Bryce Miller minds the store at Creative Union, which sells a range of items created by developmentally disabled adults, in Union Square.

Holiday gift ideas from Somerville non-profits

By Elizabeth Sheeran

If it is better to give than to receive, it must be even better to give a gift that gives twice: once to the lucky recipient and once to a good cause. This holiday season, Somerville is full of ways to put a little working capital into the hands of local non-profits, while putting a smile on the face of someone you know.

FRIT’s Senior VP of development Don Briggs is bullish on Assembly Row growth.

Briggs talks development at Assembly Square

By Andrew Firestone

The question is still on everyone’s mind here in Somerville: when is the smart-growth multi-use wonderland Assembly Row by the Mystic coming?

Sooner than we think, possibly.

It looks like long time Alderman Tom Taylor from Ward 3 will be serving as Board of Alderman President for 2012. Tom was voted unanimously, and he came in to the caucus in a wheelchair, seemingly pleased to be elected. We congratulate Tom for his recent victory and his being elected President again. He’s a good person and Alderman. His recent bout with cancer, we have been informed, is in remission and he feels confident that he can still do a good job for the residents here in the ‘Ville.

In response to weekend closures of the Davis Square Red Line station, the Somerville Board of Aldermen passed a resolution calling on the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) to discuss mitigation with Mayor Joe Curtatone, Alderman Rebekah Gewirtz and the Somerville Chamber of Commerce.

By Andrew Firestone

Somerville police are looking  for the perpetrator of two bank robberies in Davis Square that occurred in the last week. While not officially labeled as such, Deputy Paul Upton did acknowledge that both robberies were “similar.”

Questions remain on GLX

By Andrew Firestone

Questions still remain after a phasing timeline was released last week by the design consultants of  the state department of transportation (MassDOT). The plan, which details an opening of service to the proposed Union Square and Washington Street fork of the GLX in 2016, fails to implement the Route 16 stop.

The St. Clement Anchormen celebrated a hard-fought victory over the Trinity Catholic Falcons last Thursday.

For the fourth straight year the St. Clement Anchormen feasted on the Trinity Catholic Falcons of Network during the annual Thanksgiving Day Catholic Central matchup.

Muhammad Ilyas, a 53 year-old non-English speaking male, has been missing since Friday, November 25 has been found in Salem, New Hampshire.

Arrests:
*

Joseph Wheeler, 24, of 2 Foster Ct., Main St., Salem, November 21, 8:34 a.m., arrested at 137 Washington St. on a warrant charge of operation of a motor vehicle with a suspended license.

Brian Botelho, 34, of 21 Nassua St., November 22, 11:43 a.m., arrested at 400 Somerville Ave. on a charge of larceny from a person.

I never thought of this when Somerville resident and poet Harris Gardner and I started the Bagel Bards at Finagle- A- Bagel in Harvard Square in 2004. But I happened to be teaching a Creative Writing class at Endicott College and we were studying the poetry of San Francisco poet A.D. Winans. In an interview I conducted with him (that I used for a class discussion) he mentioned a hangout of his: the Co-Existence Bagel Shop. Bagels, Bards and poetry do have an illustrious history. The Co-Existence Bagel Shop in the 1950’s and 60’s North Beach section of San Francisco was a big hangout for the likes of Ginsberg, Ferlinghetti, Kaufman, Spicer, Winans, and countless other Beat poets, and poets of other schools. So the Bagel Bards, a group of poets and writers that now meets in the Au Bon Pain in Davis Square, Somerville, Mass (Finagle-A Bagel closed years ago)is a sort of a small coda to this.