Winging it in...Boston!

So this is a Harvard bar, huh? I thought there'd be equations and shit on the wall.
So this week, while busy didn’t take me too far afield. In fact a short trip over the Charles River was all that was needed or me to find myself in Cambridge. Not that this is a particularly unusual excursion, after all the Cambridgeside Galleria is very good for shopping and lunching if I am avoiding Newbury Street, and I do tend to find the stores more accessible than those at the Prudential Center…

However, as home to Harvard and MIT it does have a younger, quirkier, more collegy and vibrant feel than some parts of Boston; still walking around there are plenty of the narrow crooked roads, brick sidewalks and colonial style houses and churches that you find in historic Boston, maybe it is the mix of sidewalk cafes and open fronted bars that made it feel more laid back and friendly, or maybe it was the sunny weather that was drawing people out…

Cambridge itself (and bear with me here) was founded in 1630 by a group of English Immigrants and called New Towne, and in 1636 they founded a college to try and preserve their faith and educate their clergy. It wasn’t until 1638 that a prominent local minister- John Harvard left his library to the college and New Towne College was renamed Harvard! The town was later renamed Cambridge after a large and famous university town in England- that I can’t quite place at the minute J Cambridge came to play a bigger part on the world stage after the invention of the printing press- with a university and a large printing industry it became a center for political activity during the turbulent eras of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This feeling as Cambridge as a political center probably still holds true today, quite possibly due to the fact that over half of the residents are linked with universities…

The old mansions on Brattle Street are now part of the National Historic Longfellow site- and no apparently even with resident parking stickers you still can’t part outside- The main site here was built by British colonialists loyal to the crown but was seized by revolutionaries during the War of Independence and served as George Washington’s headquarters during the Siege of Boston. From 1843 until 1888 it was also the home of that often mentioned poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Not that I spent any time on Cambridge Common, but it was observable I feel I should also mention that this is where George Washington took control of the Colonial Troops on July 3, 1775, it then served as a army encampment until 1776.

No sightseeing trip to Cambridge would be complete without a wander around Harvard Square, full of cafés, restaurants and cute, quirky, little boutique stores and street entertainers (there was one man playing the piano on the sidewalk). Or without a stroll through Old Harvard Yard, surrounded by university buildings and including the statue of “John Harvard” or the Statue of Three Lies… the first being that it is dated as founded in 1638- not 1636 when the university was founded, second that John Harvard was the founder, again not true, he was a contributor and a benefactor not the founder, and the third being that the statue does not actually depict John Harvard himself. As the sculptor, Daniel Chester French, had no true likeness to work from he used another model, possibly a student, however even this is in debate. The Yard does have some imposing buildings- the Widener Library is apparently the third largest in the US, and the church opposite was built in 1931 and modeled on the Old North Church in Boston.;

Anyway, enough of the history for this week, I felt with Independence day nearly upon us it was perhaps time for some more of the areas links to George Washington, next week will be 4th July, and while I will be impressed with the fireworks and I will be out enjoying the celebrations, there will also a be a bit of the George Washington tirade I have building in my head…

Winging it in...Boston!

There was music from my neighbor's house through those summer nights. In his enchanted gardens, men and girls came and went like moths, among the whispering and the champagne and the stars. I believe that few people were actually invited to these parties.

This weekend has been an odd mix of the normal and the extra-ordinary. Usually I don’t start my blog on a Friday but this week was sports day and so deserves a special mention as it is a bit like a free day from work. It was held away from the school, and started later and finished earlier than a normal day. It was also beautifully hot and sunny, with a light breeze blowing that just stopped one from overheating, making it the perfect day for sitting outside, eating pizza and ice cream. I’m not going to wax lyrical over it as it was still definitely a work day, but as they say, a change is as good as a rest, and this was a particularly pleasant day for a change. Ten more days to go and the summer vacation starts in earnest! I am of course really looking forward to July 4th and all that it brings- I think Boston Harbor will be THE place to be this year. Watch this space in two weeks time…

Saturday may have felt more productive had I not embarrassed myself hugely by falling over in the street while running. The least said about that the better, other than it didn’t really impinge on my Saturday plans, other than to make me grumpy and whingy all day. Other than that, Newbury Street is, as ever, a great place to spend a sunny Saturday afternoon, people watching, gossiping and generally hanging out with friends. Having heard it called the “Rodeo Drive of the East” I feel quite lucky to have it so close by, and so easily accessible. I’m not sure I would agree with the statement though. It certainly does, as I have said before have a very eclectic mix of stores, both quirky independent boutique types and well know chains, but it has a European style charm that I have never experienced in L.A. and certainly didn’t pick up on when I was on Rodeo Drive- for one thing I do actually purchases goods and services when on Newbury Street! For me, and it was a few years ago, Rodeo Drive felt much more polished and sure of itself.

