Some Bostonists found out about this the hard way--by actually being on the green line and having our drivers announce "last stop Government Center"--but the Green Line is closed between Park Street and Kenmore Square this morning after two trolleys collided at Boylston. One trolley rear-ended a stopped trolley, and one car derailed, according to the Globe. Not only were legions (including some Bostonists) made late for work, but the Globe reports nine people complained......

A 25-year-old woman was nearly raped after leaving a Green Line train from the Brookline Village stop early this morning. She told police that the man followed her from Government Center to Brookline Village and attacked her on Cypress Street. When he attacked, she managed to get away and run home. Brookline police have released a description of the man. From the Globe: A Hispanic man, possibly of Mexican descent, who is about 5 feet......

A viral video posted by our brothers and sisters at Gothamist shows some women who pole danced in a train car on a dare from darejunkies.com, much to the chagrin of the MTA. The video is something to behold, although, after seeing all the crotch-grinding and the dubious looks of some of the men enjoying themselves, we wouldn't want to touch anything in that car after the women finished. Here's the video: Given that this......

The MBTA has renewed its contract with the MBCR. Statistics confirmed what everyone knew—that commuter rail in Massachusetts needs a major overhaul, yet the Massachusetts Bay Commuter Rail Company will get three more years to do whatever it is that they do. So, when you're stuck on the train or waiting for the train, you know who to thank. For some background, Bostonist Noah Bierman's Globe piece on the history between the MBTA and MBCR.......

The cold weather - and holiday festivities - descended upon Gothamist. The Rockefeller Christmas tree was lit, Broadway stagehand finally ended their strike, and NASCAR decided to run their victory lap through Times Square. There were disturbing photographs revealing the working conditions in which many city manholes are produced and ninjas were also a hot topic, either robbing homes or entering into alibis. But the city was really rocked by how Rudy Giuliani's visits......

If the amount of T alerts entering our inbox is any indication, the new T Alert system appears to be working just fine. In fact, it proves what we already knew--that the green line is a sluggish nightmare thanks to disabled trains. An alert appears when a 15-20 delay happens. But one commenter, boston_sean, left us a note that the T Alert system needs a little work when it comes to the commuter rail: I......

Bostonist just left the 2007 Boston Music Awards, and while we'll have ruminations on the awards ceremony for your Sunday reading pleasure, you can find below the crop of winners from the 20th anniversary ceremony, presented here in chronological order: Outstanding Funk/Jam Band of the Year: Westbound Train Outstanding Blues/Soul Act of the Year: Eli "Paperboy" Reed & the True Loves Outstanding DJ/Dance Act of the Year: DJ BC Outstanding Rock Band of the Year:......

--The Legislature is going to consider banning spanking tomorrow. That's spanking of children, not "please, sir, may I have another" frat-spanking or whatever role-playing you do with your significant other. [WCVB] --A man's SUV became stuck on train tracks in Beverly last night just as a commuter train was heading toward him. He escaped in the nick of time. His SUV got creamed. [Photo-WCVB] --The Roman Catholic Archdiocese plans to close at least two schools......

--A second MBTA-related noose incident: A black conductor found a noose on the floor of a Red Line cab before Halloween. [Boston Herald] --Roberto Pulido, crooked cop extraordinaire who inspired one of the Herald's most salacious covers, is now blaming steroids for his behavior. [Boston Globe] --A bus driver from Martha's Vineyard won $10 million smackers in the Massachusetts State Lottery. [Boston Herald] --Some UMass-Amherst students are attempting a boycott. [Boston Herald] --Elsewhere in......

We're the most starry-eyed, green-Kool-Aid-guzzling optimists anywhere, but even we never thought it would be this good, this fast. Even on a night when two-thirds of Ghidorah wasn't quite up to snuff (Ray Allen 4-for-14, Kevin Garnett missing his usual double-double), the Celtics still had enough to put the clamps on Jersey and win their seventh straight. Any time you defensively hold a team to 69 points and 33% shooting, you're doing something right. And......

The T announced that it is going to order 10 more of the infamous Breda cars for the Green Line. We wondered why the T would order more cars that don't work. The T's problems with Italian company AnsaldoBreda go waaay back: The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority signed a $222 million contract in 1995 with an Italian company now known as AnsaldoBreda to provide the trains. The company was supposed to deliver 100 "Breda" cars,......

Celtics coach Doc Rivers would have been entitled to skip last night's game in New Jersey. Spending the day at his father's funeral, 1000 miles away from the Meadowlands, he was fully prepared to call it a day and watch his team on TV. But his mom told him that Dad would have wanted him on the sideline, so Doc caught a charter flight and walked into the C's locker room an hour before game......

--Masshole victory! The Big Dig tunnels will get wireless antennas! Now drivers can be even more distracted! [Boston Globe] --Wolfe Styke, the MIT student who was stabbed multiple times by an ex, has been released from the hospital. His ex, Wellesley student Anna Tang, will be held in jail until her next court appearance on December 3. [Boston Globe] --A commuter train struck and killed a man walking on the tracks in Lynn yesterday......

Boston Magazine had an exclusive in which they busted Boston Herald employees stealing dailies The Metro and Boston NOW from newspaper stands. While the Herald thinks its being all sneaky and undermining (though they are denying Boston Magazine's report), they obviously haven't realized that the free dailies have a fertile quality. They multiply, breeding all day long, piling up on the MBTA train seats, stuffing the canvas bags of commuters, and, by the end of......

