Somerville to join county library system

mycentraljersey.com is reporting that Somerville will be joining the Somerset County library system. I don’t know enough about the history on this to know why we weren’t *always* part of the Somerset County system, but it seems like a reasonable enough thing to do.

I only got my library card a few months ago, despite living in Somerville for more than ten years. And I haven’t actually used the card yet. I have a kind of sentimental attachment to libraries, since I used our public library in Roselle Park quite often as a kid, and because my brother Pat was a librarian.

I get most of my books through BookMooch or SwapTree now, or on the Kindle, so I don’t actually have much use for the library, but I’m glad we have one.

Somerville St. Patrick’s Day Parade postponed due to flooding

Somerville St. Patrick’s Day Parade postponed due to flooding

No St Patrick’s Day parade today in Somerville. Looks like they’ll try again next week. That’s OK. I’m not feeling too well today, so it’s a good day to sit inside reading books, and sipping tea.

The shopping center is gone.

Former Somerville shopping center now columns and debris | mycentraljersey.com

I haven’t been paying that much attention to local news lately, nor have I been getting out much, so I was surprised to see the downtown shopping center gone when I was walking down Main St earlier this week.  The place has been empty for about three years now.  The article doesn’t give me much hope that they’re actually going to do anything useful with the site any time soon, but I guess it’s a start.

St. Patrick’s Day

Somerville St. Patrick’s Day parade names first-ever female grand marshal

I see that the Somerville St Pat’s parade is March 14 this year, the day after my birthday. For a few years, we had a tradition going where Mom and Dad, and maybe a couple of other folks, would come up to Somerville for the parade, and we’d hang out in my apartment, have a few beers, and celebrate my birthday. I remember one year when Pat and Heather came up too, before they were married, I think. That was fun.

Since Mom stopped driving a few years back, we haven’t been doing that. I have some fond memories of St Patrick’s parades in Somerville, though.

Snow on main st


Snow on main st
Originally uploaded by andyhuey

It’s a good day to be working from home… Here’s the view outside my window right now. When I took a walk outside to see if I could get something for lunch, nearly all the stores on Main St were closed.
Here a link to a photoset with a couple more pictures I took from my window.
Oh, and not to get all maudlin again, but a couple of times today I’ve thought about picking up the phone and calling my Dad, to see how much snow they’re getting down in Whiting. Then, I remember that there’s just an empty house down there now. (*And* that I’ll probably need to shovel out the driveway and walk when I go down there this weekend to pick up Mom’s will and some other papers.)

groceries

I don’t post about Somerville very often, but I thought I’d write a quick post to mark the passing of the Somerville Pathmark. I ran over there tonight to pick up some stuff, and found out that they’re closing tomorrow. I knew this was probably coming, due to the redevelopment plans for that center, but I thought there was still a chance that they’d leave Pathmark open. Oh well. I’ve been doing most of my shopping at Stop & Shop or Wegman’s lately anyway, but it was really nice to be able to just run across the street to Pathmark any time I needed milk or something. Now, I’ve got no grocery store in (easy) walking distance.

It looks like the borough is committed to opening up a new supermarket in that space eventually, so that’s good. And there’s some mildly amusing speculation and discussion on this over at C-N’s forums.

I was never entirely thrilled with the Somerville Pathmark, but it was a decent store, I knew where everything was, and it was usually pretty easy to get in, get what I needed, and get out. I hope all the employees manage to find decent work elsewhere, either at another local supermarket or maybe somewhere else in Somerville.

Somerville

The new building a couple of doors down from mine is apparently going to be a Marriott ExecuStay. It looks like they’re almost finished with it. It seems kind of weird to have an upscale extended-stay hotel just down the street from me. Are there really a lot of people out there who’d want to rent a room in Somerville like this? I have no idea how much they’re charging, but what I’ve seen of these places is that they’re usually $99 a night, or something like that, with a 30-day minimum. I guess there are probably a fair number of people who stay in Somerset County for business reasons for a month or two, maybe working for one of the pharmaceutical companies around here, and I suppose downtown Somerville would be a nice place to stay, versus staying somewhere on Route 22 or 206.

Hey, maybe I can talk one of the maids over there into coming over and cleaning my apartment!

World Cup

Well, Italy won the World Cup about an hour ago, and the crazed, drunken fans are still running around up and down Main St., waving flags, yelling, and generally carrying on. A while ago, there was a guy running around in the middle of the street with an Italian flag in one hand and a beer bottle in another. I’m guessing somebody gets hits by a truck within the next half-hour or so.