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......

The 19th Annual Boston Jewish Film Festival Now through November 11 At almost every theater in town Official site Sometimes film festivals aim to achieve a specific tone each year, or they provide selections that fit neatly into certain genres. This year's Boston Jewish Film Festival selections are unruly. They won't be boxed in. Even when it comes to their screenings, specific movies might be hard to find because they are popping up all over......

Frankly, we'd like to know what Daisuke Matsuzaka did to alienate his teammates. Does he play "Gyroball" constantly in the clubhouse? Mix wasabi in with the Ben Gay as a lockerroom prank? There must be some reason why his lineup consistently fails to give him any run support, making him 1-3 against the Devil Rays to his 12-7 record against the rest of the league. Don Orsillo put it best late in the game last......

Starbucks, schmarbucks. Dunkin' Donuts thinks it can rule the world. It's rolled out corny commercials with the likes of Naomi Campbell and Rachael Ray leaving skidmarks on a floor. The next step in world domination starts this month, when our beloved Dunkin' Donuts begins selling packaged Dunkin' coffee across the United States at Wal-Mart, Kroger, and other stores. This is excellent news for anyone who no longer lives in New England yet who still feels......

Earlier today the home page of Channel 5's website carried a story about a Massachusetts bridge closure in prominent position. It's since been buried on the site. The story with the headline "Mass. Bridge Closed After Minn. Tragedy" evoked imagery of any of those bridges we reported on earlier, I-91 closures as it crisscrosses the Connecticut river, or some span over hills on Rt. 2, or even more local like the length that leads over......

Sam Adams is the flagship beer of the Boston Beer Company. On the tour of the brewery in JP, they'll tell you that there are a couple of reasons they call themselves "The Boston Beer Company" – the two most compelling – the name was available when Jim Koch started the company and they're located in Boston. A deal was announced today that will put the Boston Beer Company in a position to purchase a......

Fear of the number 13. As in, 13 innings. As in, losing in the 13th inning on an Ivan Rodriguez single off of Jonathan Papelbon. But don't blame Papelbon, on a night when the Red Sox had two runs after three batters, then took the rest of the night off. A night when the team left a platoon on base. A night when - well, it just wasn't our night. It started off well enough;......

Stephen Carter will read from New England White at Harvard Book Store, tomorrow, Thursday, June 28, at 6:30 pm. Stephen Carter knows university politics. He's a law professor at Yale. So it is no surprise that the literary mystery New England White focuses on a university president and his family. The president in question, Lemaster Carlyle, is a black man who has risen to a position of power. He's friends with the president of the......

The U.S. Air Guitar Championship series is winding its way across the country and tonight descends upon Boston. The rock and its rockers will show their best air windmill moves and air thrashing at Harpers Ferry, the third stop on the 14-city tour. Will Boston follow in the steps of New York and Washington D.C.? Both of those shows sold out, and we read today a recap of the D.C. battle from USA Today's Whitney......

"Enough is enough. I am bitterly disappointed, as I'm sure all Yankee fans are, by the lack of performance by our team," said Yankee owner George Steinbrenner. But in the same statement, he reaffirmed his faith in manager Joe Torre and GM Brian Cashman to right the ship. With rumors of a deathwatch swirling in the Bronx, it will be real interesting (and, from Boston's perspective, joyous) to check the Boss' pulse after the next......

Zooming in on the South End/Roxbury in Google Maps something interesting showed up: the gentrification line. The high resolution images are in their satellite database for all of Downtown and Back Bay. Most of the South End is included, but once you cross over Mass Ave, into what we generally accept as Roxbury, things aren't quite as clear, they aren't as green either. Back in January the Globe ran a piece called "Breaching Mass......

Chanel 5's Cindy and Jeff have a blog. It's about traffic. Today it was about grabbing a Taxi. When Bostonist has a flight to catch we've been known to walk ourselves to the nearest hotel so that we can grab the flat rate to Logan because it's almost always cheaper than a ride with the meter running. As fast as the Big Dig has made an airport run, traffic usually slows us down enough to......

--Universal Hub spotted a few brief lines in the Transcript's police and fire log: "A West Roxbury woman reported to police that her neighbor, who accused her dog of soiling his lawn, threw dog feces on her lawn. A harassment report was filed." One can only imagine the years of simmering resentment as poop appeared on the neighbor's yard. Whether or not this woman's dog was the source of the poop, it's easy to see......

The Schlock-Around-the-Clock festival kicks off on Saturday night at the Brattle at 9:30 pm. Bring your jammies - they're going until the next morning. Tickets are $20 for the all-nighter. The Brattle is hosting its very first Schlock-Around-the-Clock this weekend, and, when it comes to schlock, they've set the bar very, very high. You may never see schlock like this all in one place again. Here's the Brattle's lineup: Shanty Tramp (1967) This movie plays......

Mr. Boston of I Love New York proudly refers to himself as a stud, but MIT alum Matthew Herman of Beauty and the Geek was called upon to transform himself from a "Geek" into a "Stud." The Ashton Kutcher-produced Beauty and the Geek is a competition in which several teams of "beauties" and "geeks" try to teach life lessons and social skills to each other. Whichever team trades the most knowledge wins. Bostonist waited to......

