Davis, Porter, Alewife T stations CLOSING on weekends - November to March

[ron_newman]

The Red Line will not run on weekends to Porter, Davis, and Alewife stations, starting November 5 and continuing through the end of March 2012, in order to make repairs in the tunnel.

I don't see anything on the MBTA website about this, but here's a Boston.com article.

Take a self-guided bike tour of the arts in Somerville

[ron_newman]

On October 15, the Somerville Bicycle Committee led a bike tour of places throughout Somerville where art is produced, exhibited, or performed. If you didn't ride with us last week, you can take a self-guided tour anytime with our maps and pamphlet:

http://somervillebikes.org/documents/TourMap.pdf - the entire bike tour route
http://somervillebikes.org/documents/Squares.pdf - inset maps for Davis and Union squares
http://somervillebikes.org/documents/ArtsInTheVille2011.pdf - a tour guide, with detailed descriptions and live web links for 68 art-related sites in Somerville
http://goo.gl/NpP19 - Google map of the tour

The maps indicate each site by number, and the tour guide describes each site and includes clickable URLs for most of them.

Please comment with any additions or corrections. Eventually I'd like to turn this project over to the Arts Council to include on their website.

Crime alert - College Ave at Stanley Ave, Medford

[littlecitynames.livejournal.com]

Got this email from Tufts today:

On October 22, 2011 at approximately 1:15 am, a female Tufts student was the victim of a sexual assault. The victim notified Medford Police about the incident. The victim stated, while walking down College Ave at the corner of Stanley Ave, Medford, a male attacked her from behind. The victim was knocked to the ground and fought off the suspect. The suspect fled on College Ave in the direction of George Street or Stanley Ave. The victim was not injured.

Medford, Tufts, Somerville, Transit K-9 and Massachusetts State Police K-9 were notified and investigated the attack. An area search of the surrounding streets was conducted with negative results.

The suspect was described as:

Hispanic Male, 5’5” to 5’ 7” tall, thin build, late teens, dark short hair, dark eyes, wearing a dark hoodie.

Emergency response

[prunesnprisms.livejournal.com]

IF anyone was curious about how well Somerville responds to a 911 call, I can report that there are a combined total of 6 emergency vehicles on Appleton and Willow right now, attending to a house that is not on fire. Awesome response by the city, y'all. 

In other news, when you go out for a while, make sure you don't leave food in a hot oven, cause it'll burn and smoke a lot.

Fireworks?

[ron_newman]

Anyone know why fireworks are being shot off right now, seemingly about four blocks west of where I live (Day and Orchard streets)?

The sound set me a bit on edge, since I spent part of the afternoon hearing gunshots every few minutes while bicycling through Harold Parker State Forest in North Reading.