Six months after acquiring the assets of Somerville-based car-sharing company iCar, Mint Cars On-Demand is ready to begin service in Davis Square.

Founded in New York in 2008, Mint allows members to rent cars for as little as one hour up to several days from locations in neighborhoods. The new location and vehicles will add to the company’s current Boston, Brookline, Cambridge and Somerville footprint (where they have a location at 90 Elm St.).

Mint CEO Richard Ull, who studied at Tufts University, said in a press release the new Davis Square location at 53 Day St. is part of Mint’s plan to position itself to compete with the cost of owning a car and other car sharing options.

“The addition of a Davis Square location not only provides Mint a great opportunity to serve this neighborhood,” Ull said, “It also gives area residents an economical and convenient alternative to owning their own cars and the freedom to go where they want, when they want.”

More information is available at www.drivemint.com.

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New semester, new problems. We’d like to help by bringing your attention to one of our many fantastic Scout Deals. Our $6 voucher will get you $10 worth of food from Mike’s Food and Spirits in Davis Square.

No, you can’t use this voucher for alcohol, but those neon-colored martinis go well with calzones. Be on the lookout for more highlights from our Scout Deals section in the coming weeks.

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    Many folks find the statues in Davis… creepy, well-sculpted work but somewhat unsettling, largely because of their masks. So effective are these statues at doling out both the heebies & the jeebies that one wise observer wondered whether or not that had been the artist’s intent all along. As it turns out, this was not the case.

The statues had been defaced by vandals. Their bronze masks were added  in 1996, to address the vandalism as well as the toll taken by age. Commissioned in 1980 by the MBTA and the Cambridge Arts Council’s “Arts on the Line” program, sculptor James Tyler based all of these cast-masonry statues upon people that lived in or around the area. The elderly couple who inspired this prominent pair of statues, illustrated above, apparently owned a restaurant in the neighborhood. According to a woman interviewed in a film about the “Arts on the Line” project, “They were the nicest people you’d ever met your whole life. If you didn’t have a dime you still could have a nice dinner for nothing.”

Below is the segment of that film, by Northern Light Productions, which focuses on the Davis Square statues and the children’s wall-tile artwork inside the T station. Ever want to hear a whispery voiceover speak for the statues? Yikes. Ok, well, this is your chance.

http://vimeo.com/5749920

Happy (early) Holidays from The Somerville Scout and your favorite masked restauranteurs!

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Recent unseasonably warm weather has allowed us to observe & analyze the wilds of the Somerville Bikepath before its wheeled denizens go into true hibernation for the winter.
Here are our findings… in cartoon form.

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Participating businesses include:

• Artifaktori (22A College Ave)
• The Boston Shaker (69 Holland St)
• Buffalo Exchange (238 Elm St)
• Cameras Inc. (267 Elm St)
• Comicazi (407 Highland Ave)
• Dave’s Fresh Pasta (81 Holland St)
• Davis Squared (418 Highland Ave)
• Found (255 Elm St)
• Johnny D’s Uptown Restaurant & Music Club (17 Holland St)
• Kickass Cupcakes (378 Highland Ave)
• Magpie (416 Highland Ave)
• Suneri Boutique (67 Holland St)
• Sunshine Lucy’s (93 Holland St)
• When Pigs Fly Bakery (378 Highland Ave)

Some businesses will offer discounts that get progressively higher throughout the night. Those include the gift shop Davis Squared, the clothing resale shop Found, the women’s clothing store Suneri Boutique, and the handicrafts store Magpie. Discounts will range from roughly 5 to 60 percent, depending on the store and the time of night.

Davis Squared and Magpie are among the stores that will be providing free refreshments to shoppers. Other discounts and specials:

• Davis Squared will have a bargain table with pre-packed gift bags offered at a special rate.
• The Boston Shaker cocktail supply shop will offer complimentary beverages along with deals on merchandise.
• Comic and game store Comicazi will offer either a storewide discount or price cuts on selected items; at publication time, co-owner Michael Burke said he hadn’t decided exactly what the discounts would be, but he says: “There will definitely be something special happening.”
• Cameras Inc. will offer 15% off all stock except cameras. The discount applies to items like regular and digital picture frames, photo albums, memory cards, camera bags, and tripods.
• Magpie will have $5 t-shirt bin and other spot sales around the store.
• Suneri Boutique is holding a raffle and a silent auction; a portion of the evening’s sales and the proceeds from some auction items will be donated to help provide breast cancer treatments for Kate Kenworthy Rodrigues.

