By Brock Parker, Town Correspondent

The state will close the Massachusetts Avenue Bridge and Memorial Drive between the Longfellow Bridge and Vassar Street Saturday morning for the 2013 Red Sox Run to Home Base.

The closures will be in effect from 7:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. Saturday, May 4, and parking restrictions will be in effect on a portion of Memorial Drive from 1 a.m. to 11 a.m. Saturday, according to the state Department of Conservation and Recreation.

Then, on Sunday, more road closures and traffic delays are expected in Cambridge and Boston and several neighboring communities, as more than 40,000 people participate in Project Bread’s 20-mile Walk for Hunger.

The walk to raise money for hunger relief and prevention will start Sunday, May 5, at 7 a.m. at the Boston Common, and will lead to several road closures in the area, including the closing of Charles Street between Boylston and Beacon streets between 6 a.m. and 6.p.m. The outbound side of Commonwealth Avenue from Arlington Street through Kenmore Square will be closed from 6 a.m. to 11 a.m., and other streets around the Boston Common and Kenmore Square will also be closed. The route map can be found here and a full list of the street closures and traffic restrictions can be found here.

In Cambridge, Memorial Drive will be closed between Fresh Pond Parkway and Western Avenue from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday, and other closures, parking restrictions and traffic delays are expected.

In Brookline, the outbound side of Beacon Street will be closed between St. Mary’s and Carlton streets from 7 a.m. to noon.

In Newton, Exit 17 from I-90 Westbound will be closed from 10 a.m. until the heavy flow of walkers subsides around 2 p.m. and other closures and delays are expected.

In Watertown, Greenough Boulevard will be closed between North Beacon and Arsenal Streets will be closed to vehicles from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.

By Brock Parker, Town Correspondent

Road closures and traffic delays are expected in Cambridge and Boston and several neighboring communities Sunday as more than 40,000 people are expected to participate in Project Bread’s 20-mile Walk for Hunger.

The walk to raise money for hunger relief and prevention will start Sunday, May 5, at 7 a.m. at the Boston Common, and will lead to several road closures in the area, including the closing of Charles Street between Boylston and Beacon streets between 6 a.m. and 6.p.m. The outbound side of Commonwealth Avenue from Arlington Street through Kenmore Square will be closed from 6 a.m. to 11 a.m., and other streets around the Boston Common and Kenmore Square will also be closed. The route map can be found here and a full list of the street closures and traffic restrictions can be found here.

In Cambridge, Memorial Drive will be closed between Fresh Pond Parkway and Western Avenue from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday, and other closures, parking restrictions and traffic delays are expected.

In Brookline, the outbound side of Beacon Street will be closed between St. Mary’s and Carlton streets from 7 a.m. to noon.

In Newton, Exit 17 from I-90 Westbound will be closed from 10 a.m. until the heavy flow of walkers subsides around 2 p.m. and other closures and delays are expected.

In Watertown, Greenough Boulevard will be closed between North Beacon and Arsenal Streets will be closed to vehicles from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.

By Brock Parker, Town Correspondent

More than 100,000 people are expected in Harvard Square this Sunday for the 30th Annual Mayfair featuring music, dancing, food, crafts, street art and a raffle to benefit two Cambridge newlyweds injured in the Boston Marathon bombing.

The fair will run from noon to 6 p.m. Sunday, and because it falls on Cinco De Mayo this year, the Mariachi Veritas de Harvard will be roaming the square before appearing for a musical performance on the fair’s main stage at 3 p.m., according to the Harvard Square Business Association.

The business association will also hold a raffle and an auction at the fair with all proceeds going to Cambridge residents and newlyweds, Jessica Kensky and Patrick Downes, who each lost limbs in the Boston Marathon bombings. The raffle will be set up at the Harvard Square Business Association’s kiosk in front of Out of Town News by the fair’s main stage.

More than 150 artisans and merchants selling arts and crafts and vintage clothing will be at the fair, as well as more than 40 food vendors.

RE/Max will give hot air balloon rides, and Grafton Street, Border Café, and John Harvard’s Brew House will sponsor outdoor beer gardens. The Cambridge Rotary Club’s annual Chalk on Walk along Church Street will also be raising money for local charities.

A full list of all of the entertainment at the fair can be found online here.

By Johanna Kaiser, Town Correspondent

The state representative candidates running for the vacant Eighth Suffolk District seat will discuss local issues at a forum hosted by multiple neighborhood associations next week.

The Beacon Hill Civic Association, the Cambridgeport Neighborhood Association, the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay, and the West End Civic Association are co-sponsoring a forum for the candidates on Tuesday, May 7, beginning at 6:30 p.m.

