bad day at fort point

This is not the sort of article one wants to feature in:

In a nondescript Boston apartment amid small businesses and artists' lofts, authorities this week found what may have been one of the largest methamphetamine manufacturing operations in the state after the discovery of the body of an admired local artist who apparently moved in a world of clandestine sex and drugs.

It's a sad, sordid, and quite unclear tale.  What is evident is that the South Boston waterfront really doesn't need this sort of thing.  Not like meth labs are exactly wanted anywhere, but really: with the ICA's new building going up just around the corner, the Children's Museum nearby, all the Fort Point Channel arts stuff, loads of new residential units, restaurants, businesses, etc., I have to imagine that the people who have been working to renew the area can't but be alarmed.  It's a big city, and things will happen, but sheesh.

To be sure, it's not 100% clear, from the Globe's article, that it was a meth lab - there is one person quoted arguing that it couldn't have been.  I have no idea.  The idea that the chemicals and such found might have been related to MIT students doing the wacky, not necessarily meth related, things they do, can't be completely ruled out.  It's also quite plausible that the person quoted has no idea what he's talking about.  I'd like to think the various authorities investigating would know, and I imagine that if it was a meth lab, there'd be other evidence.  The whole thing is bad enough as it is, anyway.

On a side note: the building it occured in is the same one rumored to be a suggested site for an expanded Fogg Art Museum.

UPDATE: Ah, local tv news.  I love the way the video for Channel 7's story features the screaming headline, "SECRET METH LAB".  As opposed to all those in the phone book, I suppose.

2ND UPDATE: Universal Hub has some posts on the affair, one with links and information about the deceased artist (including one link to Big Red & Shiny, which ran a photograph of one his works in the Boston Cyberarts Festival), another which points out the most cynically exploitative angle coverage could take.  As noted above, I'd be rattled if I were in the neighborhood, and it's not the publicity anyone needs.  But I have spent much time over the past six years wandering around the area, all times of day and night.  It's mostly pretty quiet.