Boston, MA
How to see
BOSTON – I am sure you have all heard of Stonehenge, the ancient stone structure in England that has literally been around for thousands of years.
One of the many fascinating aspects of Stonehenge is that it was built to align with the solstices. For instance, on the summer solstice, the sunrise aligns with the “Heel Stone” and shines perfectly through to the center of Stonehenge.
What is Bostonhenge?
Did you know that Boston has its own “henge” called “Bostonhenge”?
YES! It’s true! Twice a year the sunset aligns perfectly, splitting the middle of several streets and buildings making for an amazing photographic opportunity!
Photographer Jack Daryl captured a crowd of people getting a shot of the sunset in the city last year.
Granted this is all a coincidence, the City of Boston certainly wasn’t built based upon some ancient sun dial.
But, if you overlay a grid of the city with the alignment of the sunrises and sunsets, it just so happens that there are a few “perfect fits.”
Bostonhenge 2024 has arrived!
When is Bostonhenge?
You can see Bostonhenge February 9-13 at sunset. Sunset occurs between 5:07 p.m. and 5:11 p.m. during this time period.
I would suggest arriving early to scope out a good location and get the cameras ready.
The “prime” viewing days will be this Saturday and Sunday. . . although given the weather forecast, Saturday will likely be a bust with too much cloud cover.
On the days just before and after the 11-12th the alignment will be close, but not perfect.
Where’s the best place to see Bostonhenge?
The Back Bay is where it’s at! Commonwealth Ave, Stuart Street and Boylston Street in particular.
Statler Park may be the ideal location with a little green space, enabling you to get off the roads
Obviously you won’t be able to look directly at the sun so, come prepared with the proper camera equipment!
If you can’t make it this weekend, there will be another chance later this year between Oct. 27-29th.
Other cities also celebrate their own “henge days.” A little “Googling” and you can see some great pics from places like Chicago and New York City.
Good luck! If you snap a pic of Bostonhenge, send it our way! Weather@wbztv.com
Segun Idowu, a top Wu cabinet official accused of sexual misconduct by a former city employee, is resigning from his post as Boston’s chief of economic opportunity and inclusion next month, Mayor Michelle Wu’s office confirmed.
Idowu’s resignation is effective Feb. 27. He is the latest high-ranking official to leave the Wu administration after the mayor’s reelection to a second term.
“Under Chief Idowu’s leadership, Boston’s neighborhoods have become more vibrant, inclusive, and connected,” Wu said Monday in a statement. “Over the last four years, his efforts helped transform systems and make opportunities accessible to all, from filling vacant storefronts through innovative programs to support local businesses, to boosting supplier diversity in city contracting and bolstering wealth building and entrepreneurship throughout Boston’s neighborhoods and downtown.
“His work has helped Boston rebound from the pandemic as a thriving city where companies and their employees want to work and live. I’m thankful for his service to the city of Boston and dedication to our community,” the mayor added.
Idowu’s departure comes after months of scrutiny over his alleged involvement in a City Hall love triangle that left two city employees fired after a domestic dispute last May.
Marwa Khudaynazar, the city’s ex-chief of staff for the Office of Police Accountability and Transparency, filed a lawsuit against City Hall last September that claims the city “destroyed” her life by unfairly firing her to protect Idowu, a top Wu administration official she had accused of sexual misconduct, and spare the mayor of a scandal during an election year.
Khudaynazar claims that Idowu, the city’s chief of economic opportunity and inclusion and the boss of her then-boyfriend Chulan Huang, propositioned her, which sparked the alleged domestic dispute between her and Huang that led to both of their arrests and dismissals days later by the city.
Idowu has denied any wrongdoing through his attorney Jeffrey Robbins, while pointing to a city-commissioned investigation that found he did not violate any city workforce policies.
Wu has stated Khudaynazar and Huang, the ex-neighborhood business manager for the city’s Office of Economic Opportunity and Inclusion, were fired for their “invoking of official status” as city employees to try to avoid being arrested during a police response.
