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Deval Patrick to get ensnared in Jamaicway holiday-light issue
By adamg on Tue, 12/18/2007 - 9:15am
WBUR reported this morning that City Councilor John Tobin will ask Gov. Patrick to require the guy with the 500,000 lights to hire a police detail.
The station quoted Tobin as saying it would be just terrible if somebody were hit by a fast-moving car on the Jamaicaway/Arborway while stopped to gawk at the brighter-by-the-year Castle. Tobin said he asked Dominic Luberto to hire a detail, but that Luberto refused, saying he's already given the city its largest Christmas display. Because the road is a state parkway, it would be up to Patrick or State Police to force the issue.
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Comments
nanny state alert
Drivers should be held responsible for their own stupidity if they don't pay attention to the road.
That's the first thing. Secondly, I am pretty sure that having a police detail out there will just slow traffic even further. It almost always does.
Thirdly, I don't drive by there much anymore since I moved out of JP, but I have a few times. I didn't notice any slowing of traffic.
My only criticism of the display is that it's wasteful. Perhaps he can go all LED next year. :)
Worst is that he has been
Worst is that he has been quoted as saying he buys, and then discards everything, every year.
that's a lot of waste, he should at least donate it to somewhere / thing. My guess is he doesn't want to deal with the tangled mess he's made.
media reports are wrong
although media reports stated that the lights are thrown away each year, they are not, as Adam's post on Universal Hub earlier this year pointed out.
What I want to know is what is happening with the permitting for the crown structure he added to his house. Wasn't he asked to remove it?
Let's get some original reporting on that.
I heard
On WBUR this morning they mentioned that he hired an architect to prove to the city that the crown would not blow over in a storm.
WWJD?
Just b/c Dom's given the city it's largest Christmas display doesn't mean that his giving spirit has to end there.
A silly idea
Aren't people usually going pretty slow around there anyway -- no more than 25 mph? This is a non-problem.
You can't be serious
In case you were, the answer to your question is no. People are not usually going slow in front of Dominick's Folly. People are speeding up from the light at the Pond Street rotary to try to get ahead into the rotary at Centre Street before the other cars racing on the cut-out section to the left cut them off. The posted speed limit is 30 MPH, but 50 MPH is not unusual. It's a dangerous road with a high rate of accidents. It is all but inevitable that an accident will occur because of the lookie-loos.
And it gets even better
Because there's no parking lane and so people who stop to gawk park partly in the road, forcing people in the right lane to edge over to the left.
The one saving grace: You come around the curve from the last rotary and you go "Holy crap, WTF is that?!?" when you see what appears to be a three-story wall of spotlights with a crown on top and so slow down. It was pretty funny the first time I took my wife down there - there's a house a few doors down with some nice lights and she thought they were his and that they were nice but didn't understand the fuss, and then an instant later we saw the lit-up rocket launching pad and all she could say was "oh!"
I haven't gone by this year
I haven't gone by this year but I doubt it's any different than last year when cars were parked illegally leading up to the rotary. There were parents with children on the side of the road dangerously close to being hit by cars. Driving by, I was really nervous some kid was going to dart out.
Speed Racer
50mph is the norm, not the exception. Not to mention the "race to the rotary" approach of most drivers coming from the Arborway and trying to make it to Centre Street before the little old lady in the rotary gets in their way. God help you if its a taxi. Although I think police details are a colossal waste of money and should be replaced by sign-men, the amount of stopping, gawking, rubber-necking, whatever, caused by the house may actually warrant one. I have seen cars parked and double parked on the Arborway to see this thing. However, I can't blame them, as I think its great (but needs some solar panels so my grandchildren can breathe).
I visited this site last night
around 9:30 pm. Lots of people parked in front of the house, which caused traffic in the remaining lane to slow to about 20 mph. People who didn't know each other were greeting each other, and walking their kids back and forth along the sidewalk. Seemed like a pleasant enough scene to me.
Biggest? Whatever.
He can pay the damages for any accident that happens because people pull over to see the mess of waste that it is, and I've had problems while driving past the house with people SUDDENLY slowing down to a stop with NO SIGNAL. Cars frequently pull over, but not enough to be out of the lane, and people look up at the display without watching where they're going. It's a tremendous waste of electricity in a time when the LAST thing anyone should be doing pissing away electricity. If he's got his own windmill and is off the grid, that would be one thing - but my guess is that he's on the grid...
Putting up a display like that seems to be an attempt to compensate for something that this man is lacking.
a windmill is not a bad
a windmill is not a bad idea. Or some solar panels. he puts all that crap on his house, he can't think that a few solar panels will look bad.
Please help Governor!
Please Governor, get us the police detail before a child is tragically killed thanks to the immodest, bombastic, arrogant, egotistical, pompous, self-applauding, and self-righteous Dominic Luberto. Just imagine the good this dude could do if he donated the $1,500 he spends on his electric bill each month!
Most dangerous rotary in Boston?
In one of his novels, George V. Higgins
described that as the most dangerous rotary
in Boston. And that was before this guy started
with this stuff,