Hotels across Greater Boston were trying to make the best of the storm, offering snowstorm rates, complimentary parking and free hot chocolate to guests and emergency workers. Planes were still flying in and out of Logan International Airport early Friday afternoon, but only a few more arrivals and departures are expected, said Matthew Brelis, spokesman for the Massachusetts Port Authority, which runs Logan. By 4 p.m., no more flights will be coming in and out of Boston, and the current expectation is that service will resume Saturday afternoon, Brelis said. Across the Northeast, airlines have canceled more than 4,000 flights on Friday and Saturday, according to the flight-tracking website FlightAware. With stock markets expected to stay open all day, Boston’s downtown investment firms kept core investment staff in the office, while letting most others work from home. Pioneer Investments was closed for the day, except for “essential” staff, while Loomis Sales & Co. sent all but necessary workers home by 1 p.m. Many of Fidelity Investments’s employees worked from home. South Station is pulsing with anxious commuters and other travelers as the last Amtrak trains are preparing to leave the train depot by 1:40 Friday afternoon, and commuter rail trains stop running after 3:30 as the region’s transportation system prepares for the blizzard. Some Boston bars enjoyed extra -- and early -- business from people who were snowed out of work or school Friday. Lincoln Tavern & Restaurant in South Boston, which normally opens at 5 p.m. on Fridays, welcomed its first guests at 11 a.m. NStar is warning that tens to hundreds of thousands of customers could lose power during Friday’s “potentially catastrophic” blizzard, and says it has activated its highest emergency response level – level 5 – to deal with the storm. “This blizzard has the potential to deliver devastating damage to our electric system and while we are hoping for the best, we are preparing for the worst,” Craig Hallstrom, president of NStar Electric, said. The Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, a quasi-public agency of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, said that it has awarded a $5 million capital grant to support the launch of LabCentral, a state-of-the art 27,000 square-foot facility that is scheduled to open in Cambridge in November. A goal of LabCentral is to foster biotechnology startups by enabling them to rent small amounts of lab space. The lab will be located in Kendall Square, a hub of much life sciences activity. | 
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