Londonist got the big scoop of the week with what may be the first images of notorious street artist Banksy in action. They also got on a runaway train without an operator provoking a response from the transport authorities. Elsewhere, London's answer to Central Station is about to open for business, and Londonist got a sneak preview. Meanwhile, spooky goings-on beneath London Bridge, where a cache of skeletons provided an apt story for Hallowe'en.......

There is a lot to love about the MBTA. Its mascot is a man who began a nightmarish lifelong captivity 'neath the streets of Boston when he tried to take the T to Jamaica Plain. It offers Bostonians spontaneous trust exercises. It grants importance to our geographically inclined citizens. And, let's face it, it gets us to work. But America's oldest subway is poised to become America's most annoying. The concept is T-Radio, and it......

Married four times, detested by Aleister Crowley but friends with Howard Hughes, Preston Sturges should not be begrudged his mastery of the screwball comedy. He had a lot of material to work with. But his genius was to craft dialogue and pace his actors with such naturalism as to make the ridiculous seem inevitable. This genius is on display today at the Brattle Theatre, which is screening The Palm Beach Story (1942). Its reported......

Photographer and blogger Lolita Parker Jr. was on the scene when fed-up and overheated MBTA passengers broke out of a Red Line train stuck on the Longfellow Bridge during Friday's Park Street Station fire. The following image says a lot of good about Bostonians helping each other. It doesn't say as much about the T, which has some 'splainin' to do. Image courtesy of Lolita Parker Jr. More pictures of the incident are available on......

And good for them! Last night's trash fire at the Park Street MBTA station caused the usual delays and annoyance, but some passengers became so dangerously overheated when their train got stuck on the Longfellow Bridge that they broke out, using the emergency handles. The Globe noted that the passengers' actions were "unauthorized," but what were they going to do, bake in there like Toll House cookies in an oven? Lolita at Boston Faces, Boston......

Update: We spoke to a patient MBTA customer-service rep who said that she didn't know how long Park Street Station would be closed. She said that the decision to reopen it was entirely up to the fire department. Update to the Update: A tipper going from downtown to Cambridge let us know that a red line train actually made it through, and the doors opened at Park Street, so the T appears to be functional......

Keggers and CliffsNotes Grub Street Headquarters 160 Boylston Street Sunday, September 23, 7:00-9:00 pm More info Sunday night: a time for football, Extreme Home Makeover, and staying in, right? You couldn't be more wrong. Sunday night--at least this Sunday night--is a time to don your favorite college sweatshirt, put on your thinking and drinking caps, and head out to Keggers and CliffsNotes, the latest installment in the Dirty Water Reading Series. Co-hosted by Redivider, Quick......

From the DA's Office: A man was arrested for attempting to kidnap a Los Angeles woman who was walking her bike in Allston early this morning. At about 3:00 am, 25-year-old Bruce Saidi, of Chelsea, and an unknown accomplice, who is still at large, grabbed the woman and held a knife to her throat. Saidi held her head down while the other guy took the bike, and the two forced her over the footbridge over......

Below is a photo of a person being a total T-bag on the MBTA. Today we present a well-dressed, handsome young man who has achieved what was heretofore considered impossible: taking up three seats on a very crowded OJ line train at 5:15 PM without getting his acid-washed tookis kicked by teen hoods packing hot bags of Wendy's. How the hey-all did he pull this off?!! After careful analysis, it appears that the key......

You may not have noticed since they've been largely under the radar, but the Boston Film Festival starts this weekend at the AMC Loews Boston Common, and they have some good movies. The Boston Film Festival website has the full schedule, and Bostonist has pulled out some highlights: Lars and the Real Girl, Saturday, September 15, 7:30-9:30 Have you ever wondered what might happen if a fella bought a blow-up doll and actually fell in......

Writers are taking a second look at Jack Kerouac's On the Road in light of the fiftieth anniversary of the novel's publication. Lowell, Kerouac's birthplace, has hosted several events and is presenting the original Kerouac scroll. And why not? People named Kerouac's book as an inspiration that liberated them from the daily grind and fed the counterculture movement. But is Kerouac's famed book all that inspiring? Or is it more inspiring in hindsight, once people......

Friday at Back Bay station: it's hot, it's midnight, and the crowd on the platform is ever deepening. Low-level panic set in when the MBTA's dreaded Mr. Roboto Voice of Sorrow (as opposed to the Worf Voice of Normalcy) comes over the intercom and says, "Due to a trespasser on the right of way, Orange Line service between Haymarket and Wellington Station is being diverted to shuttle buses." Everyone knew that it was going......

No joke. The Red Line train stations are crowded right now, and the trains are even more packed with people. The official word being piped through the speakers at the stations is that a switch problem has developed near JFK/UMass. All riders going to Braintree need to get off the train and switch at JFK/UMass. The switch problem has caused all trains on the red line to slow down. When contacted, an MBTA customer service......

--More cross-dressing criminals! Dr. Richard Sharpe, the dermatologist who liked to play dress-up and who shot his wife to death in 2000, is going on trial Monday for trying to hire a hit man to kill the prosecutor who sent him to jail. Sharpe thought that if he could take out Essex County prosecutor Robert Weiner, he might have a shot at an appeal. This isn't the first time crazy thoughts have floated through Sharpe's......

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,......

Former state Senate president-turned-lobbyist Robert Travaglini, fondly known around here as "T-Vag," tried to save the hide of the recently fired state medical examiner, Mark Flomenbaum. Last week, T-Vag went to the Flomenbaum's disciplinary hearing, which the Globe notes isn't the norm. T-Vag's partner, who was defending Flomenbaum at the hearing, summed up what T-Vag was trying to communicate: "There is a genuine desire by Dr. Flomenbaum to complete the mission." T-Vag & Co. apparently......