Twenty-eight days later

By Marc Levy

Published: January 27, 2005

Hooray! Work finished yesterday on the escalator at the Porter Square T stop! The maintenance work — which is supposed to keep stuff running, but in this case had the opposite effect — lasted 23 days, or 15 more than intended. It was an epic repair job! Songs will be sung of it. Paintings painted.
And [...]

Fee-ble

By Marc Levy

Published: January 25, 2005

Being a supporter of the underdog, I don’t do Blockbuster, so it took a while to look up at the rental chain’s Porter Square Galleria site to gawk in disbelief at the awful signs advertising its changes.
“The end of late fees,” the signs say. “The start of more.”
Um, what?
Blockbuster is claiming it is offering more [...]

Slow Kone

By Marc Levy

Published: January 21, 2005

One of the three long escalators at the Porter Square T stop is out of service. An apologetic sign on the work barricade specifies that work begins Jan. 7 and ends Jan. 11, a promise possible because the contractor, Kone, is performing maintenance, not repairs.
But this promise was merely poor prophecy. The escalator is still [...]

Mexican-American war

By Marc Levy

Published: January 3, 2005

McDonald’s is gone from Porter Square, to be replaced by a Qdoba Mexican Grill franchise, another nudge from the invisible hand that wants the area to become a mecca for Mexican food as well as Asian cuisine.
Qdoba falls into the “fast casual” food category, which means it’s slightly fancier than its putative competition in Porter, [...]