--So, just how many new construction jobs will the casinos proposed by Governor Deval Patrick create? He said 30,000. An independent analyst says no way: "... building three casinos at a cost of $1 billion each in Massachusetts would create a total of 4,000 to 5,000 new construction jobs for the duration of the building period, probably three years." [Boston Globe] --Now this is cool--A look at BNN's studios in an old Roxbury substation.......

After much wrangling and justifiable concern, Boston has approved Harvard University's plans to build what the Allston-Brighton TAB calls a "$1 billion science complex." The complex was in doubt because the community wasn't happy with a benefits package that Harvard was going to give to the community. A massive science complex will bring plenty of change, not to mention traffic, and Allston wanted something in return. Here's what Harvard offered that met with the city's......

--The banner brawl continues. The Highway Department decided that the banners declaring support for the troops that hang over the roadways pose a potential road hazard. That decision poses a potential PR nightmare, and Governor Deval Patrick has put it on hold. [Boston Globe] --Corinne Stephen, 26, was sentenced to 8 to 12 years for the involuntary manslaughter of her foster child, 4-year-old Dontel Jeffers. [DA's Office, background] --A longshoreman fessed up to putting......

In October, Boston University threw down the gauntlet and declared plans to expand. Now, Boston College is one-upping BU with expansion plans of its own. BC's expansion plan rivals that of BU. BU said it would put in $1.8 billion, and BC has announced that it will spend $1.6 billion. The BC Heights reports that the money will go to construction and renovation, and 100 new faculty members will be hired. The rest will go......

Thanks to a glut of turkey and leftovers, Bostonist has been unable to fit into our fancy clothes--or our Project Runway review schedule--for the past few weeks. But thanks to some long sessions on the elliptical, we're all zipped up and back on track to follow Heidi's proteges all the way down the catwalk. Last week, Sarah Jessica Parker showed up--graciously refraining from grossing us out with an overly Carrie outfit--and asked the designers to......

--On Saturday morning, a construction worker in Watertown went on a crazy trip to Brookline. The worker, 24-year-old Kevin Lasquade, happened to be drunk at the time. According to WHDH, Lasquade got noticed when "he allegedly hit a parked car on Beacon Street in Brookline." He also took the backhoe into a Stop & Shop lot and almost did some damage there. As if driving drunk weren't bad enough, WHDH pointed out that Lasquade didn’t......

--Twenty-five enterprising members of the BPD found a way to make over $200,000 last year. 121 police officers make more money than Commish Ed Davis. This information goes to show how much money goes into the police details, and how much it would save if the state went with Governor Deval Patrick's plan to use flagmen instead of details at construction sites. --WBZ' I-Team found that Massachusetts State Troopers caused "nearly 500 crashes in their......

--A fire happened at Fenway Park this morning while construction workers were removing a temporary luxury suite. The fire was quickly put out, and no one was hurt. [WBZ] --A cousin of Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley died Friday night in a fire in her Hyannis home. [Boston Globe] --The Air Force has found that Cape Wind wouldn't impact one of its radar stations. In an impressive NIMBY effort, Representative William Delahunt wanted to......

Dominic Luberto's annual feat of light pollution Christmas devotion -- 500,000 bulbs and counting -- has long brought media attention to his Jamaica Plain home and won him admirers across the globe. He gets fan letters simply addressed to "Christmas Castle" and has started his own children's charity drive. But his crowning achievement may be his undoing. The Globe has more details on the City's efforts to bring down the "Crown of Christ" that Luberto......

Governor Deval Patrick has expressed hopes of replacing police officers on construction sites with flagmen. Police details are one of the oldest--and most controversial--local traditions, and Patrick won't have an easy time getting this done. The detail is great for police officers in that they can make more cash, but it hits taxpayers hard. As Casey Ross at the Herald points out, "We are the only state that does not use flagmen." There will always......

One of the most famous sights in Cambridge--MIT's Stata Center, designed by Frank Gehry--is leaking. MIT is now suing Gehry for negligence. The Stata Center may look amazing on the outside, and it got a shout-out in Doonesbury, but Shelley Murphy at the Globe reports that the inside is a mess of cracks, drainage backups, and mold. MIT paid $1.5 million to fix problems in the Stata Center's amphitheater--which is a rotten icing on top......

After much debate over whether or not the blue-and-yellow DIY furniture behemoth that is IKEA would be good for Somerville, IKEA has received permits to start building at Assembly Square. George Hassett at the Somerville News reports that construction will begin next summer, 10 years after IKEA first started making noise about moving in. That doesn't mean everyone's issues with the IKEA have been resolved. Somerville residents still want dibs on the jobs the IKEA......

Bostonist saw today's "Rolling Rally," featuring the players riding duck boats across the city and relief pitcher Jonathan Papelbon dancing to the Dropkick Murphys, from two different vantage points--near the Common and at the Hynes Convention Center. Everyone clearly enjoyed themselves, especially Papelbon: Wherever you were along the parade route, it was simply madness. Of course, the Red Sox faithful turned out in their jerseys. Hundreds of little kids skipped school. College students sat down......

--Now, this didn't happen in Boston, but, as the Sports Redux mentioned earlier, a Massachusetts man and Red Sox fan was attacked by two men in New York. The men had asked him if he was loyal to the Red Sox. Carlos Ortez, 25, of Quincy, is now in the intensive care unit at Westchester Medical Center with multiple facial fractures. He was in New York to work on a construction project for a Manhattan......

IKEA is already here, in Stoughton, but the blue-and-yellow behemoth might be moving even closer. The Somerville News reports that the Swedish store with the make-it-yourself furniture has applied to start construction in Assembly Square. The arrival of the store could mean good news (new jobs!) and bad news (ugly traffic). IKEA tries to be soothing, well-organized, and clever, but the long lines at IKEA and technical furniture difficulties tend to put individuals in a......

