Smooth move
Students' annual descent on city is marked by calm
Perhaps it was the break from the humidity, an unexpected picture-perfect sunny day. Or maybe it was the timing of the whole thing, falling smack in the middle of Labor Day weekend, when many Bostonians had left town. Some said it was extensive planning and organization by the universities.
Whatever the case, the frayed nerves and clogged roads that usually accompany the busiest moving days of the year in Boston didn't appear to materialize yesterday. Even with a Red Sox-Yankees game with Roger Clemens on the mound thrown into the mix.
About 250,000 students were expected to move into the Boston area yesterday and today, and despite dozens of moving trucks lining some of the city's busiest streets yesterday, drivers zipped around them, and some even smiled and waved to movers loading and unloading.
Haunted by horror stories of crushing traffic in years past, some parents tried to move their children in early yesterday, before the rush. At 8:30 a.m. Kathy Kittredge and her son Mike, a freshman at Suffolk University, hovered over his pile of boxes and clothes, waiting to move into a dorm on Somerset Street.
"For a year, I've been thinking about the nightmare we were going to have to face," Kathy recalled. "We left Worcester at 6 a.m., and we drove right in, no problem."
On Beacon Street in the Back Bay, a gaggle of volunteer move-in helpers greeted new students and their parents as they drove up to unload at an Emerson College residence hall.
"Hey, everybody!" yelled a rambunctious student leader, after leaning into one car window. "Hashim is moving into 100 Beacon today! Woooooo!"
Hashim Benford's mother smiled, then immediately asked for parking advice.
A line of more than 50 students on foot snaked around the block by Berklee College of Music, but many were smiling as they lugged trombones, bass drums, and guitars along with clothes and microwaves and mini-refrigerators into a Massachusetts Avenue residence hall.
It wasn't all smooth sailing yesterday, though.
City inspectors found rat droppings, exposed wiring, and flammable chemicals in a Brighton apartment after a parent called to complain about the conditions of the unit her daughter was moving into. Marie Chalmers said the Wallingford Road apartment, which was supposed to house nine other Boston College students along with her daughter for $6,000 per month, was "just disgusting."
Inspectors found at least half a dozen violations, and said the apartment legally could be rented to only four tenants, said Lisa Timberlake, spokeswoman for the Boston Inspectional Services Department. Inspectors ordered the landlord to put the tenants up last night in a hotel until the major violations were fixed, including installing working smoke detectors.
But they could be there for much longer than that. Inspectors planned to wait until a condemnation hearing Thursday to determine just how many tenants, if any, will be allowed to live at the property. The landlord, who could not be reached for comment, will have to find alternate living arrangements for any who cannot stay, Timberlake said.
"What are some of these kids going to do?" lamented Dave Chalmers, Marie's husband, who said his family lives in Watertown -- an easy commute for the time being -- but some of the others came from as far away as Chicago. "I don't know what's going to happen."
Elsewhere in the city, inspectors fielded only a handful of emergency calls during the weekend. Timberlake said she is expecting today to be worse. "The 1st is the big day," she said.
Some were busy yesterday, though, including the self-proclaimed "crisis crew." Teams from Gentle Giant Moving Company crisscrossed the city, volunteering their muscle to help dozens of people move heavy sleeper-sofas or awkward shelves up and down narrow staircases.
Steven Shao called as soon as their hotline opened at 11:30 a.m. He watched as a crisis crew hauled his couch, a shelf, and a television from his third-floor apartment to a sixth-floor apartment in the same South End building.
"I hurt my back doing this last year," Shao said, lifting his shirt to reveal some heat bandages he had applied to his back, anticipating yesterday's move. His chiropractor told him to call the crisis crew.
"This is great!" Shao said, handing them a half-dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts on their way out.
Donovan Slack can be reached at dslack@globe.com
