Eastie notes

***A Globe editorial today advocates for development of the former Hess tank-farm site along the Chelsea Creek, which a local community organization is seeking to have converted to wetlands. The Chelsea Creek Action Group is attempting to secure funding to restore the seven-acre parcel to salt marsh and bird habitat. The Globe, however, feels that the spot would be better used for economic development.

***Boston.com notes that the new Santarpio's on Route 1 in Peabody is regularly mobbed. The new place has the same limited menu -- pizza, lamb, sausage -- as the East Boston landmark. The piece touches on the history of the place and mentions the longtime pizza maker who I knew as "Joe Fat" and who always wore what seemed to be the same stained T-shirt.

Bad language

It appears that The East Boston Times is not the only newspaper owned by the Independent Newspaper Group that cuts and pastes information from other sources into its stories without proper attribution. A front-page article in this week's issue of The Chelsea Record includes more than half of its material from a year-old press release, though the source is never cited.

The story, titled "Night-time closures have begun on Chelsea Bridge" (and, by the way, "nighttime" takes no hyphen and "bridge" should be lowercase in this instance) starts out well enough with comments from local traffic guru John Vitagliano, but the copied information begins in the eighth paragraph. Then, after the line, "The Chelsea Street Bridge was one of these projects," the rest of the piece is lifted right from a March 16, 2009 press release from the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, which can be found here.

More than half of the 604-word story was not written by the newspaper's reporters, yet there is no indication that the material is the work of someone else. As I've written before, this is not a hazy area. Cutting and pasting without proper attribution is unacceptable by any and all journalistic standards. Why do ING newspapers allow it?

Rolling on the river

I was at the Condor Street Urban Wilds today when an oil tanker, the Panagia Lady, passed beneath the raised Meridian Street Bridge and made its way up the Chelsea Creek. I took some photos, including the one above, which captures a gentleman at the bottom right who had a much better camera than I did. (Click on photo for a larger image.)

Cheap AND dry

I stopped at Market Basket in Chelsea today during the deluge and, when I came out, there were a couple of store employees with umbrellas in the parking lot to escort customers to their cars. I've never seen that at a store of any kind.

Asleep at the switch

When a tugboat driver radioed ahead Saturday to have the Meridian Street Bridge (officially, the Andrew McArdle Bridge) raised, he got no response, so police were called in to see if the bridge operator was OK. Turns out, according to WCVB, he was intoxicated.

The operator, who is a City of Boston DPW employee, was taken into protective custody by police and is now on administrative leave.

Put this together with the air traffic controller who was on a personal phone call when a plane and helicopter crashed over the Hudson River last week and the T driver who was texting when his trolley crashed, and we're getting a bit worried about the people who man our transportation infrastructure.

Update (8/17): The drawbridge operator, Robert Finn, resigned today, according to the Boston Herald.

Remembering EB Camps

Last week the Lowell Sun reported that there is a cookout today in the town of Westford at the former site of East Boston Camps. The event, the story says, "is free and open to anyone interested in the site, whether it be to learn about opportunities for retreats or to offer assistance in the ongoing effort to restore and maintain the 286-acre parcel."

For 70 years the camp served as a summertime refuge for youngsters from East Boston and Chelsea, but in 2007 disagreements between the town of Westford and the East Boston Social Centers, which operated the camp, ended the program. Since then there has been some bad blood on both sides, as evidence by the comments posted in response to the story.

New bridge on tap

State and city officials are about to sign a deal for the construction of a new bridge that links Chelsea Street and the city of Chelsea. The project, long talked about, is scheduled to take about three years, which would seem to mean that the current Chelsea Street Bridge would be closed during that period.

Currently the large oil tankers that move up and down the Chelsea Creek can barely fit through the span between East Boston and Chelsea. The new bridge will be more than twice as wide.

Celebrate our favorite creek

The 5th annual Chelsea River Revel will take place Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. along both sides of the Meridian Street Bridge (officially it's the Andrew P. McArdle Bridge). The schedule includes live music, local talents, dance groups, food, moon bounces, boat rides, arts and crafts, rock climbing, a puppet parade, kayaking and more.

Admission is free, except for the 5K road race; the kids race (15 and under) is free. The event is hosted by the Chelsea Creek Action Group, which seeks "to build public awareness; promote public access; seek environmental justice; and transform the neglected, polluted Chelsea Creek into an environmental, recreational, educational and economic resource for East Boston, Chelsea and the region."

The forecast for Saturday is partly and 75 degrees, which should be perfect. For more information, check out the event web site here.

The Chelsea fires

Boston.com has a story today on a fire 100 years ago in Chelsea that destroyed half the city and killed 19 people. On April 12, 1908, that city burned for 10 hours over nearly 500 acres. One witness said that, "she could see the sky over Chelsea turn bright red from her home in East Boston."

The fire that I remember in Chelsea was not as destructive as the Great Chelsea Fire of 1908, but on October 14, 1973, I saw a column of smoke in the sky as I was playing at the Boys & Girls Club on Paris Street. That fire, which started less than 200 feet from the earlier blaze, torched 18 blocks of the city. No deaths were reported.

Revelling

There was a little festival yesterday on both sides of the Andrew McArdle Bridge, which spans the Chelsea Creek and connects East Boston to Chelsea. (It is most often refered to by locals as the Meridian Street Bridge.) It was called the Chelsea River Revel, and I took a few photos while I was there and posted three of them here. I also sampled some food (of course).