If you've always dreamed of owning a swanky Back Bay condo overlooking the Charles River Esplanade, you might get your big chance soon. All you'll need to do is stock up on the earplugs and fun-tak. Remember how the Storrow Drive Tunnel was voted Boston's most likely to collapse and leak on you to death last semester? And how maybe the only way to fix it would be to close the road and bulldoze......

Filene's Basement has been announcing its closure for ages, but they've finally done it for real. Shoppers have scoured the racks for the last time, and the Downtown Crossing building is now a blank canvas for developers. And it feels like somebody died. Jessica Fargen at the Herald used the phrase "pay their respects" when describing customers on the last day. Andrew Ryan at the Globe called the final day of shopping "grim" and declared......

Swedish indie act Peter Bjorn and John's song "Young Folks" sure is catchy, light, and charming. Since the song includes Victoria Bergsman, formerly of the equally catchy The Concretes, the tune is sure to stick in one's head. In fact, when a DJ played "Young Folks" at River Gods the other night, the eyes of everyone in the bar lit up. People swayed. People smiled. The song set a perfect tone for the end of......

So there's this tunnel in Boston, the problem is that the tunnel is crumbling. So it's time to get a plan. A transit plan that will reshape the way Boston gets from one place to the other. Let's dig a huge system of tunnels build an elevated highway alternative route for Storrow Drive that runs over the Esplanade. The Storrow Drive tunnel has some problems. It's crumbling, it's leaking (back in the 50's they didn't......

--Why toss a bucket of paint on a richie's fur coat when you can stop furs at the source? In Hinsdale on Monday, someone set about 400 to 500 mink who were destined to become pricey furs free from a farm. That's a lot of mink to let loose! The owner of Berkshire Furs is naturally blaming the "antifur people." No one's been caught yet, and the owner said the animals wouldn't be able to......

Londonist are starting to think their city is getting just a little bit too expensive, when even Christian Slater can't afford to go out there. And there's no escaping, as local singer Lily Allen discovered when she was barred entry to the US. The British mapping agency caused further bad karma, by blocking a 3-D representation of London in Google Earth. But the smiles returned to Londonist's faces as they interviewed Baroness von Reichardt,......

According to the Associated Press, Gov. Deval Patrick called for a review of local bridge inspection records today. It turns out that Massachusetts has 27 steel truss bridges similar in design to the one that collapsed in Minnesota, but none is considered in danger of collapsing. WBZ news posted a Mass Mass Highway Dept. spreadsheet which lists 23 bridge rehab/replacement projects that are in design, under construction or recently completed. Gov. Patrick says he plans......

We Bostonians are experts on tunnel crappiness. The horrible collapse in Minnesota got us wondering about the safety of bridges across our proud, crumbly nation. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation 2006 report to Congress, Status of the Nation’s Highways, Bridges, and Transit: Conditions and Performance: In 2006, 1,135, or 8.67%, of Minnesota's total inventory of 13,008 bridges were categorized as Structurally Deficient [SD]*. For comparison: In Massachusetts: 5,059 bridges were inventoried; 586......

--Now that will get your attention for sure! Some prankster hacked into a flashing electronic road sign and changed it to read "PENIS FOR LUNCH" instead of "ROAD CONSTRUCTION AHEAD" on Route 1. Please don't arrest this person. This person is funny. Apparently a lot of other people thought so, too, since the authorities didn't find out until later yesterday afternoon. One transportation rep said, "Some people might see it as a joke, but this......

Happy Father's Day! For those of you who have dads, are dads, or know dads, this one's for you, from all of us at the Gothamist network. It was a week of bizarre, embarassing headlines at DCist. The trial of the local administrative law judge who sued his cleaners for $54 million over a pair of missing pants left everyone shaking their heads. Then the capital city was nearly brought to its knees, twice, by......

The Comfort of Strangers screens at the Harvard Film Archive on Tuesday, May 29, at 9:00 pm and on Wednesday, May 30, at 7:00 pm. The festival ends on May 30, but several other Pinter movies are still showing between now and then. Check their calendar. Note: The Harvard Film Archive will be closed for construction in June. We were so preoccupied with the Brattle Grindhouse that we almost missed the Harvard Film Archive's Pinterfest,......

Breaking news. Quite literally. Rob Sama alerts us that right now in Fort Point Chanel area by the Children's Museum there's water on the road, but no pressure in his office building. Workers in the area pushed through a water main sending water four stories up in the air and flooding a few city blocks. From the pictures he's posted it looks like it won't be a fun cleanup project for city workers. Construction......

Once you know how to use Storrow getting from your point A to point B becomes so much easier. Well, that is if you're willing to take a chance. The Herald reports this morning that they've reviewed documents and seen evidence of their own that the Storrow Drive Tunnel that runs along the Esplanade is in severe need of repair. It's something the DCR has known for a while; they've been looking into the best......

We've been sitting on this one a little bit because, well, nobody's perfect. But it was pretty funny that someone misspelled Governor Deval Patrick's name on a large construction sign in the North End. His name isn't that hard to spell. RDA Construction, which is working on a waterfront project, misspelled the governor's name on the sign. And they'll fix it. Perhaps someone just got finished watching a movie starring some famous Duvall's, such as......

--An alleged Bad Seed brought out the "Never a Good Idea" line from the BPD, and this time they wrote, "Disrespecting Mother Never a Good Idea." On Thursday in Roxbury, a 13-year-old suffered a case of hormones from hell. She was, according to the report, "swearing and throwing objects" at her own mother, and she kept on with that behavior when the police arrived at the scene. (The 13-year-old is allegedly not the sharpest tool......