets — walked away from the scene of what had been a tense standoff only minutes earlier, neighbors who had gathered on an adjacent street applauded and shouted, “Thank you! Thank you!”

Read more:  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/20/us/boston-marathon-bombings.html?hp&_r=0

1 Of 2 Boston Bomb Suspects Dead; Suburbs Shut Down

WATERTOWN, Mass. (AP) — Two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing killed an MIT police officer, injured a transit officer in a firefight and threw explosive devices at police during their getaway attempt in a long night of violence that left one of them dead and another still at large Friday, authorities said as the manhunt intensified for a young man described as a dangerous terrorist.

The suspects were identified to The Associated Press as coming from the Russian region near Chechnya, which has been plagued by an Islamic insurgency stemming from separatist wars. A law enforcement intelligence bulletin obtained by the AP identified the surviving bomb suspect as Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, a 19-year-old who had been living in Cambridge, just outside Boston, and said he “may be armed and dangerous.”

Two law enforcement officials told the AP that Tsarnaev and the other suspect, who was not immediately identified, had been living legally in the U.S. for at least one year.

In Boston, still on edge over the attack on the marathon, and its western suburbs, authorities suspended mass transit and urged people to stay indoors as they searched for the remaining suspect, a man seen wearing a white baseball cap on surveillance footage from Monday’s deadly bombing at the marathon finish line.

Read more:  http://www.pottsmerc.com/article/20130419/NEWS04/130419074/1-of-2-boston-bomb-suspects-dead-suburbs-shut-down#full_story

A Perfect Marathon Day, Then The Unimaginable

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It was as good a ­Patriots Day, as good a Marathon day, as any, dry and seasonably warm but not hot like last year.  The buzz was great.  While the runners climbed Heartbreak Hill, the Red Sox were locked in another white-knuckle duel with the Tampa Bay Rays at Fenway Park.  The only thing missing was Lou Reed crooning “Perfect Day” in the background.

The winners and the elite runners had long ago finished, when in the Fens, at shortly after 2 p.m., Mike ­Napoli kissed a ball off The Green Monster in the bottom of the ninth, allow­ing Dustin Pedroia to scamper all the way home from first base, giving the Red Sox a walk-off win.

Many of those jubilant Sox fans had walked down through Kenmore Square toward the Back Bay to watch the Marathon.

Some of them had just got to the finish line when the first bomb went off, shortly before 3 p.m.

In an instant, a perfect day had morphed into something viscerally evil.

Read more:  http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/04/15/perfect-day-turns-evil/W7KQHq1NWFqukte3VQ14DJ/story.html

Philly To NYC In 40 Minutes?

English: Map of Northeast, Keystone, and Empire corridors, federally designated high-speed rail corridors. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Obama administration will weigh 15 alternatives for improved passenger rail service between Boston and Washington, ranging from modest upgrades to a new high-speed Northeast Corridor that would allow trips between Philadelphia and New York City in about 40 minutes.

The 15 “preliminary alternatives” were unveiled Tuesday by the Federal Railroad Administration.

The FRA plans to come up with a single “preferred alternative” by mid-2015, complete with cost estimates and possible construction schedules.

The goal is to lay out a feasible plan for investing in the nation’s busiest rail corridor through 2040, with proposals for updated equipment, more trains, new stations and possible new routes.

Read more: http://www.philly.com/philly/business/20130402_Various_visions_for_Northeast_Corridor.html#ixzz2PLaQhVws 
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Lancaster Catholic Graduate Not Idle On “Idol”

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Naomi Gillies knows more than she’s telling.

Gillies, a 22-year-old music student from Lancaster County, is an entry-level contestant in the 11th season of “American Idol.” And she knows what happens next.

“I grew up watching the show, and I was like, wow, I’m in this show,” she said Sunday during a telephone interview from Boston.

While she can say she passed the audition — which aired on “American Idol” last week — and appears in the “Hollywood Week” edition that airs this Wednesday on Fox, she can’t, according to a nondisclosure agreement with the network, say if she made it through grueling elimination rounds in Pasadena to appear in the semifinals.

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/582114_Catholic-graduate-not-idle-in–Idol-.html#ixzz1ljF877iZ

Amtrak, NJ Transit and SEPTA Trains Halted By Flood Waters From Irene

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Things have not returned to normal after Irene.  Amtrak service between Philadelphia and Boston was halted due to high water that flooded the Trenton Station and tracks, making train travel north of Trenton impossible.

SEPTA had seventeen cars stranded at Trenton when water from a nearby creek overflowed over the tracks.  The water is not expected to recede until Monday evening and then the damage will be assessed before a timeline to re-establish train service can be determined.  SEPTA still has four train lines without service: Trenton, Paoli/Thorndale, Norristown and Cynwyd.

NJ Transit trains are only operating on the Atlantic City Line.

Amtrak service between Philadelphia and Harrisburg is expected to resume about 3 p.m today.