category: Boston

How to hunt for an apartment in Boston

By: - Wednesday, Feb 26, 2014 - 11:11pm

Searching for an apartment in Boston is a unique process…and a big pain in the ass. 79 percent of all rentals in Boston turn over their leases between September 1st and 14th, setting the stage for aggressive rental agents and frantic tenant hopefuls. Signing on something that’s not a complete piece of shit requires some legwork and a little bit of patience. Having lived in four different apartments over eight years in Boston, I thought I’d share my experience in finding a decent place for a good price.

1) Figure out where you want to live: Budget and location are the two most important things to consider when looking for an apartment. The image below is a rental heat map put together by Jeff Kaufman — he used data from the website PadMapper. We took it a step further and added geographically accurate T stops. There’s a lot of useful info packed into this little map. For example, you can identify cheaper neighborhoods by looking at cooler colors. A quick glace at the map shows somewhat reasonable prices in Brighton Center/Oak Sq, Assembly Sq, Lower Allston, Ward 2 Somerville, and certain parts of JP and Dorchester.

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Chris P. Bacon visits Franciscan Hospital for Children in Brighton

By: - Wednesday, Feb 26, 2014 - 8:07pm

Pig in a wheelchair, Chris P. Bacon, paid a visit to Franciscan Hospital for Children in Brighton today to bring some cheer to patients.

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Photo via the Franciscan Hospital twitter account @FranciscanHFC (more…)

Weekend forecast: No blizzards, lots of events

By: - Friday, Feb 21, 2014 - 2:26pm

Right now as I type this sentence, my Weather Channel app predicts a high of 50 degrees Saturday. That’s shorts weather, people. But more importantly: It means you can make plans for the weekend without the nagging fear that you’ll look out the window, it’s snowing like crazy, and just like that everything is canceled.

For this weekend at least, Boston’s total snowfall for the winter will remain about three quarters of a Pedroia.

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Get your light jacket out of the closet and check out these events: (more…)