🔮 What’s on your 2024 bingo card?

It’s Tuesday, Boston.

🎆 Happy New Year, B-Siders! We missed ya. We hope you had a restful break and are ready to take on 2024 with us.

🎄 P.S. If you haven't managed to get rid of your Christmas tree yet … Don’t throw it away! Instead, consider leaving it out with your recycling (Boston picks up Christmas trees the first two weeks of January for compost). Or better yet, give it to this local farm for some goats to snack on. 

👀 What’s on tap today:

• Green Line déjà vu

• New City Council prez

• Boston’s first babies

Up first…

ASK THE EXPERTS

Boston’s 2024 predictions

We can’t technically call our local experts fortune tellers … but last year, they went five for five on their 2023 predictions. So for 2024, we’re running it back. 

Break out your Boston bingo cards. Here’s what five local experts are predicting will happen in the new year:

🚇 The MBTA will have money on its mind. “How do we fund and resource a 21st century transit system?” That’ll be the million (ahem, $24.5 billion) question in 2024, according to Stacy Thompson, the executive director of the LivableStreets Alliance. Due to an array of complicated factors, the MBTA’s current funding system needs a major revamp, she said, and with decreased ridership, lofty climate goals, steep bills, and pile of debt, it’s now or never for MBTA and state officials to make some headway in changing the system for the better.

🏠 The housing market won’t be pretty. Due to a mixture of labor shortages, price increases for landlords, and a lack of new properties, “data strongly suggests that we will be in for another year of tight supply and rising rents in 2024,” said CEO of BostonPads Demetrios Salpoglou. Translation: Expect price increases from 3 to 6% and apartment hunting to continue feeling like the “Hunger Games.” That said, pockets of relief may be found in multi-bedroom units. So if you’re looking to save, “consider getting a roommate or two,” he said.

🎓 Higher ed may enter its flop era. Recent anti-higher education sentiments and coverage have been “really successful” at convincing prospective college students that higher ed isn’t for them or lacks value, said Mary L. Churchill, associate dean at BU’s Wheelock College of Education and Human Development. As a result, fewer students are choosing to go to college, and we can expect more negative coverage, and its fallout, to continue into 2024, she said. 

♻️ Mass.’ infrastructure will get greener. If Mass. wants to meet its lofty climate goals, the state will need to make its existing infrastructure work in service of them, and 2024 will be a “great opportunity to make physical infrastructure upgrades,” said Hessann Farooqi, advocacy director of Boston Climate Action Network. Look for evidence of these changes in an increase in offshore wind production, climate-focused MBTA upgrades, and modernization of the electrical grid.

🍽️ Restaurateurs will have to sweeten the pot. After the mass exodus of industry employees during the pandemic, restaurateurs have been looking for “ways to keep people in the industry,” said Biplaw Rai, managing partner at Comfort Kitchen. The current “broken” wage system isn’t exactly a reason for workers to stick around, he said, so restaurants will need to find creative ways to pay employees equitably while navigating state regulations and looking out for our wallets.

QUICK QUESTION

🎄 Asking for a friend: How long is it socially acceptable to keep your Christmas tree up?

CITY

Quick & dirty headlines

🚃 Green Liners are about to have some unfortunate déjà vu. It’s giving … December 2023? From Jan. 3 (tomorrow) to 12, and Jan. 16 to 28 there will be shutdowns from North Station to Kenmore on all lines, to Babcock Street on the B line, and all the way to Heath St. on the E line. Plus: The shuttle bus map is … a little hairy, and there will be some weeknight and weekend shutdowns on the GLX, too, so if you ride any part of the Green Line: Read up here!

⚖️ New City Councilor ROLL CALL! Boston’s new set of city councilors (including four newbies) were officially sworn into their positions in a ceremony on Monday. Returning at-large councilor Ruthzee Louijeune was voted into her new position as the council’s president, taking over for Councilor Ed Flynn, which comes as no surprise, since she said she had the council’s support to win the position back in November. Louijeune is the third Black woman, and first Haitian-American to serve in the role. 

🛌 This housing is giving a whole new meaning to “working from home.” In what some hope will be the first wave of many conversions like it, a few real estate developers are planning on converting eight less desirable downtown office buildings into apartments. Their plans hope to utilize a city-wide tax-break program for these types of (notoriously tricky) projects as office vacancy rates have skyrocketed since the pandemic. That said, these projects are still tough, so we probably won’t see the fruits of their labors for a bit.

🏒 The Beanpot is making history this year. That’s right, for the first time in the women’s Beanpot tournament’s 45-year history, (which, if you didn’t know, is the ultimate Boston-area college hockey tournament) their championship game will be held at TD Garden. Given that it took nearly half a century to get here, in our opinion, this game is worth a little commotion. If you want to check it out, it's on Jan. 23, and you can grab tickets here. Tickets are only $25!

THINGS TO DO

Weekday plans

Pssst! To celebrate Dry January, all our things to do listings this month will be alcohol-free. Cheers! 

⛸️ Go skating at half-price. The Frog Pond is holding more College Nights on Tuesdays in 2024, for half off admission. And tonight, Boston College, MCPHS, Eastern Nazarene, Stonehill, and Brandeis students can skate for FREE!

💃 Learn country swing from a Nashville pro. Let national champion Isaiah Britto teach you the basics of Country Swing dancing — footwork, turns, and dips — at Friday’s workshop at Star Dance Studio in Brighton.

🧶 New year, new hobby. With the holiday baking season behind us, it’s time to get back to basics with Studio By Garden Streets. This Friday, try tufting at 3 p.m. or beginner watercolor at 5:30 p.m. 

🧙 Start your year off with some magic. NYE not quite as magical as you were hoping? Redeem yourself this Thursday at The Magic Lab: Boston’s Open Mic Magic Show, where local magicians try out new material. 

🖼️ Scratch your art itch without opening your wallet. That’s right, another Free First Thursday has arrived! Enjoy the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum for free from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. this Thursday.

— Written by Claire Nicholas

🎉 Want more things to do recommendations? Refer five friends to unlock three bonus items. For those who already have, enjoy below.

ONE LAST THING

The year’s first Boston babies

While you were out partying on NYE, some people were bringing life into the world. 

In completely adorable news, the official first babies of 2024 have been confirmed. Not one, not two, but three babies impressively entered the world at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Day in Boston, making them some of the first born babies of 2024. 

Baby Selena, baby Emily Margaret, baby Ophelia, and their parents are all happy and healthy, and, for the babies’ part, totally unaware that they made history. You can see some adorable pics of the babies here. And for our part, we want to give an official B-Side welcome to the world to Selena, Emily Margaret, and Ophelia!

— Written by Gia Orsino and Emily Schario

👶 Thanks for reading! They’re all iconic and they have literally no idea.

🎄 The results are in: B-Siders feel the good and the bad of the Crimbo limbo equally, with almost 60% of the voters saying it’s “weird, but also kinda nice.” One reader wrote, “I like just giving myself the time to do nothing if that's what feels good to me!”

💃 Keep up with us @BostonBSide on IG, TikTok, and Twitter. Send comments and suggestions to [email protected] or [email protected].