The mayor’s office would not make Idowu available for comment Monday night, nor disclose the reason for his resignation.
Idowu told the Boston Globe, which first reported his departure, that he was resigning to “spend as much time as I can with my grandmother, who I’ve been helping to take care of over the last several years.”
His resignation follows the recent departure of two other high-ranking Wu officials.
Ex-Boston Chief of Streets Jascha Franklin-Hodge, who oversaw the city’s contentious bus and bike lane expansion, left the Wu administration at the end of last year. Tiffany Chu departed her role as Wu’s chief of staff last November, following the mayor’s reelection.
Before the NBA season tipped off, we outlined a seven-step roadmap for the new-look, Jaylen Brown-led Celtics to exceed expectations in 2025-26.
Exactly halfway through, they’ve successfully checked six of those boxes, with the seventh still pending.
The result: Boston entered the week with the second-best record in the Eastern Conference, the fifth-best in the league, and top-three rankings in point differential (third), offensive rating (first) and net rating (second). Joe Mazzulla’s club has been, by almost any all-encompassing metric, one of the best in the NBA through 41 games.
Ahead of Monday night’s marquee matchup against the Detroit Pistons — No. 1 vs. No. 2 in the East — here’s a closer look at how Boston stacks up against those seven preseason benchmarks:
1. “Jaylen Brown looks like a legit No. 1”
“Boston’s clearest path to competitiveness involves Brown playing at an All-NBA level.”
Brown, who’d said for years that he could thrive as a No. 1 option if given the chance, has aced this test thus far, playing his way into the NBA MVP conversation while Jayson Tatum recovers from Achilles surgery. Owning the NBA’s second-highest usage rate behind Luka Doncic, he’s the league’s fourth-leading scorer (29.7 points per game) and is on pace for a career high in assists (4.8).
Though the 3-pointer has been the centerpiece of Boston’s offense under Mazzulla, Brown has found success by becoming one of the premier 2-point maestros, taking more shots per game from inside the arc than any other NBA player. He’s also averaging a career-best 7.3 free throws per game — despite frequent gripes about what he considers unfair officiating.
Simply put, he’s been exactly what this Celtics team needs.
2. “The most important players stay healthy”
“This current Celtics roster does not have (the) luxury (of proven depth). Losing a key player like Brown or White for any significant length of time could tank their season.”
Brown, who failed to reach the 65-game threshold for postseason awards last year, has appeared in all but three of Boston’s 41 games, sitting out two due to illness and one with back spasms. Starters Derrick White, Payton Pritchard and Sam Hauser have missed one game apiece. Top center Neemias Queta has missed two. That’s a total of eight DNPs for Boston’s current, Tatum-less starting five.
The Celtics’ key reserves have been regularly available, too. Sixth man Anfernee Simons has appeared in every game, and Jordan Walsh, Hugo Gonzalez, Luka Garza and Baylor Scheierman have been sidelined for a total of two (not including their occasional DNP-CDs).
Outside of Tatum, the only player on the roster who’s missed extended time is wing Josh Minott, who sat out the last six games with an ankle sprain. But Minott fell out of Mazzulla’s rotation in late December and wasn’t seeing meaningful minutes when he suffered his injury.
For context, at this point last season, Brown had missed seven games, Tatum three, Hauser seven, Jrue Holiday six, Luke Kornet six, Al Horford eight and Kristaps Porzingis 23.
3. “Anfernee Simons becomes a playable defender”
“Simons can score. Everyone knows that. … But can he be at least respectable on the defensive end? That’s the big question facing the 26-year-old guard.”
It was telling that, after Simons scored 39 points off the bench last Thursday in a come-from-behind win over the Miami Heat, Mazzulla spent much of his postgame news conference praising the guard’s improved defense.
Simons has gone from liability to legitimately impactful at that end since joining the Celtics over the summer, and those improvements have helped turn him into one of Boston’s most valuable contributors. After an uneven start to the season as he adjusted to his new bench role, the former Portland Trail Blazers starter owns the NBA’s fourth-best plus/minus since the beginning of December.