Dave’s Fresh Pasta will offer food samples, and the sampled foods will be available for purchase at a discount, according to owner David Jick. “We tend to lean toward local foods,” he says. Sampled foods will include Taza Chocolate (561 Windsor St), mozzarella from Fiore Di Nonno (also at 561 Windsor St), and cupcakes from The Chocolate Tarte (199C Highland Ave) — all Somerville businesses. Pickles from Boston-based Grillo’s will also be available. And, Jick says, “We’ll be pouring a couple of different wines — nothing local — and a local beer.”

To be sure of getting a taste, get to Dave’s before 11:00 p.m. Jick says he may close the store then instead of at midnight. And the vintage clothing shop Buffalo Exchange will close at or around 1o:oo p.m., so visit early if your plans include a stop there.

In addition to all the retail events, the car-sharing service Zipcar will have a  booth in Statue Park throughout the event. Thalia Tringo Real Estate (128 Willow Ave) will host an art opening, “Elements and Artifacts,” featuring photographs by T.L. Litt and food and drink from local eateries.

Midnight Madness is organized by Davis Area Resident/Business Initiative (DARBI).

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DC FAM

Somerville natives Leanis Almanzar, Wilner Alexis, Kenny Neff and Larry Travaglione will perform Thursday, July 28, at 8 p.m. at Club Samba (608 Somerville Ave). Known together as DC FAM and respectively as Third Degree, Real Wil, K Street and Renzo, the group is headlining an event featuring DJ Stix from Hot 97 Boston and performances by Concep, Cav Bernah, Black Roze and Fly Rydaz.

And if you recognize none of the names listed above: fear not! You can read more about DC FAM in the next print issue of Somerville Scout. Until then, catch their recent hit “I’m on Fire (Beam Me Up)” on YouTube and visit Brown Paper Tickets in order to attend the Club Samba show.

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Vendors at the Somerville/Davis Square Farmers Market arrive around 10 a.m. every Wednesday. Photo by Maja Orsic.

On the evening of June 21, to honor the summer solstice (and because I missed the 87 bus), I walked 1.7 miles from Davis Square to the intersection of Beacon and Washington Streets. Along the way, I noticed other Somerville residents celebrating the first day of summer in style.

Outdoor seating was plentiful at Mike’s Food & Spirits (9 Davis Sq), The Burren (247 Elm St) and Posto (187 Elm St), where I saw groups, couples, and solo diners enjoying food and taking in the fresh air. Even patrons of The Pulse Café (195 Elm St), which does not offer sidewalk seating but whose indoor lights flooded the sidewalk, seemed to be soaking up the 70-degree weather.

Before reaching Union Square, I stopped at Conway Playground (560 Somerville Ave) to take in a few minutes of recreational softball. The air was still and, as bikers zipped by on the street behind me, I witnessed an effortless double play by the team in the field.

Most Somerville realtors call the area bordering Beacon and Washington Streets Dalì, referencing Dalì Restaurant & Tapas Bar (415 Washington St), which has anchored the intersection since 1989. Like Dalì, most corners of Somerville are defined by food and those who seek it out. To celebrate local flavors this summer, try the Somerville/Davis Square Farmers Market (Day & Herbert St), which takes place every Wednesday from 12 p.m to 6 p.m. through November 23.

Cover thumbnail of Somerville/Davis Square Farmers Market courtesy of yelp.com

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The concert stage at Somerville Theatre. Photo Credit: Chris Devers, flickr

On Wednesday night June 8, Somerville Theatre (55 Davis Sq) featured British singer-songwriter Natasha Bedingfield in concert. With hit singles like “Unwritten” and “These Words,” Bedingfield joined the ranks of performers at the Somerville Theatre including U2 and Joan Baez. A few hours before the show, I spoke with Thomas Reitz, Bedingfield’s tour manager, about the opening of her 2011 tour.

Scout: Where has Bedingfield performed in the days leading up to her Somerville Theatre show?