By Saturday evening it was definitely summer in the city mood, as the Fenway Civic Association are holding a series of free concerts in the park. The first one was this week, and it was by a group called Buffalo Soul, who describe themselves as a mix of futuristic reggae fusion. I would love to tell you more about the music, but having checked out the website before hand and deciding that it maybe wasn’t the way I envisioned my evening going I sat myself down in the park with a book instead and passed a very pleasant half hour in the evening sun. If however, you are intrigued by futuristic reggae fusion I’m sure they would be more than happy for you to check out their website http://www.myspace.com/tu33ylove

Sunday morning saw the brilliant blue skies and summer sun continue so I set out to Newport RI to play in the summer cottages, wander along the cliff tops and gaze longingly out to sea, wishing I had the time and the money to do this every day. Newport stands on the southernmost tip of Aquidneck Island in Narragansett Bay. It was established as a colony in 1639 and with great harbors quickly grew as a port. Despite growing quickly and becoming a prosperous town it suffered huge losses during the War of Independence, many of the population fled and the original town was mainly burned to the ground. Having said this, it does still have a few examples of eighteenth century architecture. This isn’t so much what it is known for today, as the Bellevue Avenue mansions. I have talked about these before, the summer homes of the American “aristocracy” from the late 1880s through to the 1920s. This is where the Vanderbilts, and the Astors spent their six weeks away from New York.

Having been here before I wanted to visit a different house, so today it was Rosecliff, the summer home, for five years of Theresa Fair Oelrichs, a silver heiress from Nevada, and her husband. She bought the land in 1891 from George Bancroft and precede to tear down his log cabin and construct a house that cost $1.2 million to build and took four years to complete. Her brief to her architect was, apparently, to create a summer house suitable for entertaining on a large scale- and they certainly met that brief. This house has the largest ball room in Newport and a very impressive sweeping heart shaped staircase on which to make an entrance. The basic layout is similar to the Grand Trianon at Versailles, and if you are going to steal a design idea Marie Antoinette is a good a person as any to borrow from, and incidentally she is carved into the marble above the fireplace in the dining room. While keeping the feel of the columns and arched windows from the Trianon (and again it has been a few years, so correct me if I’m wrong) a second story has been added to the house for the bedrooms and the bathrooms. A third story has also been, in my opinion, cleverly concealed behind the roof line to contain the servant’s rooms and the laundry. With all this at her disposal Mrs. Oelrichs did indeed become one of the best know hostesses in Newport, and even created her own navel harbor scenes for her parties! What I would give to have been invited to one! I was born to have floated around these houses in swooshy, sweeping dresses and sit on porches drinking long island iced teas in the summer.

Winging it in...Boston!

Somewhere over the rainbow…
This weekend I had big plans, having not written for a few weeks while I was back in England, I thought this weekend would be good for exploring Falmouth, The Cape and heading out to the beach, with the possibility of a trip out to Bunker Hill and the USS Constitution on Sunday. Alas, the best laid plans etc, and it was not to be. The weather, which the forecaster assured me would be bright and sunny, turned out not to be. While this information was communicated to the general public someone forgot to send the memo to the weather gods, and thus Saturday dawned gray, wet, miserable and rainy. Having originally planned an early start this did mean that I could roll over and get a couple more hours in bed- never something I complain about.

Under the misapprehension that the rain couldn’t possible last all day, I headed for Downtown Boston and Quincy Market. This in itself was an interesting experience as Gay Pride had arrived in Boston this weekend. Well, in actual fact it is a 10 day event that started on June 4th and finishes this weekend, but the big parade was scheduled for Saturday outside City Hall. For a city founded by the Puritans (in 1630) and in a state with fairly strict Blue Laws, it is also a very gay friendly place to be. There are certain areas where it would appear more acceptable than others, but I can think of a few places within a three block radius of my apartment that happily fly a gay pride flag.

I have to say that Government Center is not one of the prettier areas of Boston, and while it does apparently have a salacious past, once being known as Scollay Square, and being the most notorious red light district in Boston, it is now a concrete mess. Redeveloped in the 1960s it now consists of ugly 1960s concrete buildings, one serving as the Boston City Hall, and the other being the John F. Kennedy Federal Building. Far be it from me to point out any parallels between morally reprehensible characters and those who ply their trade on street corners and in porn dens.

Whilst I was wandering around I did manage to tick another box on the Freedom Trail attractions, and wandered into the King’s Chapel Burying Ground. The graveyard is quite pretty in and of itself, containing some beautifully carved headstones. It also contains the tombs of a few prominent Bostonian residents, such as John Winthrop, the first governor of Massachusetts, Mary Chilton, the first Pilgrim to set foot on Plymouth Rock and William Dawes, who is never remembered for his part in the Midnight Ride, possibly due to the fact that he doesn’t make an appearance in the famous Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem, and thus the credit falls entirely to Paul Revere. King’s Chapel is also quite cute, even if it is missing a steeple, apparently they ran out of money. This church does have an interesting history in that in 1686 King James II declared it an Anglican Parish and this was a Church of England church; a move that for obvious reasons did not sit well with the Puritans. However, Boston is nothing if not a hotbed of change and revolt, and thus in 1754 when the Americans were first really starting to assert some dissention with British Rule it was redesigned, and by 1789 it had become the first Unitarian Church in the USA. As if to further distance itself from its Anglican beginnings, it does also boast the biggest bell cast by Paul Revere.

By this point I was starting to feel tired, achy and a little bit sorry for myself, I should have guessed what was coming next… Needless to say, I did not manage to get out of bed and make anything of Sunday, other than feeling even sorrier for myself and very poorly sick. I am not a big fan of being sick at the weekend.