The big question surrounding Simons now is whether Boston’s front office views him (and his $27.7 million expiring contract) as a trade chip or an asset worth retaining. We’ll find out by the Feb. 5 trade deadline.
4. “The frontcourt exceeds its low expectations”
“The move from Kristaps Porzingis, Al Horford and Luke Kornet to Neemias Queta, Luka Garza, Chris Boucher and Xavier Tillman is an enormous downgrade on paper. The Celtics will need career years from at least one of these big men to field even a league-average frontcourt.”
The Celtics essentially took a “we’ll see how it goes and hope for the best” approach at the center position this past offseason — and so far, it’s worked.
Queta has been more than solid as a first-year starter (10.2 points, 8.2 rebounds, 1.2 blocks per game), and Garza, after being exiled to the end of the bench for much of December, has been a consistent difference-maker off the bench, excelling as a screener and on the offensive glass while shooting a team-best 48.9% from three. It hasn’t mattered that Boucher and Tillman — the Celtics’ two most experienced bigs — have hardly played.
Even Boston’s rebounding — an unsurprising early-season issue for a team that lost its top three big men and its leading rebounder (Tatum) from last year’s squad — has become a strength of late. With help from their crashing wings, the Celtics rank sixth in defensive rebounding rate and fourth in offensive rebounding rate since the start of December, and seventh in overall rebounding rate this season.
Still, trade rumors have linked the Celtics to several established big men, so they could make a move to bolster this group in the coming weeks.
5. “Multiple depth wings become reliable rotation players”
“Jordan Walsh? Baylor Scheierman? Josh Minott? Hugo Gonzalez? With no proven depth on the wing behind Brown and Hauser, the Celtics will need at least half of those inexperienced backups to play real roles this season.”
How about all four?
Gonzalez, an instant contributor as a 19-year-old rookie, boasts the NBA’s second-best individual net rating. The Celtics went 15-5 with Walsh — who’s having by far the best season of his three-year career — in their starting lineup. Scheierman has become an everyday rotation player, earning his playing time through deflections, drawn charges and the occasional timely 3-pointer. Even Minott has been a net positive, starting 10 games and playing big minutes as a small-ball center before falling down the pecking order. All four have swung games with their chaotic energy and hustle plays.
6. “The East is as wide-open as expected”
“Any argument for the Celtics remaining competitive this season should start with the quality of their conference.”
Seven Eastern Conference teams — from the second-ranked Celtics to the No. 8 Heat — entered the week with between 22 and 26 wins. The New York Knicks, Cleveland Cavaliers and Orlando Magic have underachieved relative to preseason hype, and the defending conference champion Indiana Pacers have cratered amid a tidal wave of injuries.
The Pistons sit comfortably atop the East standings, carrying a 4 1/2-game cushion into Monday night’s matchup. But is a franchise that’s won just two postseason games since 2008 an NBA Finals shoo-in? Hardly. The Celtics should be viewed as real conference contenders, especially if…
7. “Jayson Tatum returns for the stretch run (and looks like himself)”
“If Brown and Co. can scrap their way into the thick of the Eastern Conference playoff race, they couldn’t ask for a more helpful midseason addition than a healthy Tatum.”
By all accounts, Tatum is on or ahead of schedule in his Achilles rehab. The Celtics have insisted they will not rush him back, but a midseason comeback appears realistic. If he returns and looks like Tatum, even in a reduced role, watch out.
FOXBORO — Mike Vrabel came straight off the practice field Friday to hold his final press conference of the week after four days of preparing for the Texans.
He’d been peppered with questions about the Texans’ vaunted defense all week, and for a moment, it looked like he was about to lose his cool when yet another reporter started with, “given the strength of the Texans’ defense…”
Vrabel closed his eyes, put his head down and rubbed his eyebrow with his thumb and pointer finger before keeping his calm and responding to the question about whether his team needed to be “perfect” this week.
