Weekend Preview — The Daily Boston Brief, September 10, 2026

Thu 9/10

Women of Boston: Reception and Gallery Talk · Free · 6pm · Boston Public Library, Hyde Park Branch

Photographer Robert Richmond spent three decades making black-and-white pictures in the North End, downtown and the old Combat Zone. The show at the Hyde Park branch pulls out the portraits of the women he met in those neighborhoods, each one there with her own story rather than as somebody else’s backdrop, and he is on hand tonight for a reception and a gallery talk. On the hottest evening of the week, at 88 degrees, an air-conditioned branch library is not a consolation prize. Free, no ticket.

Fri 9/11

Sunset Rollercoaster · 7pm · House of Blues, Lansdowne St

Friday is the turn: 75, sunny, northwest wind, a one percent chance of rain all day. Spend the light outdoors and the dark on Lansdowne Street, where Taipei’s Sunset Rollercoaster bring the dreamy, saxophone-laced psych-pop they built an international following on across Cassa Nova and Soft Storm. It is a band that rewards a room rather than headphones. If you want a table: Eastern Standard is a few minutes away in Kenmore Square and takes bookings on OpenTable.

Sat 9/12

The Boston Arts Festival · Free · 11am to 6pm · Christopher Columbus Park · runs Sunday too

The city’s flagship free arts weekend takes Christopher Columbus Park for two days: juried local artists in booths, live music, and the harbor sitting right there between Faneuil Hall and the North End. Saturday is 75 and sunny, which is about as good as this gets in September, and the morning is the time to go — first pick of the booths before the afternoon crowd drifts over from the Greenway. If Saturday fills up, the whole thing runs again Sunday. If you want a table: Bricco is a few blocks up Hanover Street and takes bookings on OpenTable.

Sun 9/13

Rachel Barton Pine, violin, at the Gardner · 1:30 and 3:30pm · Calderwood Hall, Fenway

Sunday warms back to 81 and the thunderstorms come with it, so here is the plan the sky cannot spoil. Violinist Rachel Barton Pine and pianist Matthew Hagle play a program of Brahms sonatas in Calderwood Hall, part of the Gardner’s Weekend Concert Series, at 1:30 and again at 3:30. Take the earlier one and the courtyard is still yours for the rest of the afternoon.

Free this weekend: Emile Chabal: The Age of Hobsbawm Thu 7pm at Harvard Book Store · Friday Films: Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison Fri 2pm, the 1957 Huston picture at the North End branch library · JP Music Festival Sat, a full day of Jamaica Plain bands at Pinebank Field on the pond

Last chance: the Student Lending Art Program exhibition at the MIT List Center closes Sunday, Sept 13 — the works go on public view before students draw lots to borrow one for the year, and the building is free to everyone. Shapel Lacey plays the last of his two nights at Laugh Boston on Saturday, Sept 12.

Open Streets Boston: Mattapan · Free · Sat 10:30am to 3pm · Blue Hill Ave

Blue Hill Avenue goes car-free between River Street and Babson Street for the day: performance zones down the avenue, a Kids Hub, vendors, water stations and free pedicab rides. No tickets, no registration. It is also the same stretch of road at the center of the busway fight further down this email — worth walking before you have an opinion about it.

Cambridge Carnival International · Free · Sat and Sun · Central Square

The 32nd Cambridge Carnival, a celebration of African and Caribbean culture, splits across the weekend: Saturday belongs to the Pan in the Park steel band showcase, and the main event — the costumed masquerade parade, live music, dance and food and craft vendors — runs Sunday 11am to 6pm. Free, and everyone is welcome.

Gilman Square Arts & Music Festival · Free · Saturday · Ed Leathers Park, Somerville

Part of Somerville’s SomerStreets series: live music, local artists and crafters, food vendors and family activities in the park. The rain date is Sunday, Sept 13, though on a 75-and-sunny Saturday it should not be needed.

Rush: Fifty Something Tour · Sat 7:30pm, doors 6:30 · TD Garden

Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson bring the Fifty Something tour to the Garden for two nights, September 12 and 14 — note the gap, there is no show on the 13th. The run honors the late Neil Peart, and cities were added to it on demand.

Politics

Governor Maura Healey signed an executive order Tuesday barring state agencies from permitting data centers with peak demand above 25 megawatts unless the developer has already filed a community benefits agreement with the host town and shown it meets the state’s Data Center Framework. “Unless a community says yes to a data center, we are saying no,” she said in the announcement. The order also forbids state agencies from signing non-disclosure agreements with developers, and directs MassDEP to build an “alternative compliance payment” by the end of 2026 for centers that do not generate enough new clean electricity to cover what they consume — money that would flow into a new Ratepayer Protection Fund. Projects tied to accredited colleges, hospitals or state-sponsored programs can be exempted from the megawatt threshold by two secretaries acting jointly. It follows Healey’s June suspension of the sales-tax break for these developments.

Transit

The city and the MBTA released another revised design for the Blue Hill Avenue busway late last week, and StreetsblogMASS has read it against the 2024 plan. The centerpiece has barely moved: a two-way, protected, center-running busway for the 28 and 23 buses between Mattapan Square and Grove Hall, which the T estimates would cut 10 to 15 minutes off a rush-hour trip. Congress earmarked $80 million for construction on the condition that the continuous center-running busway stays in, and the Healey administration has pledged $51 million more. What has changed: several stations gain longer platforms and extra crosswalks that double as pedestrian refuges, while the T’s own rendering notes that protected bike lanes come out of key segments to leave more room for traffic and parking. The new round of public hearings opens with a town hall this evening, Thursday, Sept 10, at Morning Star Baptist Church.

Education

Any Wellesley College student whose family earns less than $200,000 a year will attend tuition-free, starting this fall, WHDH reports. The station places it in a growing line of Massachusetts private colleges covering tuition for families making under six figures — and at $200,000, Wellesley has set its line well above that mark.

Business

Target has asked Somerville’s Planning Board for permission to expand its 94,000-square-foot store at 180 Somerville Ave by 40,000 square feet and sell groceries there for the first time, Banker & Tradesman reports. The space it wants is the vacancy currently leased to Advance Auto: when Target bought the seven-acre property in 2007 for $10 million it agreed not to sell groceries, and that restriction has since lapsed. The application argues the extra room would also let the store drop off-site storage and cut its truck deliveries. Somerville, separately, is preparing to start enforcing a 2019 vacant-property ordinance that only seven owners have registered under in six years.