Though surrounded by Boston, the 300-year-old town of Brookline is its own city. At the border of Brookline and Brighton—a neighborhood of Boston—you can see that each town seems not to take account of the other, at least with regard to fire hydrant placement (hydrants usually are more than just ten feet apart).

From what I’ve observed these hydrants’ colors are characteristic of their respective cities (Brighton/Boston on the left). Here they guard the DMZ, daring each other’s fire department to save a burning building in the wrong municipality.

What do you do if you’re a semi-trailer driving through the narrow streets of a residential neighborhood, and you can’t make a turn because of an illegally parked car? (The white Cirrus shouldn’t be parked on that side of the sign.)

First, you try having the people across the street move their cars.

When that doesn’t work you call a tow truck, who drags the car to the side . . .

. . . so he can tow it away.

Coke to the people!

Say “Windy City,” and most people think of Chicago, but among the large U.S. cities, Boston has the highest average wind speed. Today’s unseasonably warm weather–in the lower 60s Fahrenheit–brought strong gusts of wind, blowing down this tree less than a block from here. You might be able to see that it took a power transformer with it, knocking out electricity for several blocks, including half of our apartment building. Thankfully not our half–but looking across the courtyard I can see my neighbors are still without power.

Student parties are ruining their quality of life, residents said in a letter to the mayor’s office and Boston College. More people are drinking and there were more disorderly houses around Cleveland Circle this summer than ever before, according to the letter. More than 50 A-B residents signed a petition supporting the letter.

“The situation here continues to worsen,” said Karen Marshall, who has lived on Lane Park for 20 years and started the petition. “There have been many cases of student disturbances, but it’s the worst it has ever been. We didn’t used to have all these loud parties and drunken people walking back and forth at all hours of the night shouting and stumbling.”

In response to his constituents’ letter, City Councilor Jerry McDermott (Allston, Brighton) promised to move quickly to control disturbances created by partying college students.

“We’re going to be stepping up patrols in the area,” he said. “There’s going to be a zero-tolerance policy. Everyone involved in a party that has illegalities involved is getting pinched. If you over 21, fine, but if you are not, there won’t be any leniency.”

Meanwhile the editor of BC’s newspaper responds with a whine:

Ryan Heffernan, editor-in-chief of BC’s student newspaper The Heights, said he believes that off-campus students and the BC administration are unfairly targeted by the residents and the city.

“Over the years the neighbors have let this tension build up, and now they refuse to believe that BC administration and students sincerely want to be good residents,” he said. “They’ve turned this into an ‘us’ versus ‘them’ battle. Now they harp on anything they can find. After this complaint, in the next few weeks, it will be something else. It would be helpful if we could work together, instead of pointing fingers.”

Heffernan also said McDermott and A-B residents don’t acknowledge the great contributions that BC and its students make to the community.

“Councilor McDermott needs to do a better job on reaching out to students. He continues to harp on BC and its students for being what he believes to be bad neighbors,” he said. “Our university’s track record speaks to the contrary. Many of our students are active in the area, volunteering and heading community services groups. If BC and its students were to just leave, the A-B community and its economy would be negatively affected.”

Perhaps the “editor-in-chief” has not heard of ignoratio elenchi, the fallacy he commits by arguing that the good deeds of some wonderful BC students excuse the malfeasants. I don’t know about the do-gooders, but I do know that it’s a rare Saturday night I get uninterrupted sleep.

The problem is that McDermott has said the same things before, but the situation’s only worsened. Last year just down the street the police busted an under-age BC toga party. (I passed these folks on the sidewalk and was already embarrassed for them).

Ten underage Boston College students were arrested Friday night for allegedly hosting a toga party in Brighton where alcohol was consumed.

. . .

Boston police responded to a call that 20 people were about to start a fight after a group of BC basketball players attempted to get into the party without paying at about 11 p.m. Friday.

When officers arrived, they saw hundreds of people inside, dressed in togas, drinking, said Beverly Ford, spokeswoman for Boston police. Inside the house, officers found several kegs of beer and an “ice luge” — a block of ice carved to allow liquor to flow into the mouth of a drinker.

The arrests prompted City Councilor Jerry P. McDermott to reiterate his call for better monitoring of off-campus students. McDermott, who represents Brighton, is sponsoring a proposed ordinance that would keep track of where college students live off-campus to make it easier for authorities to control rowdiness. Students from several campuses attended a City Council hearing Thursday to oppose the proposal.

Colleges need to be more accountable, McDermott said. “Universities still have to take responsibility — the city cannot be the only one picking up the tab for policing their student population.”

At the time my dad noted that “your neighbors are also poor classicists. No Roman would drink beer in a toga. The Romans considered beer a drink for barbarians only–at least until they got too far north to grow wine grapes.”

Man hurt in fall from balcony in Brighton
By O’Ryan Johnson
Sunday, July 31, 2005 – Updated: 12:34 AM EST

A 22-year-old Connecticut man visiting friends took an accidental fall from the fourth-floor balcony of a Brighton apartment building last night, police said.

He is in critical condition at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, police said.

Police said it appears the man lost his balance on the balcony and fell. Officer Neva Grice said drinking was not involved.

The victim, whose name was not released, was inside the apartment with three other friends prior to the accident, police said.

A man who lives on the first floor said he walked outside of his apartment about 8 p.m. to find the man laying on his back in a grassy stretch between the brick building and the sidewalk. He said the man was breathing, but was not moving. He said the man had no visible injuries and was not bleeding.

Deputy Superintendent Joseph Driscoll said it did not appear as though the men were partying.

“It looked like more of a get-together,” he said.

A man who was in the apartment with the victim at the time of the fall said there was “no partying, nothing like that going on.” He declined to be interviewed.

The ambulances seemed to take a long time to leave (there were two ambulances, a paramedics’ vehicle, several police cars, and a firetruck). After they loaded him up they must have sat in the street for fifteen or twenty minutes, with the police interviewing friends and witnesses. We thought he must either be okay or dead. But since he was in “critical condition,” why wouldn’t they go to the hospital as quickly as possible?

UPDATE Aug 1 2005 11:15 AM: It sounds like the man’s condition has improved:

Man stable after fall from balcony

A Connecticut man who fell four stories from the balcony of a Brighton apartment on Saturday night remained hospitalized yesterday but is expected to make a full recovery, authorities said. Matthew Pruett, 22, of Newington, Conn., was initially listed in critical condition at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, but authorities said his condition has stabilized. Pruett had been having dinner with friends at about 8 p.m. in an apartment on Sutherland Road when he fell from the balcony and landed on a patch of grass. The apartment’s tenant, who asked not to be identified, said yesterday that there had been no excessive use of alcohol prior to the incident and that Pruett’s fall was an accident.