The Eighth Suffolk District encompasses the Back Bay, Beacon Hill, West End, Cambridgeport, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"This State Representative Candidates Forum for the 8th Suffolk District being sponsored by the Back Bay, Beacon Hill, Cambridgeport and the West End neighborhood associations, continues the long tradition of these local civic groups coming together to hold events to let our residents know about the candidates running for public office, and their respective positions about the issues that matter most to our neighborhoods," Rob Whitney, a member of the Beacon Hill Civic Association's Board of Directors, and the event’s organizer, said in a statement.

Beacon Hill resident Jay Livingstone and Back Bay resident Josh Dawson are running as Democrats for the seat, which was previously held by former state Rep. Martha “Marty” Walz. The two recently debated at events hosted by the Boston Ward 5 Democratic Committee and the Cambridge Ward 5 Democratic Committee.

The forum will focus on issues facing the downtown neighborhoods of Boston and Cambridge. Boston Courant publisher David Jacobs will serve as moderator, and if time allows audience members will have a chance to ask questions.

The forum will be held in the Hill House Auditorium, at 127 Mt. Vernon St, on the Flat of Beacon Hill. It is open to the public.

"All of the candidates running for this office will be in attendance, and it will be a great way for the neighborhoods to learn more about the candidates," Whitney said.

E-mail Kaiser at Johanna.yourtown@gmail.com. For more news about your city, town, neighborhood, or campus, visit boston.com’s Your Town homepage.

(Matt Rocheleau for Boston.com)

By Matt Rocheleau, Town Correspondent

The temporary extra patrols of well-armed police officers and soldiers in MBTA stations are gone. But the quest to bolster the long-term safety of the public transit system is far from over.

The T still has $80 million in unspent federal homeland security grants, which have been doled to public transportation systems across the country since 2002.

The $60 million in federal grants spent by the T over the past decade has helped make the agency a national leader in the industry of public transit safety.

“The efforts toward security and policing that the MBTA has had in place for a number of years have really been looked at as a benchmark for the industry,” said Greg Hull, director of operations, safety and security for the American Public Transportation Association.

And, when the bombs went off at the Boston Marathon two weeks ago, officials at the MBTA said that, while shocked and devastated like the rest of the city, they were prepared, largely due to the new equipment and training acquired in recent years.

“It was controlled chaos,” said Randy Clarke, senior director of security and emergency management for the MBTA and the Massachusetts Department of Transportation.

He described the atmosphere of the T’s central hub for dispatch and communications, or Operations Control Center, as officials scrambled to secure stations and stop some service after the explosions at Copley Square, and then again several day later when the system was shut down during a lengthy manhunt.

“I hate to say we’re used to crises and trained for them, but we are,” Clarke said.

On Monday, two weeks after the Marathon bombings, MBTA officials gave a tour of the control center, which includes some of the transit industry’s most sophisticated technology for daily operations and security.

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57 JFK Street in Harvard Square. (Brock Parker for Boston.com)

By Brock Parker

Just over a month after opening its first Boston-area restaurant in Chestnut Hill, New York City burger chain Shake Shack it is seeking to open in Harvard Square.

The fast food restaurant is seeking to open in the Galeria building at 57 JFK Street in Harvard Square and is scheduled to go before a couple of city boards in the next week for its needed approvals.

After first opening in New York, Shake Shack now has restaurants in Washington D.C. and Philadelphia and opened at the Chestnut Hill Shopping Center in March.

The company is seeking approval to construct a first floor vestibule entrance at the Galeria and the Cambridge Historical Commission and Harvard Square Conservation District will hold a hearing on the proposal Thursday, May 2, at 6 p.m. in the senior center at 806 Massachusetts Avenue.

Shake Shack will also go before the Board of Zoning Appeal on May 9 at 7:30 p.m. in the senior center seeking a special permit to open a fast food restaurant at the location.

By Brock Parker, Town Correspondent

Crosby, Stills & Nash co-founder Graham Nash and Pulitzer Prize-winning author David McCullough will speak at Lesley University’s 2013 Commencement for undergraduate students this month in Boston.

Former Massachusetts Secretary of Education Paul Reville and Emmy Award-winning journalist, Reverend Liz Walker, will also address graduate students at the universities commencement ceremonies on Saturday, May 18.

Reville, a senior faculty member at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education, and Walker, who also co-founded the My Sister’s Keeper advocacy organization, will address students from Lesley’s two graduate schools during their commencement from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Bank of America Pavilion at 290 Northern Ave., in Boston.

Nash, a singer and songwriter for the Grammy Award-winning group will speak along with McCullough, who is also the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, during the commencement for undergraduate students from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.

“In markedly different ways, each of this year’s Honorary Degree recipients exemplifies the values that define a Lesley education: enhancing our culture through multifaceted arts and academics, building stronger communities and schools, and a passion for public service,” said Lesley University President Joseph B. Moore in a press release. “We look forward to welcoming these accomplished individuals as they share their experiences with our graduates.”

Lesley expects to confer 2,217 degrees and 59 certificates this year, including 27 PhD’s, 1,699 master’s and 491 bachelor’s degrees.

