Boston’s Post Office Square has to be one of the prettiest small urban parks in the country. It may soon undergo a change, though, or at least a site along its very outer edge may undergo a change. Universal Hub’s Adam Gaffin reports developer Patrick Mahoney wants to convert 12 Post Office Square from offices to housing. Ditto for 10 Liberty Square around the corner. Adam has more on the proposals. … I guess the conversions are better than underutilized office buildings. And you have to wonder if other nearby conversions are on the way.
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New York-centric hyperbole: ‘The Night the NBA Playoffs Went Completely Bonkers’
OK. It’s only one game. No time to panic. But … I’m about to panic. The Celts blew a 20-point lead and ended up losing to the Knick in OT last night, as the Globe and Herald glumly report. They’re in pleasant shock in NY. … The WSJ notes that it was an extraordinary night in general for the NBA, with both the heavily favored Celts and Thunder losing. But why do I think the WSJ wouldn’t be going so ga-ga over the outcomes if a New York team wasn’t involved? (See Journal’s headline above.) The NY-centric national media has a way of doing that. … Before last night’s game, I was thinking of the Celts in 6. I’m sticking to that outcome, though more nervously so now.
Update – From a Hub Blog reader: “I HATE losing a national game broadcast by NY based announcers.”
The same reader added: “The less said (about last night) the better. They can’t win down 2 rotation players, plus 2 more hobbled players, and 1 valiant but aging player. Watching all those missed threes was like watching slot machine players who can’t stop pulling the lever.”
Update II — 5.7.25 – Two days later, the same HB reader has calmed down a bit. Just a bit: ” I feel slightly less worse about Celtic choke in Game 1 after watching the Cavaliers choke in their Game 2 against the Pacers. WHAT – A – FOURTH QUARTER! But I’m still pissed about Monday night, so much so that I can’t hate the Knicks. They saw their opportunity and took it. I can and do still hate the NY-centric media coverage of course. ”
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Set aside surtax surplus money, please
Once again, the state last month collected far more capital gains and millionaire-surtax revenue than projected, leaving state officials with the pleasant dilemma of what to do with the extra surtax money in particular, as the Globe’s Matt Stout reports. Allocate the funds right away to their intended purposes as stipulated by referendum voters in 2022, i.e. to education and transportation? … Here’s a better idea considering all the storm clouds on the horizon: set the money aside in some sort of special account till we learn more about A.) possible/probable federal funding cuts in those two areas and B.) where the economy is headed amid all the tariff turmoil. … Believe it or not (and it’s not that hard to believe), the same surge in tax revenues happened in April 2024 – and yet the state spent itself into deficit. With even more uncertainties these days, the state may yet run up another deficit this fiscal year and next fiscal year and … they need to set aside money where and when they can. Not that they’re capable of doing so where and when they should.
And, btw, they also need to resist earmarking surtax money for pet parking-garage projects in Quincy. … And, btw II, lawmakers better not raise taxes, not with the state awash in money, albeit money that has strings attached. Senate president Karen Spilka is vowing not to hike taxes.
Update – 5.7.25 – More looming concerns out there, from GBH: “Medicaid funding fears loom over Massachusetts state budget.”
Update II – 5.7.25 – And from MassLive: “‘All bets are off’ if Trump cuts Medicaid, Mass. Senate budget boss warns.”
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Connecting the State Police training and corruption dots, Part II
The Herald reports that Mass State Police officials are planning to implement cadet training reforms, including new leadership at its training academy, in the wake of recruit Enrique Delgado-Garcia’s senseless death during a boxing exercise. … Frankly, I don’t trust State Police’s self-reform efforts. Lawmakers need to get involved to ensure real change. The culture of corruption at State Police runs deep. And it all starts with a brutal paramilitary training program that for too long has prioritized brawn over brains.
Btw: Here’s yet the latest SP embarrassment, via WBUR: “Former Massachusetts state police sergeant found guilty of taking bribes to pass commercial drivers.”
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Warren Buffett’s incredible investment career: the Massachusetts roots
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It really is an end of an era. Legendary investor Warren Buffett, 94, announced last week that he’s retiring at the end of this year, bringing to a close a truly remarkable financial career that started with strong Massachusetts connections. Buffett’s famous holding company, Berkshire Hathaway, got its name via one of his earliest investments, the phased purchase in the ‘60s of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., an old textiles company based in New Bedford. The mill company itself was the result of a merger in the mid-1950s between Berkshire Fine Spinning Association (see image above) in Adams, Mass., and Hathaway Manufacturing Co. in New Bedford.
