PENCELAND.com - Boston


Paul Revere	Boston

Steady blue, clear view
Flashing blue, change due
Steady red, rain ahead
Flashing red, snow instead.*
* (or today's Sox game is cancelled)

-- John Hancock weather beacon

Play song

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Boston map

I came to Boston in 1973 for college and like many of the area's students, I grew roots while I was here and never left. I'm happy to make Boston my home, a city with some of the world's best colleges, hospitals, and high-tech development. I love Boston's restaurants, neighborhoods (SoWa?), theaters (we always enjoy the touring Broadway shows, like the Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals, the comedies like The Producers and Hairspray, and Rent, which I saw 3 times!). The city has such a rich history and I am fascinated to see the locations of events from America's past that took place in Boston. I regularly pass by Ben Franklin's birthplace, which is identified by a bust of Franklin that nobody seems to notice above the 2nd floor windows of an office building at 17 Milk Street (just around the corner from the front of the Old South Meeting House). On my daily walks at lunchtime I take a route that circles around the Boston Common and Public Garden (see map ), strolling past the bar on Beacon Street that was the setting of the TV show, Cheers.
Now that the Filenes building at Downtown Crossing has closed for remodeling, several great places I used to eat lunch that occupied locations on the outside of the building have gone, but I will keep my "reviews" here for awhile. One was the Mediterraneo, a takeout window on the front of the building on Washington Street. They specialized in gyros (pita bread wrapped around salad and rotisseried beef+lamb or chicken) but I liked their delicious Greek salad with the gyro meat as a topping and balsamic vinagrette dressing. Another associated eatery just around the corner on Franklin Street and serving great Mexican food, was Sabroso. Nearby was a hugely popular takeout place (the line was unbelievable), the Chacarero, named after a Chilean sandwich, the only item they served. They still have a restaurant on Province Street and their new takeout location is at 101 Arch Street. Their website has a great Phantom Gourmet video review (which also shows the sandwich and the line). I used to get the Chacarero when it was only sold on a cart. Another great lunch place is the Rock Sugar Thai Cafe on Batterymarch. I love their Masaman Curry with Chicken.
I get a feeling of pride when I notice how many people there are on the streets of Boston carrying tourist maps, knowing they have chosen to come and explore the city where I am thrilled and privileged to be every day. Sometimes I am a tourist here myself, once even going on the Boston Duck Tours.

Full of Beans – Scot Lehigh, The Boston Globe Magazine1, October 19, 2003
Civic pride and purpose are front and center in Boston, where the Zakim Bridge and convention plans are cause for celebration.
Boston's Modern Must-Sees
You know you're from Massachusetts if...
Things you should know if you're coming to Boston (that's Baw Stun)

Boston memories

Trolleys

John Hancock
"plywood palace"

Ho Chi Minh
on gas tank?

Kenmore Square

Fenway Park

Harvard Square

Back Bay

Aerial photos

"More than a feeling", a wonderful article in The Boston Globe Magazine1 by a writer who's early memories of Boston are similar to mine, contained the rhyme at the top that corresponds to the weather forecasting light on top of the old John Hancock building. In 1972, the year before I came to Boston, the old Hancock building had become overshadowed by the new, all glass John Hancock Tower, and the new building was having problems with windows falling out and crashing onto the streets below. Until the problem was solved there were many sheets of plywood replacing missing panes of glass and the building was referred to as the "Plywood Palace". Twenty years later Robert Campbell, the Pulitzer Prize winning architecture critic of The Boston Globe, wrote a great article about all this in the Globe, "Builder Faced Bigger Crisis Than Falling Windows", and he also described the problems that occurred when the foundation for the tower, which was built in the ground fill of the Back Bay, created structural problems for Trinity Church across the street. Once in the mid-70s when I was in Copley Square I stepped inside Trinity Church to look around, and the treasurer of the church happened to be there and he showed me that if I stood in a particular spot and looked up into the corner of the room I could see the sky outside because the walls had separated from the stress of the Hancock construction. The Campbell article also has a good description of the damper system used in the tower to prevent the building from swaying too much in the wind. Because of its central location, the observatory on the 60th floor of the tower, still the tallest building in New England, provides some of the best aerial views of Boston (here's a view).

Gone but not forgotten

There are many places that had their heydays in my early years in Boston. Some are no longer there, like the Jazz Workshop on Boylston Street, a club where I regularly heard some of the greats of jazz play; Debbie's, another jazz club near North Station on Merrimac Street, featuring mostly local musicians and no cover charge; the Orson Welles cinema on Mass. Ave. in Cambridge; the Combat Zone, Boston's district of x-rated clubs and bookstores (and the associated illegal activity). I really miss some of these places, others I don't.

