Month: September 2025

• David Baltimore, Nobel winner and local biotech giant, RIP

  September 9, 2025

  

  
  David Baltimore played no small part in helping to establish Boston as a world center of biotech research, winning a Nobel Prize in 1975 for his groundbreaking research within the field of molecular biology and later founding MIT’s prestigious Whitehead Institute in 1982. As a scientist and administrator, his influence on Boston’s then fledgling life-science sector was so great that he was named by the BBJ as one of the 100 most influential contributors to Greater Boston’s economy in the 20^th Century. 

  Baltimore, 87, died over the weekend at his home in Woods Hole. RIP. The NYT and MIT News have more on Baltimore’s extraordinary achievements. … Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

• Should he or shouldn’t he? Kraft’s big post-Tuesday decision

  September 7, 2025

  Assuming Josh Kraft gets whomped on Tuesday by Mayor Michelle Wu – and the latest Emerson poll shows her leading him by 50 points – the next question is: Should he continue his campaign after taking a drubbing in the preliminary election? The Herald’s Joe Battenfeld says he should consider bowing out. Contrarian Boston’s Scott Van Voorhis thinks not. … I go back and forth on the issue. Both make persuasive cases. I guess I tilt towards Joe’s position, thinking of what I’d probably do if I was in Kraft’s hopeless situation. Why deny reality? But let’s first see if that 50-point number is even remotely accurate. I hope it’s not. I like competitive races. I like it when challengers hold incumbents’ feet to the fire. … And I guess I just made Scott’s argument for him. Like I said, I go back and forth.

  Update — 9.11.25 – Well, he lost big time — and it initially looked like he was going to stick it out through November. But now his status is a little unclear. See post-election HB updates here.

• Why am I rooting for Bill Belichick to fail?

  September 6, 2025

  
  I understand why New England Patriots haters loved seeing Bill Belichick fall flat on his face in his opening game loss as head coach at UNC. But why am I rooting for Belichick to fail? I’m a huge Pats fan. Six Super Bowl wins as head coach? One of the winningest coaches in NFL history? He’s a legend in my book. But … but he’s stayed around too long. It happens, as Bill Burr brilliantly suggests in his hilarious interview above with Rich Eisen, pointing out the past-their-prime years of Johnny Unitas and Joe Namath. He might as well have mentioned the past-their-prime years of Chuck Noll, Tom Landry, Don Shula etc. They stayed around too long. It happens. … And then there’s Belichick’s seemingly non-stop silly and petty personal controversies and feuds. His grumpy antics are getting harder to take by the day. He’s tarnishing his image. He’s become a comedic punch line, for heaven’s sake. … Losing might make him leave the coaching stage sooner. That’s why I find myself oddly rooting for him to fail. I want to remember him for his glory days, not his past-his-prime weird losing days.

  Update — 9.7.25 — Belichick notched his first UNC victory yesterday. … Meanwhile, from the Globe: “Belichick on Patriots: ‘I’m not welcomed in their facility, so they aren’t welcomed in ours’.”

• Note to readers: Hub Blog’s newsletter will return next week

  September 5, 2025

  We’re all supposed to shift into high gear after Labor Day, returning to the work world feeling rested and invigorated after a relaxing summer of care-free slugdom. I never found that to be true. I tend to drag for a few weeks after Labor Day, the body and mind refusing to adjust to the new norm. And that partly explains why I didn’t produce a weekly Hub Blog newsletter this week. I was dragging and didn’t have that much to say. But the newsletter will be back next week! Or at least I think so.

• Short takes: Pathetic CEOs … Panning Tom’s statue … Poor Bristol … Teddie goes national

  September 5, 2025

  — Pathetic: “Tech CEOs Take Turns Praising Trump at White House Dinner” (WSJ)

  — She pans the new Tom Brady statue but praises another: “A Truly Great Statue of a Sports Hero” (Atlantic)

  — Another disgruntled businessman thinks he can do better than an elected official: “Alan Leventhal, former ambassador to Denmark, considering running for governor in 2026” (Herald)

  — Really? Even if the number is cut in half, people can’t possibly make intelligent decisions on so many referendum questions: “In ‘record-breaking’ year, Mass. attorney general approves 44 ballot proposals, including one restoring rent control” (Globe)

