US Sen. hopeful Warren to address Labor Day event

BOSTON (AP) — Democratic U.S. Sen. hopeful Elizabeth Warren is scheduled to deliver the keynote address at an annual Labor Day Breakfast at the Park Plaza Hotel in Boston.The Monday breakfast is hosted by the Greater Boston Labor Council. The council said 500 union leaders, activists and elected officials are expected to attend.The crowd should be friendly territory for Warren, who is hoping to deny Republican U.S. Sen. Scott Brown a full six-year term. Brown won a special election in 2010 to fill the seat left vacant by the death of longtime Democratic Continue reading >>>

JLL Folds Five Into New Suburban Team

Friday, August 31, 2012, 11:26am Jones Lang LaSalle has hired five brokers away from Colliers International in order to expand its business into Greater Boston's suburbs.The firm hired Matthew Daniels as managing director, Christopher Lawrence and Brian Tisbert as senior vice presidents, Christopher Decembrele and Andrew Whipple as vice presidents.The team will represent tenants, owners and investors in Continue reading >>>

Room to grow

Greater Boston is pocketed with major developments that promise to transform huge swaths of underutilized and abandoned property into commercial and residential hubs. Pictured is a rendering of the planned 5.2 million-square-foot NorthPoint development in East Cambridge. For a region of the country that’s not supposed to have enough land available for mega-development projects, the Continue reading >>>

Volunteers haul tons of debris from Neponset River in Hyde Park

Readville resident Martha McDonough, the lead organizer of the event, said the effort was a good beginning. “We know we don’t have everything out, but we got a lot out, and a lot of hard work from a little over 70 volunteers,” McDonough said. McDonough, an avid canoeist, began thinking about a clean-up several years back, when she first saw how polluted some stretches of the Neponset were. “It was almost impassible for a lot of canoes,” she said. “Motorboats could no longer get through there.” She worked with the Neponset River Watershed Association and a host of local organizations Continue reading >>>

Health Cares: Greater Boston proves great for seniors

In late July, amidst growing street violence, a heated and sometimes nasty political campaign, and a faltering hometown team, greater Boston finally got some attention that it could be proud of.  The Milken Institute, a non-profit think-tank based in Santa Monica, Calif., ranked Boston the fourth best large-metro area in its Best Cities for Successful Aging index (seniors 65+), and number one for seniors ages 80 and plus. For those of us who have spent most, if not all, of our lives in the greater Boston area, we tend to take for granted all of the resources our wonderful metropolitan area Continue reading >>>

Greater Boston Hotel Market Remains Stable In July

Thursday, August 30, 2012, 11:29am   Greater Boston hotels reported stable operating results for July 2012, according to PKF Consulting USA, a division of Colliers International Occupancy slipped slightly in July from the same period a year ago, but hotel revenue rose, the latest survey from PKF found. The 94 hotel operators in the PKF Trends sample for the Greater Boston area achieved an average 85.9 Continue reading >>>

Bostonian music school alumni make music that sounds like – well, something …

Reading on mobile? Listen hereHometown: Boston, Massachusetts.The lineup: Dane Orr (instruments) and Anna Wise (vocals).The background: Sonnymoon's music is woozy, magical, mysterious, hypnotic, quixotic. Other words that occurred while we were listening to their self-titled album, released this autumn, included: squelchy, fantastic, phantasmic, plasmic, plastic, spasmic, orgasmic. It is liquid and loose, unconventional and unorthodox. It jerks and juts out at ridiculous angles, but it can also be smooth and easy on the ear. At various points it will seem as though you are listening to Continue reading >>>

Are parents really flocking to buy in these towns?

Here's Trulia's top ten list for the Boston area, including price-per-square-foot numbers. To convert the square foot numbers, just base it on a home of roughly 2000 square feet. For example, in Westford, a 2,000 square foot home will cost you just under $400,000. What's your take? Is Trulia full of it or has it hit upon a new way of looking at where parents are buying? School District Ratio Price per SQFT Westford School District 1.74 $197 Duxbury School District 1.72 $231 Westwood School District 1.70 Continue reading >>>

Local youth tackled human rights and global injustice over summer break

While most youth partake in traditional summer camp activities such as archery, horseback riding, and swimming, Belmont resident Dana O’Rourke, 14, chose to participate in a weeklong global diplomacy summer camp. O’Rourke spent a week at Harvard Business School to participate in the United Nations Association of Greater Boston’s Summer Institute. O’Rourke answers a few questions about her unique camp experience. Out of 44 middle school and high school students in the Greater Boston area, only three students in Belmont participated in the Model UN Summer Institute and you were one Continue reading >>>

Lexington teens complete Food Project summer program

The Food Project, a Lincoln-based youth development and sustainable farming organization, has completed its 21st summer working with teens from throughout Greater Boston and the North Shore. For nearly seven weeks, participants learned how to farm using sustainable methods, helping to grow and harvest more than 68,000 pounds of fresh produce. Alongside farming skills, they encountered peers from different walks of life. Lexington High School student Emma Brinton, 16, first visited the Lincoln farm two years ago as part of a volunteer trip organized by one of her teachers. “Since then, Continue reading >>>