While waiting for the bus at Mass Ave and Washington Street in the South End, we used to always wonder why an entrepreneur never converted the former Alexandra Hotel into high-end condos. It wasn't for the lack of effort. A 2006 Globe piece documents the building's long, troubled history, describing an "old Gothic goddess [that] now stands out on the corner as an over-the-hill vamp, wearing graffiti like smeared lipstick. Redevelopment is passing it by."......

The series Barbara Stanwyck - Maybe I Am Just a Dame starts at the Brattle Theater today and runs on Tuesdays until August 28. Check the theater's website for showtimes and dates. Ball of Fire is tonight at 7:15 and 9:30. The Brattle Theatre's series on Barbara Stanwyck begins tonight with 1941's Ball of Fire, a title that pretty much sums up Stanwyck's legend. She would have been 100 years old this week, and her......

Maybe you saw yesterday's Globe article announcing that legendary hip hop artists such as Afrika Bambaataa, Kool Herc, and Grandmaster Flash are contributing turntables and other items for a forthcoming hip hop exhibit at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. And maybe that got you jonzin' for some mad science about the history of hip hop. Well, you don't have to wait to trudge through a dusty museum. Instead, Bostonist has just the event......