Work has been done lately at the decaying Faces nightclub property on Route 2 in Cambridge, but not to replace the building itself. (Photo: Marc Levy)

The Directory of Cambridge Web site picks up the thread on the Faces nightclub property today: The work seen lately at the Route 2 property is to infrastructure — sewage or piping, the site says — not construction to replace the Faces building itself.

There has been some minor work done on the decaying building, apparently to further seal it off from people who might hurt themselves getting in and wandering around out of curiosity. It helps prevent liability issues for the owners of the property, the warring Martignetti family.

The site also served recently as a staging area for the parking garage built behind Faces to serve the Acorn Park office buildings. The Bulfinch Cos., of Needham, got approval in November from the Cambridge Historic Commission to tear down and replace a five-decade-old building put up by Arthur D. Little, the venerable Cambridge consultancy now based in the United States in Boston and Houston.

The parking garage will eventually be replaced by two office buildings, the commission was told by Larry Grossman, of ADD Architecture Inc. Minutes for that meeting are here, with the Acorn Park information starting on Page 4.

Jenny White

Boston University anthropology professor Jenny White will read from “The Winter Thief,” her latest book of historical mystery fiction, at 6 p.m. Monday at Toscanini’s Ice Cream.

The book, another in White’s series of detective novels set in the declining days of the Ottoman Empire, got a rave review from The Washington Post’s Maureen Corrigan, who called it “incendiary” and “vivid” and says White

adroitly tosses in period detail as well as romance, political intrigue and brutal battle scenes. But “The Winter Thief” really distinguishes itself by the intelligence of its smaller moments, when characters take stock of their limitations against the larger demands of history.

The reading is part of “laying the groundwork for what will be a busy spring,” said Gus Rancatore, the founder, culinary genius and raconteur that keeps Toscanini’s hopping.

The ice cream shop is adding employees and equipment and, with the onset of better weather, a focus on “making iced coffee in heroic quantities, using our Dancing Goats dark roast from Batdorf & Bronson, based out in Olympia, Wash.,” Rancatore said. In addition, Toscanini’s cook Kevin Rafferty has created a flavor of ice cream called Pancakes by experimenting with something called Fenugreek.

“Fenugreek is a spice and herb which tastes like maple syrup,” Rancatore said. “I think this is one of our best surprises.”

In a final bit of Toscanini’s news as spring nears, the Whole Foods grocers on Prospect Street, the nearest store to Toscanini’s in the chain, is promoting Toscanini’s as one of their “very local” vendors, and Rancatore said the larger Whole Foods at Fresh Pond is finishing up a bigger promotion.

Toscanini’s is at 899 Main St., in Lafayette Square (the outskirts of Central Square), just off Massachusetts Avenue by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus. For information, call (617) 491-5877.

So said a committee representative to members of the Police Review and Advisory Board at its Feb. 24 meeting, and the City Council was told the same thing, councillor Ken Reeves noted Monday. The report was to have been posted to the Cambridge Police Department Web site.

It hasn’t been, as of Saturday — nearly two weeks after the official March 1 date at the top of the progress report — so Cambridge Day is making it available here as a PDF. The copy obtained by Cambridge Day did not come from official representatives of the Cambridge Police Department. The source handed it over because it was intended to be made public but hadn’t been.

The report, which reassures that “the committee’s work has been broad-based and thorough,” doesn’t discuss conclusions. Instead it describes the efforts its dozen members have taken and

notes that efforts already are being undertaken in the community to address the issues of trust that are the focus of the committee’s work. Similarly, the committee is encouraged by various efforts initiated by the Cambridge Police Department. For example, the department has begun experimenting with alternate solutions in citizen complaint cases, and it has begun to adopt the nationally recognized Tools for Tolerance training program for officers.

Police spokeswoman Jennifer Flagg said Thursday that not every councillor has been met with by members of the committee, as was promised March 3 after councillors complained at their meeting two days earlier that they had not been kept up to date with the work of the $210,000 committee. These face-to-face progress reports were being done individually so members of the public wouldn’t be allowed by public-meeting laws to hear the committee’s progress, Flagg explained. The complication of scheduling and following through on nine separate meetings seems to have slowed the process, and Flagg indicated Saturday that, in fact, the progress report hadn’t been posted because the briefings weren’t completed.

Councillors have been given it and had a chance to read it, however, as have City Manager Robert W. Healy Jr. and Police Commissioner Robert Haas. It is an innocuous document, and councillors asked for their briefings in part because the progress report didn’t provide the information they wanted.

The committee “will meet again in March, and hopes to produce its final report in the late spring,” the progress report says.