The Blizzard of '78

We had a snowstorm in 1978 that dumped 3 feet of snow on Boston in 36 hours, totally shutting down the city for days. I took a series of photos which I have since scanned and put on my website. When I first created this Blizzard of '78 section on my Boston page, I mentioned having photos I had taken of the storm that I would be posting someday. I was contacted by Bostonia, the alumni magazine of Boston University (my wife Patti's alma mater), about the possibility of using some of these in their Spring 2003 issue's Blizzard of '78 25th anniversary article. Unfortunately, I didn't locate my photos before they went to press. Since then I have been provided with another chance to get my photos in print. I was contacted by Alan Earls, who was writing a book about the storm, Greater Boston's Blizzard of 1978, and he borrowed them (with credits) for his book. When I took these pictures, I had no idea what opportunities they would present in the future!

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Boston Harbor

In recent decades Boston's harbor has gone through a lot of changes, both in cleaning up the water and visual development along the waterfront. To get to work I ride a commuter boat from Hingham to Boston (see map), so my first sight of the city each day is a spectacular view from the water. An interesting feature of Boston Harbor is that Logan Airport is located directly across the water from downtown, so one method of getting to the airport is by the Logan Water Shuttle, which leaves from Rowes Wharf every 15 minutes. Many people traveling to the airport from the South Shore take the commuter boat to Rowes Wharf to catch the water shuttle to the airport.

Click the following images to enlarge them.

(read more)

The Boston Harbor Association
Massachusetts Water Resources Authority
Swimming at Boston Harbor Beaches
Tide Chart Index
Boston Harbor Islands
Boston Neighborhoods: Boston Harbor – some beautiful photos

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Boston buildings & settings

Boston tries to preserve its history as well as promote new development2, so you can walk around downtown and see skyscrapers right next to buildings and cemeteries dating back to the 1600s. The routes of some of the streets are centuries old, originally having only foot, cart, and animal traffic, which causes them to be pretty narrow and windy (giving directions can be a real challenge).

People are probably most familiar with the local buildings that are famous from the War for Independence, which you can see by walking the Freedom Trail, but there are other buildings, some not quite so old, that are also of historical interest. The Ames Building (1889), on State Street at Washington Street, is one of the tallest load bearing-wall structures in the world. Taking Photographs From Tall Buildings shows the view in 4 directions from the top of the Ames Building in 1894. A few blocks up Washington Street from there, at the corner of Water Street (right across from the Old Corner Bookstore), is the Winthrop Building (view1 / view2), built in 1883, the first steel frame 'skyscraper' constructed here.

Here are some links to photos and images of Boston buildings. See more below under Sightseeing.

Urbanphoto Boston – neighborhood guides and photo galleries

A View on Cities - Boston

Boston Buildings – photos & stats of individual buildings

Boston Pictures & Travel Journal – by Keith Stanley

Sky Boston – a cityscape guide with some great panoramas

Financial district panorama – the building with the arch is where my commuter boat docks

Boston's Skyscraper Guy – some nice photos with witty captions

Boston Skyscrapers – from Skyscraper Picture Collection

Boston's Tallest Buildings (SkyscraperPage.com)

Boston Images – paintings of Boston settings

HelloBoston.com

Boston Online - Historic Photos

City Views – this Harvard Medical School page has some nice photos

Aerials Only Photo Gallery of Boston

² In his article Urban Scrawl, Boston Globe architecture critic, Robert Campbell, says Boston's obsession with history may be stifling new architecture.

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Boston accents
(and terms)

When I first came to Boston, as a newcomer to the Northeast I had to adjust to the local accent (sister is pronounced "sistuh"). Then I had to learn the local vocabulary, which (sadly) has become somewhat watered-down over the last few decades with words used throughout the rest of the country, probably because so many of us outsiders have chosen to live here.

People born and raised in Boston speak with a very distinct accent. For good phonetic descriptions of the local language see these links:

Bostonspeak Primer – from an email

As heard in Boston – terms spelled with a Boston accent

Boston City Councilor – the speaker on this hearing video has a definitive accent

Wicked Good Guide to Boston English – Adam Gaffin's definitive glossary

Whatayou, retahdid? – actually listen to some .WAV file examples

Boston accent - Wikipedia

Things you should know if you're coming to Boston (that's Baw Stun)

U.S. Regional Vocabulary Differences – has a great map showing terms for "soft drink" by county

In case you wondered, the two guys above are Eliot and Barry Tatelman of Jordan's Furniture, who have very strong Boston accents and do a lot of amusing TV and radio ads. Speaking of TV, why do shows set in Boston feature few Boston accents? See "Actors iron out accents to reach more viewers" for an explanation.
For a silly (but true) page of Boston facts see "Things you should know if you're coming to Boston (that's Baw Stun)".

Colorful terms

In Boston we have our own terms for many things which are found everywhere, and some things which are only local. A few of my favorites are:

tonic (soda, any carbonated soft-drink)
frappe (a milkshake, pronounced "frap", not "frappay")
bag (you leave a store with your purchases in a bag, not a sack as they say in some parts of the country)
rotaries (traffic circles)
expressways (never called "freeways")
"the T" (the MBTA, the local transit system)
For an hilarious take on the language and cultural discrepancies between the Northeast and the Midwest (or the rest of the country for that matter), see Jenna's "Culture shock" posting on her blog.

