Boston Trip, Nov 2013

These are photos I took during Angel's and my trip to Boston in Nov of 2013. (In chronological order).

Day 1

We stayed at the Park Plaza Hotel just off of the Public Gardens and not far from the common. It was all of a 1 minute walk to get to the duck pond in the Gardens. Prime location.

The Trinity Church, not far from our hotel and across the street from the Public Library. This was on a day 1. The next day they had a farms market set up in the square between the church and the Library.

The Boston Public Library. I went inside the next day, but snapped this picture on day 1 during my morning wandering.

This is a front window of a fine clothing store that I past. those are all old sewing machines. I thought it was pretty cool.

The Red Sox just won the World Series for the first time in over 90 years. Apparently Washington is a fan. And that's a bright, red beard that he is wearing.

This is the bench that I sat on my first morning in the Public Garden. I wonder how they are doing now? Also, I wonder if Larry froze when he knelt down to ask Meghan. I understand that it gets cold in December.

The leaves on the Common. You can also see of of the many different features of the Common - the gazebo in the background.

The Current State House. Again, celebrating the win of the Red Sox. This is the first official stop on the Freedom Trail. That gold dome is visible for quite a while.

The Park Street Church is the next stop in the Freedom Trail and while I wan't able to go inside I did enjoy listening to the hymns that the bells played on the hours. It wasn't just one time either. It would play as many times as there were verses. I was able to hear it chime three times on my first day. Once at 9 am, again at 3 (on my way back to the hotel) and again at 5:00 on my way to dinner with Angel. Very beautiful bells.

The Granary Burying Ground, one of the first in Boston. There are many notables buried here including Benjamin Franklin's parents (the big monument in the middle), two other signers of the Declaration of Independence (John Hancock and Samuel Adams), and Paul Revere. Many of the grave stones are worn out but the who situation was really cool. 

A monument to John Hancock, erected in 1895. Obviously he died before that, but it seems fitting that he should have a pillar as large as his signature on the Declaration of Independence.

A view of the burying ground from the Hancock memorial. You can see how thin many of the gravestones are.

A typical gravestone in Granary. Worn, with a death's head at the top. These people could be quite macabre with skulls, skeletons and other "memento mori" stuff.

Paul Revere's grave stone. You can't see this, but many people will put coins on the monuments of the more famous graves. It's kind of a calling card and sign of respect. Paul Revere's marker had quite a few on top and that had blown off.

The plaque for the King's Chapel Burial Ground - I believed the oldest in Boston. It's first govonern, and many others are buried here. For some reason many of the stones were both more elaborately carved and in better condition then Granary. Also, there were many family tombs. There is a total of about 1000 people buried here and I really wonder how they got them all to fit.

The other sign for King's Chapel. Ironically, the burial ground wasn't associated with the Chapel, predating it (I believe). But after Boston had more than two burying grounds They couldn't call it "the old one" any more.

Another example of the the death's head on gravestone. You can also see the wear and tear on stone.

This is one of the more elaborate grave stones. There was a trend of putting coat of arms on gravestones and this is one of the first. Apparently there was speculation that Elizabeth Pain was the inspiration behind The Scarlet Letter. Some say that the fact that the coat of arms appears to have a covert "A" on it. There is no basis for this speculation, but that doesn't stop anybody from doing it.

One of the several tomb entrances. This one was the added security of having a path built in front of the door. Good luck getting out that.

Another fairly elaborate grave stone at King's Chapel. While it is not in detail you can see a skeleton (on the left) snuffing out a candle while a woman (right) tries to stop him. Interestingly enough this is one of three gravestones in a row that are all for women named Rebecca. Two of the three share the same macabre motif and they believe that the three were done by the same carver.

This brick work is set in the sidewalk outside of the old City Hall building just around the corner from King's Chapel. The City Hall how houses a steak house and has other retail space available if anyone is interested in prime locations. 

This picture and the next one go together. While along the Freedom Trial, this monument is actually fairly new. It commemorates the arrival of the Irish immigrants during the Irish (potato) Famine. This picture shows the state that the immigrants achieved. It also shows a teacher from Maine that I met and followed along with his 12th grade class from Granary to here. I wouldn't have known about this monument without him. Kudos to him for showing me. Thanks, Dan.

Here is the picture that I should have taken first. It shows the state that the immigrants arrived in - the despicable, pitiable, and retched state they overcame. The fact that pigeons really like to perch on this statue and (ahem)... is fitting.