The second Boston Urban Exchange draws a crowd to Middlesex Lounge in July. (Photo: Gena Peditto)

The organizers of the Boston Urban Exchange are looking to hand off responsibility for the event, a roughly monthly gathering of, as they list it, “planners, architects, urban designers, developers, ethnologists, technologists, entrepreneurs, policy-makers, artists and all else who are care about urban development in the Boston/Cambridge region.”

The events began last summer at Middlesex Lounge in Lafayette Square, although the March exchange will be at Mantra in Boston.

“While we both need to move onto other things, it’s hard to imagine BUX ending here, especially after receiving such a consistently positive and enthusiastic response from people who have attended,” Angela Insinger said Friday, referring also to Gena Peditto, who works mainly out of the Cambridge Innovation Center’s co-working incubator, C3, in Kendall Square. “So we hope that there may be two or three interested urbanites out there who are willing to continue these events.”

The exchange was designed to last only through the summer, but was extended in August to run through the fall. After a holiday hiatus, it was extended again into the new year.

Insinger, who holds a master’s degree in city planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said people interested in organizing the events can send e-mail to her or Peditto to discuss the mission, operation, time commitment and “ideas about continuing things, too.”

“With all the innovative people we’ve met over the past eight months, we’re confident there will be a good fit for BUX out there,” Insinger said.

Sarah Cronin and Thomas Allen, of the band Drug Rug, met while working at The Middle East in Cambridge. On Thursday they play The Paradise in Boston.

Today is the first day of South by Southwest, the festival of music, technology and film that manages to draw the world’s attention to Austin, Texas, for at least a fortnight.

For those who aren’t going, social media expert Rachel Happe is suggesting people converge on Jasper White’s Summer Shack by the Alewife T stop in Cambridge at 6:30 p.m. Monday for North by Northeast (or So-What-If-We-Are-Not-at-SXSW). It’s really an excuse for seafood and drinks — Happe takes pains to point out “Just to be clear — this Tweetup has no sponsor … you are on your own for food/beverages” — but it’s suggested that people who stop in bring their “Top 10 Reasons I’m not at SXSW.”

The event seems to be filling in, Happe said Thursday via Twitter. Around 40 people had already signed the guest list, most from the world of social media and high-tech.

That takes care of the interactive part. Music lovers can fufill their aspirations to travel in Boston, rather than Austin, with Drug Rug, two Cambridge folks who played SXSW two years ago in a six-band show sponsored by the Austinist news and event site.

Drug Rug, which plays at 8 p.m. Thursday at the Paradise (967-969 Commonwealth Ave., Boston) is Thomas Allen and Sarah Cronin, who met four years ago as co-workers at The Middle East. Here’s how they describe themselves:

The songs are inspired by the story-telling style of early folk musicians, comic books, campgrounds, pet sounds, strange dreams, people who’ve passed on and the illustrations of Garth Williams …

While running the stylistic gamut, from the country duets of Ken and Dolly to the “Pet Sounds” harmonies of Brian Wilson, Drug Rug still stays true to their rock ’n’ roll roots, including The Velvet Underground and The Byrds.

There are plenty of Cantabrigians heading down to Austin, though.

Prominent among them are two competing socal media Web projects: Sponty and Riotvine, which encourage users to identify what events they’ll be attending so friends can join them. Riotvine, which launched in November, announced Feb. 25 that it’s whipped up a mobile app to connect people wandering Texas streets, poking their heads into events and trying to figure out where their friends are (the cool ones, anyway).

With some 2,300 events scheduled, SXSW is a “perfect opportunity for people to use RiotVine … it can really be an overwhelming experience for attendees. By giving people an easy tool to see where their friends will be, it can make their experience more enjoyable and less overwhelming,” said RiotVine founder Kabir Hemrajani.

Monique Ortiz is playing two shows during the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas. (Photo: Sooz/exploitboston.com)

Bands are also headed down, notably Monique Ortiz, the low rock, gothic blues goddess who recently wrapped up a residency at the Plough & Stars. She has guerilla shows scheduled at the Key Bar (617 W. 6th St., Austin) on Thursday and Saturday, new CDs to hand out at them and said tweeted last month that she was asked to give an industry talk. “No idea why,” she said, before ultimately opting out.

The festival itself lasts until March 21, with the three concentrations overlapping: Interactive starts today and runs through Tuesday, and film starts today and runs through March 20; music starts Wednesday and runs through March 21.

This who’s-going, who’s-staying question could mean less in the future. Councillor Ken Reeves has pointed out that a study commissioned last year by the Kendall Square Association suggests Cambridge create its own SXSW-style festival.

