By Andrea Shea (WBUR)

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The Boston Landmarks Orchestra performs at the Hatch Shell every Wednesday night from now through September. Last week, hundreds of people laid claim to parcels of grass along the Charles River. They had picnics and pizzas, but no ticket stubs, because the concert is free.

“It’s a great selling point,” said 22-year-old Elizabeth Olson of Somerville, who came with her father. “It’s made it a much easier decision to say, let’s just go for a Wednesday evening. Otherwise we I think we probably would’ve shied away from it.”

Rosalie Williams, who lives in Cambridge, agreed. She credits the economic downturn for her new-found enthusiasm over this free classical music series, and called it “a poor person’s Tanglewood.”

Free outdoor concerts, plays and films are plentiful, and popular, in Boston during the summer. Especially this summer. The price is right for people who’ve had to slash their entertainment budgets during the recession. But, as we all know, very few things in life are truly free. And the economic downturn is proving problematic for organizations that produce free entertainment.

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By Fred Thys (WBUR)

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The city of Boston held a job fair for its employees at Faneuil Hall. (Fred Thys/WBUR)

The city of Boston expects to lay off more than 550 people at the end of June. Three hundred and sixty-four people in the schools, including 200 teachers, are expected to lose their jobs two weeks from Tuesday, and another 191 people in the public libraries, the police department and at the city’s printing office are expected to be laid off as well.

Mayor Thomas Menino expects to save $28 million next year with the layoffs. The mayor’s office says the city is trying to find other jobs for the people about to lose theirs. This year, though, there aren’t many options, so Monday, the city held a job fair at Faneuil Hall. Several temp agencies set up booths. There were financial planning counselors.

The South Boston Resource Center is one of four the city has to help people write resumes and apply for positions online. “Some folks don’t have computers. They don’t have access to Internet,” said the center’s director, Eddie Downs. “We have six computers that are online. We have a fax machine. We have resume paper. We have people who will help put together a resume for someone who does not have one, and then we do things like work on interviewing skills.”

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By Andrea Shea (WBUR)

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Marketing expert Valerie Gates receives fresh, prepared meals from Jake Ferreira of Beetlebung Farm LLC in her Wellesley, Mass., kitchen. Gates devised a barter system in which she gives marketing advice to New England farms in exchange for food. (Andrea Shea/WBUR)

Valerie Gates will work for food. She does it all the time. Standing in her Wellesley kitchen, the marketing expert, who doesn’t cook much, reaps the harvest of a barter system she devised five months ago.

The ancient form of exchange is making a comeback during this economic downturn. People and businesses are bartering services and stuff: piano lessons, plumbing, accounting, dining-room sets — even asparagus.

Salad greens and herbs spill onto Gates’ counter top, thanks to Jake Ferreira. Gates fashioned a logo for his fledgling farming company, Beetlebung Farm LLC. Ferreira and his business partner help people and schools build vegetable gardens on Martha’s Vineyard. They also cater using local ingredients.

Ferreira’s here making good on his part of the deal, unloading a cooler packed with fresh, prepared meals: Sole baked in parchment, baby arugula pesto, asparagus with spring garlic and homemade cheese.

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By David Boeri (WBUR)

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Other than T officials themselves, there’s probably no one single person in Greater Boston that’s more concerned about the fate of the T and rail ridership in general than former Gov. Michael Dukakis. When he was in office, he invested heavily in the T.

He currently advises the Patrick administration on transit issues and, in fact, had just finished a meeting with Transportation Secretary James Aloisi when I caught up with him on the Green Line.

As governor, Dukakis used to ride the T to the office every day. He says people ask him now why he’s still riding. “Well, I rode it when I was governor, why wouldn’t I ride it when I’m not governor?” he says. “Not only that, I’m a senior citizen. And I’ve got my Charlie Card and 65 cents — I mean it’s the best value in America, so why wouldn’t I do that?”

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By Meghna Chakrabarti (The Third Rail)

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The MBTA is one step closer to making significant service cuts, and possibly increasing fares, after the MBTA advisory board voted Thursday to slash the T’s 2010 budget by $160 million.

Members of the MBTA advisory board themselves call the cuts “draconian.” But state law requires the panel to authorize a balanced budget. Faced with a projected $160-million deficit, board members say they had to make cuts, mostly through massive reductions to MBTA wages and benefits. The T’s general manager, Dan Grabauskas, says that means future service reductions are all but guaranteed.

“If I’m really going to have to cut to balance the budget, I’m going to have to cut people, which means I’m going to have to cut service,” Grabauskas said. “So, it’s service cuts or it’s fare increases, or it’s some other source of revenue, and if that other source of revenue doesn’t meet up with our deficit, I’ve only got those other two things to do.”

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By Bob Oakes (WBUR)

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Since about 1812 — the year when Old Ironsides, the USS Constitution, sank the British frigate the Guerriere off the coast of Nova Scotia in the War of 1812 — a textile plant in the central Massachusetts town of Webster has been churning out cloth. At one time it wove the fabric.

These days, instead of weaving, it prints various patterns on cloth woven in China. On Friday, Cranston Print Works, which has defied the odds for decades, will close. In so doing, it gives up the title of the oldest textile plant still operating in the country.

The plant, which still rolls out 20 million yards of printed cloth a year for people who sew at home, once employed more than 700 people. But as it follows other companies and shifts fabric-printing operations overseas, the 72 production workers remaining after decades of attrition will lose their jobs. Forty-five people will stay on in warehouse, distribution and administrative positions in Webster.

Generations of families worked at Cranston Print; there were courtships, marriages and babies. Among the workers is Francis Burke, who says the plant has been in his family’s blood for seven decades.

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By Curt Nickisch (WBUR Business & Technology Reporter)

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Standing before an array of solar panels at a Nevada Air Force base on Wednesday, President Obama praised the role he says the economic stimulus will play in developing alternative energies.

“The nation that leads the world in creating new sources of clean energy will be the nation that leads the 21st-century global economy,” Obama said. “That’s the nation I want America to be and that’s the nation you want America to be.”

The stimulus package includes $70 billion for energy-related programs. Some of that will go to the Commonwealth and local governments here. But Massachusetts’ growing green-energy sector is also looking to get some of the dollars earmarked for other states.

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By Curt Nickisch (WBUR Business & Technology Reporter)

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Forecasting the economy is a thankless job. Because, basically, you’re always wrong.

“It’s a matter of how wrong,” said UMass Boston economist Alan Clayton-Matthews. “These recessions all entail surprises, and this one was no exception.”

Twice a year, Clayton-Matthews gets together with other experts from around the region to say where the economy is headed. Last fall, he was pretty wrong. He thought the Commonwealth economy would be picking back up again by now. And he was not alone.

“As late as December 2008, the consensus among economists was that the economy would be growing a slight bit in the first quarter of 2009,” he said. “That’s how off economists were.”

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By Fred Thys (WBUR)

Local officials are expressing disappointment with a proposal in the legislature that’s supposed to help cities and towns close their budget gaps. The measure, proposed by a commission of the House and Senate on Thursday, would allow cities and towns to raise the tax on restaurant meals by 2 percent and to raise other taxes.

That part is being welcomed. But mayors and town managers are not getting what they say could save them the most money: the power to redesign health care benefit plans.

Under the proposal, cities and towns would be able to raise the tax on hotel rooms from 4 percent now to 8 percent. People renting vacation homes would have to pay the tax, too. And the phone companies — which until now have not had to pay property taxes on the land around their lines and their cell towers — would have to pay those taxes like everybody else.

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