While waiting for the bus at Mass Ave and Washington Street in the South End, we used to always wonder why an entrepreneur never converted the former Alexandra Hotel into high-end condos. It wasn't for the lack of effort. A 2006 Globe piece documents the building's long, troubled history, describing an "old Gothic goddess [that] now stands out on the corner as an over-the-hill vamp, wearing graffiti like smeared lipstick. Redevelopment is passing it by."......

Super Bowl --Looking for a good Super Bowl party? Bring your favorite beer mug to the Milky Way, where the big game will screen, and then you can celebrate with some candlepin bowling. Sponsored by the Mug Project, which wants people to use a mug instead of guzzling their way through disposable cups, and Neighbors for Neighbors. 6:00 pm. --MenuPages also provides listings of restaurants with promising Super Bowl parties, including 75 Chestnut, Big......

Movies Two-Lane Blacktop is one of the best underground movies you've probably never seen. Even though the 1971 movie about drag racers looks like a star vehicle for "Sweet Baby James" Taylor, the images and general restless atmosphere make it seem more like Godard than anything else. Throw in a performance by another one of Hollywoods unsung heroes, Warren Oates, and a haunting final scene, and you have a classic. Showtimes from the Brattle Theatre.......

--The BPD must love that Burger King commercial that punks customers with the information that BK has discontinued the Whopper. Upon hearing that information, the customers promptly freak out. Perhaps a man thought he wasn't going to get his Whopper in Dorchester last night. Police had to go to the Burger King on Washington Street when a guy returned to the BK after security officers tossed him. He assaulted them and had weed on him.......

The point of the holidays is to give as much as you receive, and tonight's chosen events (plus one announcement) have the giving spirit in mind. Music Benefit for Jeanne Sheehy at T.T. the Bear's with Jonny Pape, Auto Interiors, Joyce & Chick of Scarce, Downbeat 5, AdFrank, The Pills, and the Shods (who are returning after what their site describes as "a few years of vacation." 10 Brookline St., Cambridge, 9:05 pm. More......

--A woman from Blackstone was hit and killed by a snowplow. 50-year-old Rita Plante had to walk on the road after parking her car and heading to her home. According to O'Ryan Johnson, "Plante carried groceries and walked with her back to traffic when authorities said a white Ford extended-cab pick-up truck with a plow struck her from behind about 5:30 p.m." The snowplow hit her and kept going. Another car hit her after the......

--Police at Dorchester District Court released the wrong man, according to the Dorchester Reporter. The Reporter is very kind to the officers involved: "In a rare but potentially embarrassing gaffe, officers at Dorchester District Court this week appeared to release the wrong man, allowing him to waltz out of the courthouse and bolt down Washington Street, as confusion reigned inside." The reporter, Gintautas Dumcius, later notes that "The court officers glumly walked back to the......

826 Boston Housewarming Party Saturday, December 1, 12:00 pm to 5:00 pm Free 3035 Washington Street, Roxbury (T: 10-minute walk from Jackson Square or Stony Brook) Official Site 826 Boston, the center for writing that recently opened in Egleston Square, knows how to have a good time. The center serves two purposes: it provides writing tutoring for local students and it offers the latest information about cryptozoology through The Greater Boston Bigfoot Research Institute. For......

-- A pair of shootings remain mysteries. At 10:13 Friday, police responding to calls in Roxbury found a black male in his 20s suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. And at 2:45 this morning, police found a man shot multiple times on Torrey Street in Dorchester. Both victims are at Boston Medical Center being treated. No suspects have been arrested in either case. -- A Taunton man was found by police shot dead inside a parked......

--A former MBTA employee is in trouble for allegedly selling fake discount passes. Casey Ross reports that Giovanni Francis, 19, was selling discount passes for the elderly and blind to people who a) weren't old and b) could see just fine. T police caught them trying to sneak through on those passes, and video of the fake blind people is available on WCVB's site. Francis used to be a sales associate for the T. He......

--Shooting broke out in the parking lot of Dorchester's Holy Tabernacle Church on Washington Street last night--during a packed worship session. An unidentified person was shot in the shoulder. --Emmanuel Greene, 22, of Dorchester, was not happy when he picked up his Chinese food at Chung Wah on Bowdoin Street last night. A Safe Street Team spotted him kicking a door because some kind of mixup happened with his order. Greene said that he didn't......

--It seemed as if the World Series put a cork in local gun incidents or the media (Bostonist included) was too busy with the Sox to notice. Now the cork is out of the bottle. The 45-year-old owner of Stalex Pizza in Dorchester was shot in the head this morning when he tried to go after an 18-year-old who robbed his shop. The man is in critical condition. The BPD announced that officers moved fast......

--Six drag racers got busted for sneaky-driving on Washington Street in Roslindale early Sunday morning. Jessica M. Smith of the Roslindale Transcript reports that the racers set up lookouts. Five Honda Civics were towed as well. Did Honda Civics strike you as worthy of 2 Fast 2 Furious? --Mayor Menino and Commish Ed Davis have announced that they want colleges to crack down on students who act up during the World Series. Menino said that......

--The BPD had an easy time rounding up a cell-phone robber last night because the guy had quite a sense of fashion. A woman reported that a guy wearing "plaid shorts, a black puffy vest, and a black hat" snatched her cell phone while she was on Washington Street. He sounds like a member of Parliament gone bad. That's the kind of meaty description an officer of the law remembers, and they caught him on......

