Looking Down on Boston

Having family here, I have visited Boston several times, but it's many years since I was last here in summer. It was odd to see the Common without snow on it, or to see the lake in the Public Garden unfrozen. It was odd not to be wearing a ski-jacket.

My aunt and uncle now live up in New Hampshire, but have a small apartment in Boston for when they need to stay in the city. It's in a tower block right in the middle of the city centre, and has some impressive views. When I first arrived, it was dark, but Boston, like many cities, looks good even in the dark:

Looking down from the buliding in the daylight, the green spire in this picture (just below and to the left of the centre) is on the Old South Meeting House. Boston is like this - colonial-era buildings surrounded by medium rise buildings from the 19^th and 20^th centuries with genuine skyscrapers towering over them all.

Boston stands on the Charles River - we're looking upstream in this picture:

The building with the gold dome is the New State House. “New”, here, is a relative term – the building is over 200 years old, but it's newer than the “Old” State House. To the right of the river, is Cambridge.

Looking west from my aunt and uncle's building:

the large, green area is Boston Common in the foreground with the Boston Public Garden behind it. The wider of the two avenues of trees leading away from the Public Garden is Commonwealth Avenue - Massachusetts is a commonwealth, not a state. The cross streets of Commonwealth Avenue are, handily, in alphabetical order so you have Arlington Street, Berkeley Street, Clarendon Street, and so on. This seems to me to give the navigational convenience of 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc, Streets but while still retaining some character.

In the upper left are two towers - the larger is the John Hancock Tower and the other is the Prudential Tower where there is an observation deck near the top. Which is where I headed on the first day I was in town. The deck is very well done, with an audio guide at each window to tell you what you're looking at, as well as some historical notes.

This is looking back to the downtown area:

The green space in the middle is the combination of the Common and the Public Garden with the gold dome of the State House to their left. The white spire just above the middle of the Common is Park Street Church.

Boston is home to the Church of Jesus Christ Scientist – the Scientologists. They have a seriously large campus almost beneath the Prudential Tower:

The original church is the little grey building to the right of the pond. The, much larger, domed extension was added later. The squarer building in front of the church is the headquarters of the Church's Publishing Branch.

The building with the green roof behind the Scientology Plaza is the Boston Symphony Hall. Apparently the name “Beethoven” is inscribed above the stage – the only musician that the entire design committee felt deserved the honour.

Looking to the north-west, we have The Fens - originally a boggy area until it was drained. During World War II, a co-operative garden was established on the Fens which is still in operation. Although these “victory” gardens were widespread at the time of the war, the one in Boston is one of very few still in use as a public fruit and vegetable garden.

A more significant aspect of the Fens to everyone in Boston, and pretty much everyone in New England, is that they lent their name to the next green space over:

Fenway Park is one of the oldest baseball parks in America and has the status of shrine to millions of Boston Red Sox fans. The first game was played in 1912 against the New York Highlanders which the Red Sox won 7-6. The Highlanders, now renamed the New York Yankees, are still the biggest rivals to the Sox with little love lost between the two teams or their fans.

Boston is home to 52 institutions of higher education with around 230,000 students between them. Harvard University is the oldest in the United States, for example, and this:

the Massachussetts Institute of Technology, is one of the most respected universities in the world. Technically, though, both Harvard and MIT are in Cambridge, not Boston, being on the other side of the Charles River.

Right next to the Prudential Tower is Copley Square. My aunt and uncle used to live a couple of blocks from here, so it's an area I know reasonably well:

The square itself is the small green patch in the middle. The tall black-glass tower is the John Hancock tower. John Hancock was one of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence. On this side of the square is the Boston Public Library – the oldest public lending library in the US.

Once back on the ground, I walked round to the square for a closer look.

The church on the far side is the Episcopalian Trinity Church:

And turning round, we have the Public Library again:

The entrance to the library is impressive; it's hard to imagine what effect it must have had on people when it first opened at the end of the 19^th century. This is the main stair:

By now, though, it was time to walk back into town.