Jason Ong, Jamie O’Brien and Jason Crow work in the big studio at Cambridge Community Television in 2007. The organization’s lease has ended at its 675 Massachusetts Ave. offices. (Photo: CCTV)

Cambridge Community Television’s search for office and studio space is “down to the wire,” executive director Susan Fleischmann said Thursday, and there is still no deal in place or lease signed.

CCTV must leave its ground-floor 675 Massachusetts Ave. space — the entrance is around the corner, on Prospect Street — and have new, customized space to move into by October. The cable-access content provider signed a long-term lease in 1995 and was on an extension when, late in 2008, the building housing it was sold to Intercontinental Real Estate Corp., of Boston.

“They had the intent of raising the quality of the building, or something like that,” Fleischmann said. “We were unable to reach any agreement … They think they can hold out for higher-paying tenants.”

That meant a search for space with a very specific set of characteristics: a minimum of 6,500 square feet, an increase of 1,500 over the Massachusetts Avenue space where, Fleischmann said, “we’re kind of busting out of our seams”; a spot in which a 900-square-foot studio with high ceilings can be carved out; and a cost in the low to mid-twenties per square foot.

The search has been mainly in Central Square, where those factors present a challenge.

“There’s the reality of property owners and their rent expectations versus what a tenant is willing to pay for rent. There might be a slight disjoint,” said City Manager Robert W. Healy this week at a City Council meeting, noting the availability of public transportation as a factor in higher prices.

Despite Central Square having several large, empty storefront spaces, Fleischmann knows it is unrealistic to expect CCTV to move into another retail space with the same kind of ground-floor visibility, “which will be a shame. It’s a big loss for us.”

The city has helped with identifying possible locations, and Fleischmann said a couple of options remain.

At the same time, CCTV is conducting a vital $1 million fundraising drive, with the proceeds to be divided among the city’s three cable channels. While the money can help with a move, it must also go toward replacing equipment, some of which is 22 years old, she said. The city is renegotiating its contract with cable television provider Comcast, which provides financial support from subscriber fees. “We’re hoping there will be extra money in that for buildout costs,” Fleischmann said, but the channels have needs greater than can be fulfilled by the noncompetitive negotiations. “We’re sort of on our own.”

“Hopefully everything will fall into place,” she said. “We have to look at it as an opportunity. We really need more space.”

Intercontinental was called repeatedly over the past two weeks for comment, but no company representative returned messages. That leaves it unclear what kind of tenant the company hopes will replace CCTV on Prospect Street. A Leader Bank branch office and mobile-phone store fills the high-rise building’s storefronts on Massachusetts Avenue.

The U.S. Census still has part-time jobs to offer. (Photo: Ann Burlingham)

For those who missed the U.S. Census job fair held Monday, the 2010 Census Road Tour is scheduled to stop Friday in Harvard Square from 3 to 6 p.m.

There will be an interactive exhibit about temporary job opportunities with the Census at Brattle and Palmer streets, said Denise Jillson, executive director of the Harvard Square Business Association. More information about jobs can be found in this story about the job fair.

For those not looking for work, Jillson has some reminders about the Census itself:

The Cambridge Complete Count Committee urges everyone in Cambridge to participate in the 2010 Census. It is important to note that the city also conducts an annual street listing census every year that has nothing to do with the federal 2010 Census. The local census mailing was sent in January and will include a follow-up mailing in March. The federal Census will also be mailed out in March. Please make sure you complete both forms! The federal 2010 Census is a count of everyone living in the United States — citizens and noncitizens. It’s Important — Census data directly affect how more than $400 billion in federal and state funding is allocated to communities for housing, public health, schools, neighborhood improvements, transportation, etc.
It’s easy — it takes less than 10 minutes to complete the questionnaire, which will be mailed in March.

It’s confidential — it is illegal for the Census Bureau to share personal information with any other government agency — not law enforcement, IRS, Welfare, FBI, Immigration, etc.

“Please do your part and help us get a complete count in Cambridge,” Jillson said.

For information about the Census and local job opportunities, click here. (The link didn’t work Wednesday night, but was promised to work “soon.”)

The only thing less funny about the second performance of the new Bastards Inc. show is the catchphrase.

The phrase is “March Fourth. Into the Future.”

Now it’s more like “March 11th. Into the Future.” Because the second and last performance of this sketch comedy revue is 8 p.m. Thursday. Right: March 11.

The content, however, is just as funny as it was last week. The troupe, via its Twitter feed, called it “hugely successful” and suggested this week’s performance has things other than a fully operational pun to recommend it — namely “Ryan said he’d wear even less clothes!”