Out of curiosity, I poked around the web a bit to see what remnants of the long-closed Berkshire Hathaway (the textile firm, not the Omaha-based financial firm) were still around, decades after Buffett dumped his holdings in the firm. Apparently, parts of the old Hathaway mill complex are still around in New Bedford, but its distinctive headquarters building was torn down about a decade ago, as the WSJ reported at the time. Many of the old Berkshire mill buildings in Adams are also long gone, but the Berkshire Mill No. 1 building was converted into a mixed-use housing complex in the late ‘80s and today is on the National Register of Historic Places. … Just thought people would like to know about this local business history. It’s pretty cool stuff.
Fyi: Buffett has often described his purchase of the Berkshire Hathaway mill company as his worst investment ever. But he got a classy and proud name out of the deal, that’s for sure.
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The now-gone Hathaway Mill headquarters in New Bedford. 
The old Berkshire Mill No. 1 building in Adams, now a housing complex that’s on the National Register of Historic Places. Update – 5.5.25 — The WSJ chronicles Buffett’s greatest investment hits and misses. Berkshire Hathaway is most definitely on the list.
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The president of Wesleyan gets it, the Globe and Harvard don’t
At least the Globe is hovering near a core truth about recent campus turmoil at Harvard and other colleges, with its editorial “If Harvard wants a tolerant campus, it needs to admit tolerant students.” And the editorial adds Harvard needs to hire more tolerant grad students and faculty as well, not just more tolerant students. OK. I get it. More tolerant people leads to more tolerant campuses. But there’s something glaringly missing here, an obvious pulled punch. While the editorial focuses somewhat strangely on behavioral traits that Harvard needs to spot when admitting students and hiring and promoting faculty members, there’s no mention at all about what’s actually being taught at Harvard (and other colleges) that’s whipping students into moralistic us-versus-them tantrums, or, more accurately, oppressor-versus-oppressed tantrums. … We’re speaking, of course, of oftentimes extreme left-wing politics that are taught at many colleges — and how those views ended up influencing and dominating campus life in general, from oppressive speech codes to student protesters routinely exhibiting intolerance toward those with opposing views. And that’s where Michael S. Roth, president of Wesleyan University, comes into the picture. In a WSJ op-ed earlier this week, Roth blasts “left-wing orthodoxy” that has long “stifled campus debate” while criticizing recent “right-wing litmus tests” that the Trump administration is now trying to impose on universities. … Roth, who considers himself a “person on the left,” offers up some refreshing common-sense examples of how to make campuses more open, tolerant and, yes, peaceful.
Of course, there’s also the campus free-speech “Chicago Principles,” also known as the “Chicago Statement,” variations of which have been adopted by more than 100 universities across the country, including Princeton and Stanford. Locally, BU, Brandeis, MIT, Clark, Suffolk and UMass-Boston have signed up. The Chicago Principles are obviously not the end-all when it comes to encouraging campus tolerance. But it’s a good first step.
Update – The NYT reports that Harvard president Alan Garber is more aware of the campus political problem (read: the far-left campus dominance problem) than it may appear – and he’s taking “subtle” steps to address it. Well, good, but he’s still not being as forthright about the problem as people like Roth. Read the message Garber recently sent to the Harvard community concerning the two task-force reports on campus antisemitism and Islamophobia. No mention of any intellectual belief systems driving some of the recent campus convulsions. …
… The Hub Blog mind drifts to George Orwell’s famous “Politics and the English Language” essay. Among others, I’ve always liked these lines from the essay:
“(The) mixture of vagueness and sheer incompetence is the most marked characteristic of modern English prose, and especially of any kind of political writing. As soon as certain topics are raised, the concrete melts into the abstract and no one seems able to think of turns of speech that are not hackneyed: prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated henhouse. “
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Mass. House’s make-believe $61B state budget
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The Massachusetts House earlier this week passed a $61 billion state budget that almost no one believes comes anywhere close to reflecting future reality. Senate President Karen Spilka is already saying that whatever fiscal 2026 budget is ultimately approved by lawmakers might have to be revised later in the year, depending on potential federal funding cuts, as MassterList reports. I’ll go further and say future revisions ‘will,’ not ‘might,’ happen later in the year, based on these Hill and WSJ stories about President Trump’s “wish list” budget that calls for $163 billion in non-defense discretionary spending cuts. Some GOP budget hawks are already saying the proposed cuts, unveiled this morning, don’t go far enough. … Trump has said entitlements such as Medicaid and Social Security won’t be cut. But you just know some Republican lawmakers will insist on Medicaid cuts, particularly funds having anything to do with Obama Care. … Here’s one of many known unknowns to think about: How will red-state GOP governors react to proposed cuts to Medicaid, education and transportation funds flowing from D.C to states? Blue-state Massachusetts’s finances may well depend on how Republicans like Kelly Ayotte respond behind the scenes to budget battles in Washington.
