The Boston City Archives recount what happened when Mayor James Michael Curley successfully fought to rid Bromfield Street of young women shining shoes and blacking boots on Bromfield Street in 1917 - when the young men who would normally have done the job were getting ready for war. It was an outrage to public morality, Curley and others - including the Women's Christian Temperance Union - thundered.

The New York company that owns the former Payless building at Bromfield and Washington streets in Downtown Crossing now says, in a filing with the BPDA last week, it expects to begin 28 months of construction on a new 22-story office tower there in the second half of 2022. Read more.

Boston Police have released a photo of a man they say forced a woman from Bromfield Street in Downtown Crossing through the Common and into the Public Garden, near Charles and Beacon streets, where he raped her, around 2 a.m. Read more.

Looters who smashed into places like Marshalls and Walgreens Sunday night were not particularly discriminating - they also destroyed small mom-and-pop businesses across downtown, the Back Bay and the South End. Read more.

Boston Police report arresting an East Boston man after, they say, officers caught him trying to break into Wild Orchid, 40B Bromfield St. - and then chased him on foot through downtown and along the Common before finally bringing him down on the Common. Read more.

The Boston Licensing Board decides tomorrow whether to let Insomnia Cookies open a storefront on Bromfield Street from which it would deliver warm cookies to downtown residents and students up to 3 a.m. Read more.

Boston Police report arresting a Roxbury man on gun, knife and drug charges on Bromfield Street Saturday night. Read more.

Boston Police report arresting Joseph Porter, 47, on a charge of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon for allegedly stabbing another man outside 69 Bromfield St. around 1:40 a.m. on Sunday.

Police say his victim remains hospitalized but is expected to survive.

Innocent, etc.

Crag Caplan spotted this sign on Bromfield Street.

The New York developer that has been figuring out how to put a skyscraper at the intersection of Washington and Bromfield streets last week released a series of renderings of a building that would rise higher than the Millennium Tower and have a series of rooftop gardens and possibly solar panels.

Midwood Investment and Development is proposing a 59-story, 683-foot-tall building with 300 apartments - 54 affordable - topped by 119 condos. The residential units would sit on a five-story base that would include ground-floor retail and a garage for 235 cars and 420 bicycles. Read more.