Reitz: She did a small show [on June 4] in Hyannis Port to benefit Best Buddies, but I consider tonight’s show at the Somerville Theatre to be the first night of the tour, since she’ll be joined by her opening acts, Kate Voegele and Andy Grammer.

Scout: How does the size of the Somerville Theatre compare to other venues on the tour schedule?

Reitz: Bedingfield will play in venues that accommodate between 500 and 25,000 people. [Scout note: Somerville Theatre accommodates 900 people.] Bedingfield will also be performing in several House of Blues locations. Sometimes these smaller locations are better; audiences aren’t overfed with the latest performances. With just a drummer, a bassist, and a guitarist as her accompaniment, Bedingfield’s performances can be very intimate.

Ian Judge, Director of Operations at the Somerville Theatre for ten years, explained that live events in the space are the responsibility of outside promoters. For instance, Bedingfield’s show was produced by Live Nation. “We usually get people on their way up and on their way down,” he says, referencing past performances by Bruce Springsteen, U2, Adele and Norah Jones.

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Elizabeth Hunter as Dr. Dysart and Adam Schofield-Bodt as Alan Strang.

Theatre@First premieres its production of Peter Shaffer’s Equus on Friday, June 10 at Unity Somerville (6 William St). The play will run until June 18 with a total of six shows.

The play’s script follows a psychiatrist attempting to treat a teenage boy whose enthrallment with horses turns violent. The play features mature content and language. Dave Policar, a long-time Theatre@First director, was first introduced to Equus as a high school sophomore. “There’s a lot that draws me to this play. Shaffer plays a lot in this script with the tension between the sacred and the social and the carnal. Much of what the script is pointing to is reconciling that tension.”

Theatre@First’s production includes, most notably, a female Dr. Dysart (played by Elizabeth Hunter, the artistic director and co-founder of Theatre@First), a role originally written for a male actor. As Policar notes, it comes as a result of more women auditioning for roles in community theater and the dispr0portionate number of male-written roles in scripts. With this in mind, Policar looks for flexible roles and casts the best actor/actress, regardless of gender. ”It really doesn’t change nearly as much as people seem to think it would. Being a women in 2011 isn’t the same thing as being a women in 1973.  It’s a social construct that has changed, so this works.”

Other hallmarks of the performance include the intimate performance area, the ”split-level” stage design, and a cast and crew of a wide array of ages. The church setting is also fitting, given the play’s many religious references.

Visit Theatre@First’s website to purchase advance or reserved tickets. Tickets are $15 for Adults and $12 for Seniors and students, with discounts available to groups of ten or more. Tickets may also be purchased at the door on the day of each performance, but are not guaranteed.

Theatre@First premieres a production of Equus.

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Here's what Somerville's new pay-by-space meters look like.

A few weeks ago, the City of Somerville’s Traffic and Parking Department (133 Holland St) began beta-testing 15 new pay-by-space parking meters in the Union Square lots and in the Davis Square Rite Aid (393 Highland Ave) lots, replacing 30-single spaced meters that previously stood in those locations.

“Residents often complained that few people have 12 quarters available. We wanted to figure out how we can improve the meter options that in those same areas,” says Matthew Dias, Acting Director of Traffic and Parking.

The City partnered with Duncan Solutions, a company based in Milwaukee, Wis.,  to offer multi-space meters in these lots. The meters accept dollar coins, regular coins and credit cards. They do not accept paper bills.

The rates of meters will be consistent with the rates of the old meters: 25 cents per 15 minutes. Additionally, the pay-by-space feature of these meters allows patrons to pay by the number of their designated parking space. No longer will it be necessary to return to one’s vehicle to place a ticket there. “With these meters, you can literally pay and go,” says Dias.

The new meters offer helpful new technology for the Traffic and Parking Department as well. The old meters required extensive maintenance. It often took days to identify faulty meters. Dias can now use software to see in real-time how much money is in a meter; to identify which components of a meter are not working; and to ensure maintenance efficiency.

In time, the city hopes to add to other payment options to these meters, such as Somerville ParkCards and pay-by-phone technology. Each meter cost the City more than $1,000 each. The City is also absorbing costs incurred by using Duncan Solutions’ credit card processing technology.

Pending the success of this venture, the City will install pay-by-space meters in other locations. One proposed location is Somerville Avenue in Union Square, which would be the first on-street solution.

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