Back to state finances, most everyone knows the House’s just-passed budget is a sort of make-believe budget, something floating in suspended animation, based on known unknowns, if you will. What other choice did lawmakers have? Pretend they know what Donald Trump et gang might do months from now?
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The one-month anniversary of South Coast Rail: Good news, bad news
First, the good news about the new Fall River-New Bedford commuter rail service, aka South Coast Rail: Banker & Tradesman and the Standard Times are reporting that Lafrance Hospitality wants to build a $25 million hotel near the recently opened commuter rail station in New Bedford. It’s considered among the first major development proposals tied to the new month-old train service. Expect more development proposals moving forward. And hopefully they’ll include lots of residential housing plans. … But here’s the bad news: The new rail service is already suffering from delays and cancellations, as the Herald News and Boston.com report. … Sigh. … Well, they can’t blame antiquated equipment this time around. So what is to blame? A severe staffing shortage, T officials say.
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The Bill Belichick Show, Part 2: The Interview … Romance refresher course … Ted’s broadside … Edelman to the defense … Ignoring Kraft
Screenshot via CBS News Have you fallen hopelessly behind on the latest Bill Belichick-Jordon Hudson news? Need a general refresher course so you can keep up with the water-cooler/dinner-table/barroom chatter about Bill and Jordon? Steve Henson, a staff writer at the Los Angeles Times (yes, the LA Times), has an excellent overview/history of the relationship and why it matters today. It’s explanatory journalism at its finest. … Here’s the CBS Sunday Morning interview (with a screenshot above of Bill and Jordon) that generated all the gripping headlines this past week about the 73-year-old Bill and his 24-year-old gal pal whose “creative muse” protective instincts just couldn’t be controlled during the interview. … Bill’s rather odd email response to the interview was later posted on Jordon’s Instagram page. Damn those salacious media questions! …. And Bill had yet another response via the University of North Carolina. He was ambushed during the interview! … Speaking of UNC, ex-Pats star Ted Johnson thinks that maybe it’s time the university consider firing Bill as head coach because, well, Ted now wonders if Bill is “fit to coach an NFL team, let alone fit to coach a college team.” … Just because a guy goes through a very late mid-life crisis doesn’t mean he can’t coach football, Ted. … Another ex-Pat is being chivalrous. From Boston.com: “Julian Edelman defends Bill Belichick’s girlfriend after viral CBS interview.” … And Dave Portnoy is chiming in on the whole affair because Dave Portnoy chimes in on everything. … And, oh, stop feeling sorry for Bob Kraft for not getting a mention in Bill’s new book. He took his own whacks at Bill via another venue. Bill was just getting even. …
Fyi: Here’s my prior exciting Bill Belichick Show post.
Update — 5.3.25 — From Tara Sullivan at the Globe: “Would the old Bill Belichick accept this type of behavior from what appears to be a new Bill Belichick?”
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Attention Jake Auchincloss and Elizabeth Warren: Get a load of this latest Trump crypto deal
They’re making Hunter Biden look like a trading-off-pop’s-name piker. The NYT is now reporting that a founder of the Trump family cryptocurrency business has announced that a fund backed by Abu Dhabi would be making a $2 billion business deal using the Trump company’s digital coins – and the deal could “generate hundreds of millions of dollars for the Trump family.”
I wrote about the Trump family’s crypto saga yesterday. And it explains towards the end the Auchincloss and Warren angle.
Hub Blog 