  — More than 26,000 tenant complaints were filed against the firm in just five years (yes, 26,000): “Apartment Landlord Faces Ban from Massachusetts” (B&T)

  The problem: Bristol is closer to Springfield than it is to NYC: “ESPN Employees’ Favorite Sport: Lamenting Their Home Base” (WSJ)

  More evidence that Democrats have become the elite: “The political ‘diploma divide’ now applies to members of Congress” (Washington Post)

  And yet more evidence that’s something’s very wrong in collegiate sports and academia in general: “The UMass system’s 2025 payroll total $1.7 billion” (BBJ)

  I had no idea the firm was based in Everett: “After a century as a New England secret, Teddie peanut butter goes national” (Globe)

  It always happens: “Her $80,000 Furniture Budget Turned Into a $1 Million Renovation” (WSJ)

• Goldberg held accountable — finally

  September 4, 2025

  The BBJ got its wish: Treasurer Deb Goldberg has finally been held accountable, or at least partially accountable, for the mess at the Cannabis Control Commission, thanks to Suffolk Superior Court Judge Robert Gordon’s ruling this week that Goldberg wrongly fired CCC chair Shannon O’Brien in 2023. The 50-page ruling is so brutally worded and full of common-sense observations, you’d think Goldberg would cut her losses and let the controversy slowly fade away. Nope. Goldberg has served notice she plans to appeal Gordon’s decision, prolonging the CCC’s years-long bureaucratic agony for Lord knows how much longer, as GBH’s Adam Reilly reports. … The Globe’s Joan Vennochi has an excellent column that gets to a core truth about the controversy: Goldberg’s attempt to use woke-ism to justify her firing/canceling of O’Brien. It backfired on Goldberg, big time. … Meanwhile, a Globe editorial gets it right on two points: Goldberg needs to give it up, while O’Brien needs to declare victory and walk away.

  Update – 9.5.25 — And from the Globe’s Kevin Cullen: “Having read a judge’s sobering take on the state of the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission, I have just one question: What are they smoking up there?” …. Fyi: Kevin found a copy of Gordon’s strongly worded ruling here.

• Return to Office: As the rebounding San Fran goes, so goes Boston?

  September 2, 2025

  The Globe’s Jon Chesto reports that the recent return-to-office trend seems to have stalled in Boston – and what we see today might be as good as it gets. But, wait, the BBJ’s William Hall reports that many employers he’s contacted say they plan to “require staffers to spend greater time onsite this fall or at the start of the new year.” … I haven’t a clue who might be right. But what I find interesting is that San Francisco, the office basket case of all office basket cases, is lately seeing a strong rebound in its office market, thanks to AI firms, the WSJ reports. From the Journal: 

  “In the latest sign of renewed market confidence, Houston-based real-estate investment manager Hines launched a city review process of a planned 1,225-foot-tall office tower at the site of the old Pacific Gas & Electric headquarters. It would be the tallest building on the West Coast and just 25 feet shy of New York City’s Empire State Building.”

  File under: For what it’s worth.

• Two simple changes to boost and preserve housing in Mass.

  September 1, 2025

  There’s no silver-bullet solution to our housing crisis. It’s going to take a lot of big and small ideas to move the housing-construction needle here. With that in mind, here are two rather simple ideas to help build and preserve housing in these parts and across the U.S. … First, Jesús Fernández-Villaverde, senior fellow at University of Texas and economics professor at the University of Pennsylvania, writes that deleting just five words (“built on a permanent chassis”) from the Mobile Home Construction and Safety Standards Act of 1974 would “unlock vast” modular home construction and ownership potential in the U.S. – and not mobile-home potential. Think smaller modular homes in general. …  I’m not sure about the ‘vast’ potential part. Certainly not here in Massachusetts, home to some of the most fanatical and snobby NIMBY species in the country. But it’s an idea that could move the needle a bit. … I briefly addressed the modular-home issue last week. … Fernández-Villaverde piece via RCM. …

  … The second idea comes via Jonathan Berk at B&T, who bemoans the loss of historic buildings and historic neighborhoods across the state and nation. The culprit: parking requirements. … Parking requirements hobble new housing construction in general. New Hampshire recently addressed this issue by passing legislation that prohibits towns from requiring more than one parking space per unit for residential construction. It’s one of many smart housing-related items recently passed by lawmakers up north. Massachusetts lawmakers, take note.