What started as a report of a convenience store robbery near the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology last night has sprawled into a chaotic manhunt for the perpetrators of
the recent terrorist attack on the Boston Marathon.
The deadly pursuit, involving
a policeman's murder, a carjacking, a violent chase with thrown explosives, and the death of one suspect, has resulted in
Governor Deval Patrick ordering
an unprecedented lockdown of the entire Boston metropolitan area as an army of law enforcement searches house by house for the remaining gunman.
The Associated Press has identified the duo as
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, and his 19-year-old brother Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, who remains at large. Both are
immigrants from wartorn
Chechnya in southwestern Russia.
The Guardian liveblog is good for quick updates, and
Reddit's updating crowdsourced timeline of events that has often outpaced mainstream media coverage of the situation. You can also get real-time reports straight from the (Java-based)
local police scanner.
posted by Rhaomi
on Apr 19, 2013 -
4937 comments
Fenway Park, in Boston, is a lyric little bandbox of a ballpark. Everything is painted green and seems in curiously sharp focus, like the inside of an old-fashioned peeping-type Easter egg. It was built in 1912 and rebuilt in 1934, and offers, as do most Boston artifacts, a compromise between Man's Euclidean determinations and Nature's beguiling irregularities.
So wrote John Updike in his
moving tribute to Red Sox legend Ted Williams -- an appropriately pedigreed account for this
oldest and
most fabled of ballfields that saw
its first major league game played
one century ago today.
As a team
in flux hopes to recapture the magic with an
old-school face-off against the New York
Highlanders Yankees, it's hard to imagine the soul of the Sox faced the
specter of
demolition not too long ago. Now
legally preserved, in a sport crowded with corporate-branded superdome behemoths,
Fenway abides, bursting with
history,
idiosyncrasy,
record crowds, and occasional
song.
[more inside]
posted by Rhaomi
on Apr 20, 2012 -
48 comments
... [Sarah Orne] Jewett's gifts have always been recognized by a select few, and continue to be. [The Country of the] Pointed Firs
, especially, was immediately recognized as a major achievement. Henry James called it, perfectly, “a beautiful little quantum of achievement.” Willa Cather listed it as one of her three great American novels...
posted by Trurl
on Jan 13, 2012 -
13 comments
"We are under obligation to A. S. Partridge of Depeyster, who obtained the following incidents last summer from N. F. Swain, his neighbor. Mr. Swain is now upwards of ninety years old, and his memory of what transpired in his younger days is especially good, and the incidents, together with the dates, places and names were so impressed on his mind that they may be relied upon as authentic."
From the History of
Hammond, New York, one of about 1500
Town Histories, courtesy of
Ray's Place. [more inside]
posted by Devils Rancher
on Feb 7, 2011 -
12 comments
For all the
faults of the poorhouse, the system it replaced was perceived to be even worse. In post-Revolution America, if you were poor, you could be "farmed out" at public auction to the lowest bidder.
[more inside]
posted by Knappster
on Dec 30, 2010 -
8 comments
Pregnancy Boom at Gloucester High As summer vacation begins, 17 girls at Gloucester High School are expecting babies—more than four times the number of pregnancies the 1,200-student school had last year. Some adults dismissed the statistic as a blip. Others blamed hit movies like Juno and Knocked Up for glamorizing young unwed mothers. But principal Joseph Sullivan knows at least part of the reason there's been such a spike in teen pregnancies in this Massachusetts fishing town.
posted by swift
on Jun 19, 2008 -
209 comments
Hurstwic is a loosely affiliated group based in New England with an interest in the societies and peoples who lived in Northern Europe during the Viking age. While no longer formally organized, they still have events, frequently at
the Higgins Armory Museum in Worcester MA.
[more inside]
posted by owhydididoit
on Apr 14, 2008 -
12 comments
The Dreaded Half Worcester warning: music is just one of the possible vexing configurations
players encounter in
candlepin bowling, a regional variation on traditional bowling that's unique to northern New England and maritime Canada.
Developed in Worcester, MA, around 1880 (warning: more music), the
game is played in
gorgeous antique alleys dotted around New England and Nova Scotia, and features a
4 1/2" wooden or rubber ball, three rolls per frame or "box," and 15 and 3/4" narrow, cylinder-shaped pins that are the devil to knock down -- even though you can use the
dead wood to knock other pins down, a score over 200 is extremely rare.
Find some lanes and
play or just
take the quiz - like so many regional quirks, this one's undergoing
a bit of a revival.
posted by Miko
on Jul 19, 2007 -
55 comments
The Ames Fan Club documents the life of each of the deceased department stores following the dissolution of their corporate souls. From
Gallipolis to
West Hartford, the shells of Ames have been photographed and critiqued. Some have lain dormant, logos still peeking out from between overturned racks and offline registers. Some have found
new lives, though while the buildings remain, the smell of "bargains by the bagful" will never return. If only we could all age as gracefully as the
Agawam Ames.
posted by setanor
on Nov 15, 2005 -
26 comments
6000 breathtaking aerial photos of American towns and other sites, with particularly good coverage of towns in New England (
MA,
VT,
CT,
NH,
RI,
ME). All of this by one photographer, Joseph Melanson, whose mission in life is "to show you facets of your environment that you never realized no matter how long you lived there."
posted by dougb
on Aug 6, 2003 -
23 comments
If you grew up in or around New England you're probably familiar with a carbonated concoction called
Moxie. Tastewise, it's kind of a love or hate deal and I fall squarely in the love camp. And I'm
not alone apparently. The history of the product is actually pretty interesting. For those whose thirst has been stoked, here's a
list places to get it.
posted by jonmc
on Mar 22, 2002 -
34 comments
