😳 Don’t look down in the Seaport

Happy Friday, Boston!

🍩 PSA: It’s National Doughnut Day and your local faves have DELIVERED. Blackbird Doughnuts will be handing out free mini doughnuts at all shops and you can get a free classic doughnut with any bev purchase at Dunkin’. You’re welcome.

👀 What’s on tap today:

• No local lobsters

• New pot shop alert

• The Great Purpling

Up first...

THINGS TO DO

Diving into the weekend

Welcome to our first “Summer Friday” send! Every Friday through Labor Day, you’ll get a short, sweet, things to do-focused newsletter to get you ready for the weekend. We know you’re itching to get out the door ASAP on Fridays, so we’re shaving down your normal five-minute read to three.

With that said, here’s what’s to know this weekend:

🏊 The Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series returns to the Seaport. On Saturday, June 3, Divers will jump from the ICA’s rooftop into Boston Harbor, busting out stunningly complex flips and tricks. The event is free for spectators, but if you want a guaranteed great view, try to grab a res at Woods Hill Pier 4.

🍦 Get your ice cream fix at the Scooper Bowl at Patriot Place. Watch live entertainment and gorge yourself on all-you-can-eat ice cream. If you want a drink on the side, head to Scoop at Night, a 21+ ice cream happy hour where your ticket gets you two drinks along with unlimited scoops.

🍹 Downtown Crossing will turn into Boston’s first open-air food and drink promenade. The 14-hour Saturday block party filled with food, music, games, and to-go cocktails takes place on Temple Place between Washington and Tremont Streets (right off the Common).

🎶 Dorchfest is back for year two. The porch music event in the Ashmont Adams neighborhood kicks off at 12 p.m. on Saturday and will happen rain or shine. Unlike other porchfests in the community, this one compensates the artists for their time and talent. You can see the full lineup and schedule here.

🎻 Chill weekenders can enjoy a concert in the courtyard at the BPL. Brazilian musicians Ebinho Cardoso and Ian Coury will fill the courtyard with music from their mandolin and bass. In the event of rain, they’ll take their sound inside to the Rabb Lecture Hall.

🏷️ For the Facebook Marketplace fiends, a JP neighborhood is holding a community yard sale. They’re selling everything from furniture and home goods to plants and records.

🍗 Eat up at the fifth Codman Square Caribbean Jerk Festival in Dorchester. Listen to a live DJ and steel drum orchestra performance while you munch on food from Caribbean restaurants around Boston.

🐾 It’s brunch with puppies: Need we say more? Vendors from around the Boston Public Market are offering up brunch and drink specials while a live band plays on site. Out on the patio, you can visit adoptable puppies from the Northeast Coonhound Rescue looking for their forever homes.

QUICK QUESTION!

🏖️ Which other “Summer Friday” roundups do you want to see?

CITY

Quick & dirty headlines

⛈️ Get ready for a rollercoaster weekend of weather. June may have come in hot, but Mother Nature plans to remind us this weekend that it’s still technically spring. After two days of temps in the 80s and 90s, we’re plunging back into the 50s on Saturday and Sunday with rain and gusty winds. The forecast was just supposed to be cool with sun and clouds earlier this week, but quickly morphed into a raw weekend with a potential coastal storm. You can follow the National Weather Service’s Twitter to know when exactly the rain will hit.

🦞 Don’t expect many local lobster rolls this summer. There’s less local catch on the market right now, so most lobster meat you see will be coming from Canada. And there’s a few things to blame: a recent three-month fishing ban in Mass. waters meant to protect endangered right whales in the area, high seas that prevented lobstermen from bringing their catch to shore; and lobsters being in molton season. The local anthropods should return sometime in July. Luckily, imported lobster rolls are roughly the same price as a local one ($20 to $40).

🥦 A local pot shop is expanding downtown. Pure Oasis, Boston’s first adult-use cannabis dispensary, opened a second location this week downtown on Devonshire Street, less than a quarter mile from another pot shop on Milk Street. The new 7,000-square-foot space used to be home to a bank (at least the green theme is consistent?). The Black-owned store first opened in Grove Hall in March 2020. And it looks like they have plans to open a third location in Brighton, so stay tuned! You can see what’s for sale at the downtown shop here.

ONE LAST THING

“The Great Purpling”

No, you’re not seeing things. Some street lights on I-93 are glowing purple.

And it’s all thanks to some defective LED lights. “The Great Purpling,” as some call it, happens when the phosphor coating on the LED lights wears off. The coating is supposed to make the LEDs appear white instead of blueish purple, which clearly isn’t working. Other cities using the same LED brand have run into similar issues.

Thankfully, MassDOT says they don’t believe the purple lights pose a safety risk to drivers, but they have ordered replacement parts for them.

🪐 Thanks for reading! I’ll miss feeling like I’m on another planet on 93 South.

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