--Meet Dirus Gaines, a man with an iron constitution. Mr. Gaines' seemingly lifeless body was found by the railroad tracks on Wednesday afternoon in Framingham. Gaines exhibited all the signs of being dead – no movement, eyes rolled back in head, odd position of body. Then, Gaines "suddenly" awakened and displayed his beverage of choice, a bottle of blackberry brandy. And here's the best part – Gaines is awfully lively when he's not completely pickled:......

--Some hot dogs are just too hot to handle, at least in Franklin. Two women, Stacey Bower and Sonjalea Katz, were selling "hottie dogs," and the town commissioner stopped it because they didn't have the right permit. The Milford Daily News has a picture of Katz and Bower. Their food van is indeed named "hottie dogs," and they are wearing tank tops, but we can't for the life of us understand what is so threatening......

This week is officially Bike Week. Regular commuters, part time enthusiasts, friends, and allies of bikers will be donning their helmets (please put on your helmet) and taking to the streets to celebrate a great form of human powered transportation. While many events take place from Boston to NoHo we're focusing our attention on those happening close to home. Free biker appreciation breakfasts and group rides have been organized. Check out the full listing at......

We always see this sign on Washington Street in Downtown Crossing, and we always like it. Is it the jaunty little stout man, or the fact that stout men and big men, whom we always thought of as distinct groups, must share a store? We don't know, but this sign is cool.......

There is something intriguing about snooping around your neighborhood to see what is going in the vacated spots that once housed a locally owned business. In February, many were surprised when arriving at Zathmary’s in Coolidge Corner for some matzah ball soup and the doors were locked, bread in front of the door, with no sign of life inside. The place was gone forever without a last chance to hit up the great salad bar.......

Walking to work today, Bostonist saw two people a day early in their full-out St. Patrick's Day Irish gear (green paper hat, "all about drinking and Irishness in a hard-drinking, heavily Irish town. But part of us clings to the belief that if people only knew more about Evacuation Day - commemorating an actual Revolutionary War victory in Boston (unlike Bunker Hill Day) - they would embrace it as we do. To that end, some......

Living in the cradle of the Revolutionary War that is Boston, we are often called upon to take note of important historical dates. Usually, we do this by taking a day off from work, which we frequently accompany with heavy drinking. This weekend, however, in honor of the 232nd anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, it's all history and no holidays or boozing it up: On Sunday at 5:30 p.m., the Old South Meeting......

It’s been hard to hear today. The snow has muffled and muted the sounds about town. We can hear the roar of snow blowers and the backing up beep of the salt and sanding machines. With the snow and rain today, and the thunder and lightning we just saw (seriously, flash of lightning and the crack of thunder, we really have had everything today) it’s a wonder that we’ve overheard anything at all besides......

This weekend Bostonist made a little trip over to Wikipedia. We wanted to find out what else had been named “Black Friday.” Turns out that once upon a time it did refer to a stock market crash, one in 1869, like its brothers Black Monday (of 1987 and also 1929), Black Tuesday, and Black Thursday of Great Depression fame. There are a whole host of other Fridays that Black Friday has referred to, but presently,......

In other parts of the world, stampedes are pretty much reserved for passion-inspiring subjects like soccer and religious pilgrimages. In this country, we stampede for post-Thanksgiving bargains. Bostonist doesn’t know who fares better in that comparison (being not especially enamored of soccer, religion, or shopping), but we generally start to feel a little disgusted as the holiest day in the retail calendar approaches. This year was no exception, and we swore on Thursday night that......

Tomorrow morning at 10 am, there's gonna be a "Designer Named Desire" in Boston, as Stella McCartney's line of ready-to-wear apparel hits selected H&M stores nationwide. Luckily, one such location is right here at the Washington Street store in Downtown Crossing. Besides being second only in notoriety to her dad Paul, McCartney succeeded Karl Lagerfeld (who also had an exclusive line with H&M last year, coincidentally) as chief designer at couture house Chloe. She......

Back in March, Bostonist casually mentioned the Irish Famine memorial on Washington Street, and how awful it is. This prompted local blogger Left Center Left to catalog some other ugly local statues. Although LCL suggested some worthy contenders, we continued to believe that the Irish Famine atrocity was the worst, perhaps not just in Boston but in the world. (What really bothers us is the jaunty, kung-fu poses of the non-starving statues.) Luckily, our......

When Bostonist read last week that some road signs for state routes in Easthampton were accidentally set against the silhouette of Alabama, we thought it was amusing: Alabama is funny, that's all there is to it, and Alabama road signs in our deep-blue Commonwealth are even funnier. We learned from the news today, however, that at least one man fails to see the humor, not only in the Alabama signs but in any wrong, blocked,......

When Filene's was bought by Federated Department Stores, Inc. this past February for $17 billion, many anticipated changes to Downtown Crossing. After already going through an identity crisis (changing from Boston's own Jordan Marsh to Macy's), the Macy's storefront has always remained a competitor with Filene's and her basement across the street. This recent buyout of Filene's now leaves Federated, who happens to own Macy's too, with two stores across the street from one another.......

While staggering home last week after one too many Mai Tais and delicious wasabi peas served at the bar at Peking Tom's, Bostonist walked past the brightly-lit Paramount Theater sign and wondered why it was all lit up when there was nothing actually inside of it. Located next door to the newly renovated Opera House on Washington Street, the Paramount was last open in 1976 as a porno house, before closing its doors. Since then,......

Bostonist can’t help but stumble upon an Irish bar just about every time we turn around. Many of the bars that claim to be "Irish Bars" in Boston are just trying to get in on the lucrative tourism market, knowing full well that the tourist won’t know the difference. Bostonist looks for a couple things to determine the true Irish heritage of a watering hole. The selection of scotch and whiskey must be good,......