Archives

Boston's Old Ritz-Carlton Has Been Sold

By Curt Nickisch on Thursday, December 21, 2006.

Next month, Boston is going to have a new hotel. Actually it's an old, well-known hotel, but it's going to have a new name. Investors from India are taking over the Ritz-Carlton, Boston.

The historic hotel overlooking the Public Garden opened in 1927. At the time a guest could rent a room for $15.

The city will still keep its newer Ritz-Carlton across the way. But the loss of the very first hotel in the luxury chain has some mourning the end of a Boston icon. Others herald the sale as a harbinger of the city's economy.

WBUR reporter Curt Nickisch checked into the story and filed this report.

listen: No audio currently available. Order on CD (pdf).

The True Story Behind Rudolph

By Liz Bulkley on Thursday, December 21, 2006.

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer has been enchanting children for decades now. Tonight on the Front Porch, we'll hear about the Dartmouth grad who brought the determined animal to life in the 1930s, and we'll find out how the animated version of the story ended up setting the bar for televised holiday specials for years to come.

Our guests are:

Bonnie Wallin, Curator of the Williams/Watson Theater Collection at Rauner's Special Collection Library at Dartmouth College.

Ron Simon, Curator of Radio and Television at the Museum of Television & Radio.

listen: No audio currently available. Order on CD (pdf).

Problems with Public Employee Pensions

By Laura Knoy on Thursday, December 21, 2006.

There are worries that public employee pensions... that give retirement benefits to firemen and teachers, are low on cash. And where the money will come from is unsure... Two possibilities: increasing property taxes or reforming the public pension system. We’ll weigh all the options.

Laura's guests are Fran Wendelboe, State Representative from New Hampton and Jay Ward, Political Organizer for the The State Employees' Association of New Hampshire, SEIU Local 1984. We'll also hear from Jim Pitts, the Town Manager of Bow and Ron Snow, Director of State Services for the National Conference of State Legislatures.

listen: No audio currently available. Order on CD (pdf).
NPR News
functionfile: linearguments
user warning: Duplicate entry '27054965' for key 1 query: statistics_exit INSERT INTO accesslog (title, path, url, hostname, uid, sid, timer, timestamp) values('Archives', 'archive/2006/12/21', '', '38.103.63.58', 0, 'ojsrphac9v61locvklgord3rf6', 917, 1231338804) in /var/www/htdocs-v5/includes/database.mysql.inc on line 172.
trigger_error/var/www/htdocs-v5/includes/database.mysql.inc: 172Duplicate entry '27054965' for key 1 query: statistics_exit INSERT INTO accesslog (title, path, url, hostname, uid, sid, timer, timestamp) values('Archives', 'archive/2006/12/21', '', '38.103.63.58', 0, 'ojsrphac9v61locvklgord3rf6', 917, 1231338804), 512
_db_query/var/www/htdocs-v5/includes/database.inc: 200INSERT INTO accesslog (title, path, url, hostname, uid, sid, timer, timestamp) values('Archives', 'archive/2006/12/21', '', '38.103.63.58', 0, 'ojsrphac9v61locvklgord3rf6', 917, 1231338804)
db_query/var/www/htdocs-v5/modules/statistics/statistics.module: 71INSERT INTO {accesslog} (title, path, url, hostname, uid, sid, timer, timestamp) values('%s', '%s', '%s', '%s', %d, '%s', %d, %d), Archives, archive/2006/12/21, , 38.103.63.58, 0, ojsrphac9v61locvklgord3rf6, 917.97, 1231338804
statistics_exit
call_user_func_array/var/www/htdocs-v5/includes/module.inc: 406statistics_exit,
module_invoke_all/var/www/htdocs-v5/includes/common.inc: 1287exit
drupal_page_footer/var/www/htdocs-v5/index.php: 37