Were they perfect in Sunday’s 28-16 win over the Texans? Absolutely not. But their own defense made a statement, forcing five turnovers and outshining the unit that some were comparing to the 1985 Bears and the “Legion of Boom” Seahawks.
So, was it fair to say that the Patriots’ defense took all that talk about the Texans’ defense personally this week?
“I’m sure they’re going to tell you in 30 seconds as soon as you guys go rushing out of here,” Vrabel said, smiling. “Again, they’re really good for a reason; they’ve shown it each and every week. But our guys are prideful men. And they want to compete and they want to win. And, again, they deserve the recognition that they’re going to get.
“They’re a top-five defense for a reason as well. Again, that’s how some of these things go. When it comes down to turnovers. And we’ve got to get back on track. We forced second-and-long, so we stopped the run. And I’m proud of each and every guy in there.”
For a team whose motto used to be “ignore the noise,” this new-age Patriots team heard everything, and they used it to deepen the chips on their collective shoulder.
And in the end, it didn’t matter that their own quarterback turned the ball over three times and fumbled twice more. It’s nearly impossible to lose when forcing five turnovers, and the Patriots defense — after having to hear all that talk, and seeing the graphic from ESPN’s “NFL LIVE” with all five pundits picking the Texans — was not going to accept defeat.
“It fueled the whole defense,” defensive tackle Milton Williams said after the game. “Ain’t nobody been talking about our defense all year. So, we’ll see what they gotta say today.”
Williams, who won Super Bowl LIX with the Eagles last season, was asked if he believes the Patriots have a championship-level defense. He answered immediately with, “Yes, definitely.”
The Patriots defense plays at a completely different level when they’re at full strength, like they were Sunday night with Williams, who had four pressures against the Texans, returning from injury in Week 18, linebackers Robert Spillane and Harold Landry coming back from their own ailments in the wild-card round of the playoffs, and defensive tackle Khyiris Tonga getting healthy for Sunday’s matchup.
Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud tossed four interceptions to three different players: cornerback Carlton Davis (twice), safety Craig Woodson and cornerback Marcus Jones, who returned his for a touchdown. Cornerback Christian Gonzalez forced a fumble, which Woodson recovered for his second turnover. The Patriots’ defense, which also caused havoc for Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert in the wild-card round of the playoffs, allowed just 241 net yards, sacked Stroud three times, hit him nine times, forced 27 incompletions, allowed 2.2 yards per carry and generated 27 pressures (per PFF) on 52 dropbacks.
“We got dogs on every level of our team,” Williams said. “Everybody’s doing their job at a high level. We all on the string and communication. Everything is just working together. Our coach is putting us in position to make plays, and we just execute at a high level. That’s all we need.”
While various defenders said all the praise the Texans defense received this week motivated the unit, both Williams and safety Jaylinn Hawkins said the players didn’t discuss it all week.
“We never talked about it,” Hawkins said. “We just seen it and kept it pushing.”
Outside linebacker K’Lavon Chaisson led the Patriots with seven pressures on Sunday and added a sack. He was in Stroud’s face on three of the QB’s four interceptions.
Vrabel credited the Patriots’ turnovers to complementary football, saying, “our turnovers are created by more than one guy.”
“Regardless of what the playcall was, see ball, get ball,” Chaisson said. “We had the opportunity to make those plays happen, and we did.”
It helped that the Patriots defense knew, coming into the game, that they couldn’t let Stroud operate out of clean pocket.
The Patriots praised Stroud all week, but he was coming off a wild-card round win over the Steelers when he was intercepted once and fumbled five times.
“If he’s kept clean, he can make any throw that any quarterback can make,” Williams said. “But under pressure, he puts the ball in harms away, and we tried to take advantage of it.”
The Patriots are going against another top defense next week when they face off against the Broncos. They will have more potential opportunities to generate turnovers, however, with Broncos backup Jarrett Stidham, a former Patriots draft pick, playing at quarterback in place of injured starter Bo Nix.
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