That’s Ryan Petti, one-fourth of Bastards Inc., which began performing together in 2005 in the basement of the Cantab Lounge in Cambridge. (The other members are Erin McGhee, Taylor Newhall and Matt Tucker.) Bastards Inc. was named Best Improv Group in New England at last year’s Providence Improv Festival.

Tickets are $10 or $7 for students and seniors at ImprovBoston, a comedy club at 40 Prospect St., off Massachusetts Avenue in Central Square, Cambridge MA. For information, click here for the theater and here for the troupe, which suggests people have another reason to see its show: to find out “why 2010 might be the most futuristic year yet.”

In short, he was as opinionated, controversial, prickly but generous and brilliant as anyone in contemporary Cambridge. His work changed the world.

And he will be here Sunday in a Brahms Celebration thrown by the Cambridge Symphony Orchestra.

The group, made of skilled volunteers with a passion to play, will be performing Brahms’ “Tragic Overture,” op. 81, Symphony No. 2, op. 74, and “Hungarian Dances,” Nos. 1, 3 and 10, conducted by music director Cynthia Woods. A reception with light refreshments will follow the concert.

Those coming to the concert are asked to bring a nonperishable food item, if possible, for donation to the food pantry at St. James’s Episcopal Church in Porter Square. The food collection is in conjunction with the League of American Orchestras’ Orchestras Feeding America event this month, said Carol Thomas, a member of the orchestra’s board of directors.

The concert is at 4 p.m. at the Greater Boston Vineyard Church, 170 Rindge Ave., Cambridge. Tickets are $12 advance (or $8 for seniors); or  $15 at the door ($10 for seniors). Children under 12 get in free with an adult with a ticket. Call (617) 576-1819 to order tickets or write to tickets@cambridgesymphony.org.

Units in one of three buildings at the former Saint John’s Roman Catholic school at Yerxa Road and Rindge Avenue are being leased illegally. (Photo: Marc Levy)

Residents at 45-47 Yerxa Road didn’t know they weren’t allowed to live there, and on Wednesday they remained ignorant that a case was headed to court that could uproot them from their homes.

It was confirmed Wednesday by Ranjit Singanayagam, the city’s building commissioner and commissioner of Inspectional Services, that the 2.2-acre property, which wraps around in a shape of an L to 124 Rindge Avenue, has never been granted a certificate of occupancy.

Despite that, units in the former Saint John’s Roman Catholic school are being leased in one building while the others are under construction, and some half-dozen units already have occupants. One resident said she moved in April 15 — nearly a year ago.

“We went there last month after complaints from neighbors and saw people living there,” Singanayagam said. As a result, owner Joseph F. Perroncello has been cited and a court date set for next month. The city, through attorney Joseph Amoroso, is trying to get the date moved up to get the situation resolved faster, Singanayagam said. A punishment is up to the judge.

Amoroso is out of town through Monday, Singanayagam said.

The property owner’s lawyer, James Rafferty, was called Wednesday for comment.

Neighbors’ other complaints have been corrected, Singanayagam said. In a policy order brought forward by city councillor Craig Kelley at Monday’s council meeting, there was a list:

The developer does not keep the site suitably clean, that work is done outside of permitted hours, that water has started leaking into neighboring foundations and that they are being deprived of quiet enjoyment of their own properties because the adjacent development is being so poorly managed by the developer so as to make their own lives very difficult.

The city manager has been asked to look into the charges, ensure the maximum fines possible are being levied and “is requested to ensure that no one is living in buildings that do not have occupancy permits at the Saint John’s site.”

“The project has challenges,” Rafferty conceded at the meeting, eliciting a snicker from neighbors of the development who came to complain during the meeting’s public comment period.

Some of the 30 neighbors of the project have also signed a petition of complaint about the conversion project, which has been going on more than five years, and used their time at the lectern Monday to list some of the complaints aloud. In addition to anger over Perroncello — “I’m a taxpayer, unlike the aforementioned Mr. Perroncello,” said Toby Stein, citing a Boston Herald article noting he owes $210,773 in back property taxes in Boston — the neighbors are angry at the city for what they say has been lax enforcement.

“The city has never enforced its fines,” or waives fines and fails to enforce a stop-work order, neighbor Charles Teague said. “They city just lets the neighborhood down.”

Coldwell Banker representative Bill Patterson, whose name is on a leasing sign in front of 45 Yerxa Road, was also called for comment. A co-worker said leasing agents don’t ask for certificates of occupancy and wouldn’t know they were leasing an apartment or condominium without one.

And people looking for a home wouldn’t naturally ask for one either.

A resident of 45 Yerxa Road said Wednesday that she hoped she wouldn’t have to move out.

There would be “significant problems,” she said, sounding worried.