By Brock Parker, Town Correspondent

An all-girls rocketry team in Cambridge that is soon to compete in the national finals will launch a rocket Saturday to honor the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing.

Cambridge’s Science Club for Girls’ Team Teckorettes will launch the rocket in Acton Saturday in honor of the victims and to practice for the Team America Rocketry Challenge Finals on May 11th in Washington D.C., according to the science club.

The team of seven girls from several different schools in Cambridge and Greater Boston has been ranked among the top 100 rocketry teams in the country headed into the competition.

The rocketry teams compete by designing, building and flying a model rocket that reaches a specific altitude and duration determined by a set of rules developed each year, according to the contest website.

The team from the Cambridge’s Science Club for Girls is lead by captain Marianna McNeil, a sophomore at Urban Science Academy in West Roxbury. Her teammates are Alyssa Wang, a freshman at Prospect Hill Academy in Cambridge, Tatevick De La Rosa, a senior at John D O’Bryant School of Math and Science; Dina Benayad-Cherif, a junior at Lexington High School, Beverly Johnson, a sophomore at Urban Science Academy; and Boston Latin School freshmen Jameelah Julien and Hyei-In Yoo.

Saturday, the team will shoot off their rocket on the School Street soccer fields in Action at 10 a.m.

By Johanna Kaiser, Town Correspondent

Josh Dawson, a Democratic running for state representative of the 8th Suffolk district has been endorsed by state and local firefighter unions

The Professional Firefighters of Massachusetts, Boston Firefighters Local 718, and Cambridge Firefighters Local 30 announced their endorsement of Dawson Thursday.

Edward Kelly, president of the Professional Firefighters of MA said that Dawson’s upbringing in a working class family gives him the insight he feels is necessary in a local representative.

“He understands the importance of safeguarding health care and public safety benefits for first responders so we can in turn do our job to keep the public safe,” Edward Kelly, president of the Professional Firefighters of MA, said in a statement, citing Dawson’s working class upbringing.

Dawson, a Back Bay resident, is running against Jay Livingstone, an attorney from Beacon Hill, in a Democratic primary to replace former state Rep. Martha “Marty” Walz who resigned in February to head the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts.

The district encompasses parts of Beacon Hill, West End, Back Bay, and Cambridgeport and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“Josh has a strong record of community activism and legislative experience that he’ll put to work as a State Representative for parts of Boston and Cambridge,” Rich Paris, president of Boston Firefighters Local 718, said in a statement.

Dawson, 30, is the former chairman of the Democratic Ward 5 Committee, and has worked as the executive director of state Treasurer Steve Grossman’s campaign committee and as the legislative and budget director for Brockton state Senator Thomas Kennedy.

Livingstone, 39, an attorney in private practice who has previously worked as a prosecutor in the Middlesex District Attorney’s office, is a board member of the Beacon Hill Civic Association. He has been endorsed by Boston Ward 5 Democratic Committee, the Sierra Club, Mass. Alliance, Progressive Massachusetts, ten Boston locals, and former primary candidate Nils Tracy.

Dawson has also been endorsed by State Treasurer Steve Grossman, State Auditor Suzanne Bump, and City Councilors Mike Ross and Tito Jackson.

The two will meet Thursday for a forum in Cambridgeport.

E-mail Kaiser at Johanna.yourtown@gmail.com. For more news about your city, town, neighborhood, or campus, visit boston.com’s Your Town homepage.

By Johanna Kaiser, Town Correspondent

The Ward 5 Democratic Committee endorsed Jay Livingstone for state representative of the 8th Suffolk district after he and fellow Democratic candidate Josh Dawson debated Tuesday.

In what many members said was a difficult decision, the committee voted 17 to 6 to endorse Livingstone.

Members praised both candidates for their work supporting Democratic candidates and the committee, and their active roles in their communities. The committee promised to actively support whichever candidate won the May 28 primary.

Few differences on policy emerged during the debate at the First Church Boston in the Back Bay as Dawson and Livingstone both tried to make the case that he would be the best progressive leader for the district.

Dawson, 30, a Back Bay resident and former chairman of the Ward 5 committee, has worked as the executive director of state Treasurer Steve Grossman’s campaign committee and as the legislative and budget director for Brockton state Senator Thomas Kennedy.

Livingstone, 39, of Beacon Hill, is an attorney in private practice and a member of the Ward 5 committee. He has previously worked as a prosecutor in the Middlesex District Attorney’s office. He is a board member of the Beacon Hill Civic Association.

The candidates took on statewide and local issues at the debate. Both favor an expanded bottle bill; want a citywide vote if a casino is sited in East Boston; and list creating downtown public schools as a top priority.

On local development, Dawson and Livingstone both said they would work with developers, the city, and residents to make sure the community plays a role in any development process and that neighborhoods’ concerns are heard and addressed.

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