Local places

Some of the local places have wonderful nicknames, such as:

"Southie" (South Boston)
"Eastie" (East Boston)
"the Cape" (Cape Cod)
"the Vineyard" (Martha's Vineyard, pronounced "vinyihd" with the local accent)
"Comm Ave" (Commonwealth Avenue)
"Mass Ave" (Massachusetts Avenue – the state name is abbreviated as "Mass" regularly in names)
"Mass Pike" or "the Pike" (Massachusetts Turnpike)

Town names

Sometimes we pronounce the name of a local town very differently from the way it is spelled (a good guide is "How to Pronounce Massachusetts Town Names").

Here are some local places:

Worcester ("woos'-ter" or "woos'-tuh", where "oo" is the sound in "book", not "moon")
Peabody ("pee'-bdee")
Quincy ("quin'-zee")
Woburn ("woo'-burn", where "oo" is the sound in "moon")
Haverhill ("haeveral", the second "h" is silent)
Chatham ("chat-m")
Hingham (rhymes with "gingham")
After hearing these terms so many times over the years (since 1973) they have become part of my vocabulary. I don't think I speak with a Boston accent, but I have been told that I do by people I knew from my youth in the Northwest. Hmmm? I'll have to ask my muthuh.

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Boston driving

"Survival of the fittest" summarizes the philosophy of the Boston driver, a very interesting breed. When I first drove in the traffic here, I thought Boston had the most out of control drivers I had ever seen. Now, after so many years of living here, I have become a Boston driver and I understand the concept. In Boston, somewhat regardless of traffic laws, as a driver you are basically on your own. Everything you encounter on your journey behind the wheel is treated with equal respect, whether it is a traffic light, road sign, or pedestrian. What this means is that you assess what influence each object really has on you and act accordingly, and in Boston traffic you are in a continual state of assessment and adjustment. OK, I admit it, this does tend to raise your stress level a bit, but it might be the only way to function in our traffic, which can be pretty overwhelming. This way of thinking also applies to pedestrians. We J-walk freely, judging our ability to cross the street safely using survival instincts, rather than depending on Walk signs. ("Power to the people!") I think this makes us some of the most aware pedestrians and defensive drivers anywhere. (Unfortunately, this also makes us terrors to drivers coming from elsewhere!) I think these methods are necessary because of the volume of traffic on our inadequate roads. It often seems that if the current laws, many written years ago when traffic was much lighter, had 100% compliance we would have eternal gridlock. When we are several cars back from a traffic light that is turning yellow, we know we will make the light because at least 2 or 3 cars tailgate through the intersection after every light changes to red. Sometimes it's the only way you will make that left turn. When we are the first car waiting at a red light, after the light changes to green we always pause before proceeding to watch for drivers on the cross-street continuing through after their light changes to red, and you must also watch the car waiting opposite you who may "bang a left" and cut you off. Driving in a rotary is another situation with its own set of unwritten rules. By law, the car in the rotary has the right-of-way over a car entering the rotary from a street. However, what occurs is that a car in the rotary is traveling at a speed slow enough to manage the tight curve, whereas the car entering the rotary is driving on a straight road and could be going 40 mph. Typically the car in the rotary yields to the faster car entering the rotary. An interesting concept in Boston driving is that if you can make another car yield you assume the right-of-way, and usually the other driver accepts this as a normal condition of driving here. Crazy! My advice to outsiders driving here is: Be assertive, but also be alert and cautious.

More information about Boston driving...

Honk if you drive like us - from The Boston Globe1

Excerpts from "The Boston Driver's Handbook"

Basic Rules for Driving in Boston (Subject to change at any time)

More Boston Driving Rules

Massachusetts Driving Rules – from an email

Boston Driving (from Discover Newbury Street)

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The Big Dig

The Greenway
Today

The Central Artery
Before

The largest public works project in U.S. history, bigger than the Panama Canal or the Hoover Dam, is taking place in Boston. The old Central Artery highway opened in 1959 to handle 75,000 vehicles a day,

but by the 90s it was carrying almost 200,000 vehicles a day, making it one of the most congested highways in the United States. The ground was broken in 1991 for the Central Artery/Tunnel Project (the Big Dig's official name) with a projected cost of $2.2 billion, which has grown to an estimate of over $14.6 billion (and it has come to light that $1.1 billion of this was due to mistakes by the engineering firm). The scheduled completion date for the project is December 2004.

The Big Dig consists of several main components:

Replacing the elevated six-lane highway (I-93) that slices through downtown Boston with an eight-to-10-lane underground expressway directly beneath the existing road
Extending the Mass. Pike (I-90) to Logan Airport, including a series of two tunnels
Building a new bridge for I-93 across the Charles River (see the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge)
All the interchanges to connect these components

I walk over the area that is the future site of the new greenway every day on my way to work (see my building), so I see the day-to-day construction progress. Some of the scenarios that have been proposed for using this land are listed at Creative Community Conversations.

Then and Now – a series of photos from the Globe Magazine, March 2, 2008