Jake Halpern will be reading at Brookline Booksmith at 7:00 pm on Wednesday, January 10. Why were many Americans fixated on the scandal swirling around Miss USA Tara Conner? Why do celebrities constantly complain about the pressure of fame yet keep coming back for more? And what is the long-term impact of society's focus on fame? Author Jake Halpern, whose new book Fame Junkies will be released on January 10, tries to answer all of......

In its end-of-year retrospective, The Boston Phoenix has produced one of the most scathing cultural critiques that strikes on a local and national level. David S. Bernstein asks hard questions about the public's fascination with brutalized, abused, missing, and murdered women. With a cover image of a battered woman, it seems that the Phoenix is exploiting the women-in-peril theme just like the Herald does. But the whole article asks why, if there are so many......

Now that the new management sent WLVI's longtime news team packing and launched the "7News at 10pm on CW 56," was all the turmoil that Sunbeam Television Corporation caused worth it? Absolutely not. The "7News at 10pm on CW 56," a wordy title already, should be renamed the "New Coke Newscast." The New Coke Newscast might appeal to you if you like Entertainment Tonight, seizure-inducing flashing lights, and out-of-breath newscasters. But, for those of you......

In a world where there's nothing to do but watch movies. In a city full of theaters, museums, and libraries. One moviegoer who can be in three places at once. Friday 9/15 Chuck Norris Film Festival The action starts with 1985's Invasion USA, and culminates in Saturday's midnight screening of the early Norris classic Breaker! Breaker! Somerville Theatre Starts at 8 pm (see schedule) Chuck Norris: web site (warning: plays "Hi, this is Chuck Norris"......

The rains come again this weekend and there's something that will keep you busy inside. VH1 and MTV won't be showing you non-stop videos like they once did. MTV2 doesn't even seem to have that type of programming – but the internets is not killing the video star. If anything the flame has been reignited (we haven't watched so many videos for years). YouTube plays host to myriad videos; live and production. Everything from Gnarls......

The not-so-secret secret that a ride around the lagoon on a swan boat on a steaming New England afternoon is a great way for a tourist to feel comfortable or a Bostonian to feel nostalgic for childhood when they first climbed aboard the bike pedal style powered boats. The Swan Boats launch every May and are taken out of the water and stored at Labor Day – USA today reports, via the AP, that the......

Bostonist has said a lot in the past about gay marriage, and we thought we were done beating that particular dead horse. Unfortunately, with things going badly in Iraq and corruption taking center stage in Washington, the President has gone and revived the issue, once again holding up Massachusetts as the activist-judge inhabited Gomorrah that Bostonist always dreamed of inhabiting. But this time, Bostonist will resist the urge to blather on in our unabashedly partisan......

There is only so long that we’re going to be able to hold out before the entire list of the week’s picks will be outdoor venues. Well, that’ll probably never happen until they dome the roof at Paradise and we can rock under the stars. We are, however, ecstatic about the warmer temperatures and the daylight which stretches until late – it helps us gear up for the night’s show. After a weekend of......

Honorary Degrees are worthless documents, printed at a premium on fancy paper, and signed by the president of the university. Well, they’re not worthless. The honorary doctoral degrees don’t give the holder any academic credentials (they can’t use PhD after their name or call themselves Dr. whatever, either) but they do serve as official acknowledgement from the granting institution to an individual of their accomplishments in life that fit with the mission of the university.......

The Boston Marathon was run yesterday. We know you know, well, maybe you missed it. Bostonist has been hearing about it from every media outlet, so we though it only appropriate to bring our own little wrap-up from our spot at mile 24. Like many who view the marathon from a position late in the course we watched until they hit Cleveland Circle, knowing then it was time to hop up from the couch and......

Hey Bostonist, I'm Adam, and I'm a food writer for your sibling to the south, DCist. I'm making a trip up to Boston for St. Patty's to visit friends and will likely be the one cooking the big dinner we won't eat at either 'noch's or Harvest. What I'm looking for is the best cheesemonger in Boston, as I'm planning my menu around the cheese course. I figured you guys would have the goods. Please......

Believe it or not Boston is a hot spot for internet start-ups. These start ups are innately better then any start up in California for several reasons. First the weather is too nice in California and the only thing programmers do in Cali is stare out the window longing for freedom, not fix the website. Here in Boston, with winter right around the corner, the weather is painfully cold and there is no need for......

Bostonist once believed that we were defined as a "Gen X'er" since we were born on the tail end of that era (between 1961-1981). But after reading an article in yesterday's USA Today, we might have to recategorize ourselves as typical "Generation Y'ers." It seems that Generation Y, also known as "Generation Why?" with their questioning of everything, is 70 million strong and are taking over the office environment with lots of attitude, with flip......

Bostonist was happy to read today about the homage to the late, great Tip O’Neill given in the form of naming rights to the I-93 tunnel. After Romney proposed naming the tunnel system running through the city "Liberty Tunnel" to honor the revolutionary spirit of Boston and to confront the terrorist attacks we’re happy to have had a win for the Democrats. The "sneaky" legislation put into the federal highway funding bill this month is......

Bostonist always has trouble deciding how we feel about well-intentioned but utterly useless projects. So it was with mixed feelings that we learned of House Bill 1881 in the Mass. Legislature, which proposes a statewide resolution supporting the Constitution and condemning the USA PATRIOT Act (which has to be in all capital letters because, annoyingly, it stands for "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools for Intercepting and Obstructing Terrorism"). It's not that we......