This is the current state of the Old South Church. They are working on restoring the exterior wood of the windows and steeple. I do think that the lens flare from the sun was fitting for the church. I was able to get some good pictures inside, so I don't feel too bad about missing the exterior.

This used to be the "Old Corner Bookstore" one of the first publishers. In fact the publisher who produced The Scarlet Letter. I can't say that it was my favorite book, but I do feel sad that the book store was put out of business when Borders moved in right next door. There is a cruel Irony though. See the next photo for it.

This is Borders USED to be. It went out of business too. So now the closest book store is in the basement of the Old South Church. As they say, "there is always a bigger fish." "Too big to fail" doesn't exist.

The Old South Church is now a museum. It's important to remember that until Faneuil Hall was build in 1742 that the only places to meet were in churches. This dates to the puritan "meeting houses." Consequently it was in this room that the Bostonians decided to make the largest pot of iced tea in Boston Harbor. From here they stormed the boat with all the tea. If you're wondering, like I did, about the ceiling that is suspended above the pulpit it is not of religious or superstitious nature, but rather is a literal "sounding board" which was designed to reflect the speaker's voice down to parishioners, or other gathered people, and keep it from getting lost in the rafters. I learned that at the Old North Church when I saw that they had one as well.

As someone who is used to single benches, it was odd to see pews in boxes with benches on three sides - one of the sides placing those seated with their back to the pulpit. Again, in the Old North Church I learned that families would buy the whole pew for their use, with the more expensive pews being towards the front. The walls of the pew also help keep those assembled warm. Something to keep in mind in a town where the only trees "are on the common" as a docent put it.

This is a shot from the 2nd floor balcony of the Old State house in the middle of the financial district. The medallion commemorates the safest location for the Boston Massacre. The actual location is somewhere in the middle of the intersection. It occurred in front of the British custom's house which now has a Key Bank standing on the spot. Somehow that seems fitting.

The Old State House shown from the relative position of the old customs house. You can see how the old building compares to the modern skyscrapers and so looks just a tad out of place, but still style'n.

This is a picture of Faneuil Hall, the current visitor's center, and museum in it's own right. I wasn't able to go through the museum section as there were about two hundred people lined up to and I was hungry and anxious to move on. Still an impressive building for it's era.

Quincy Market is directly behind Faneuil Hall and was built strictly for market purposes. It is still used as such and has one of the largest selection of food court style eateries I've ever seen. Angel and I ate here on day three and could barely find a place to sit (not to mention choose what to eat). That's what happens when day 3 falls on a weekend. The buildings all around it are shops as well, so it's a prime spot for tourists and visitors.

Here is the famous Paul Revere on his ride. This, and the next picture are of the mall that bears his name. By this point the rain was coming down pretty well and my legs were starting to cramp up, so I was moving pretty fast. Also, the distances between sites on the Freedom Trail are more here, so It was fun to see a lot of local buildings that are either restaurants or homes. 

A better view of the mall behind Paul Revere.

Unlike the Old South Church, the Old North Church is still used for Episcopal worship services. Also unlike the Old South Church, I didn't a picture of the exterior with this exception. Remember, that it was from the Old North Church that the signal was given to Paul Revere to ride - the famous "one if by land. two if by sea" or as one colonial actor put it, "one if by land. two if by way of coming over the Charlestown river in boats."

This is the front of the Old North Church chapel. I always enjoy seeing other churches art, architecture, and services. The inside was both utilitarian and elegant. It was nice to have one of parishioners there to act as a docent for visitors. They where very informative and I spent a bit more time chatting with them and some other visitors. Then many other places.

This is the organ in the Old North Church. It was a very beautiful piece. I wish I could have heard it play.

This just gives you an idea of how many of the streets and sidewalks were made up. Cobble stones that weren't always even. It made for some interesting stresses on your feet and legs. 

This is the external visage of the Paul Revere home. Build originally in the early 1600s, Paul Revere bought it when it was 90 years old and fixed it up, expanded it, and lived here for about thirty years. They've restored four rooms with period furnishings, or at least period like in some ways. I heard one visitor as the docent how old the rug in the living room was. He looked a little abashed and said, "That rug is from 1984." However, much of the house is still from the 17th century, including the doors, some of which are made out of one piece of wood. I had a great conversation with one of the docents (who made the "trees on the commons" comment). She explained the different ways they would stay warm in the winter and the considerations they would have to take. She commented that many Bostonians still take the same precautions - sleeping all the in same room, maximizing heat sources, and setting a watch on the fire as needed. I've taken some of the same precautions myself, particularly in our first apartment which might have well been built in the 1700s for all the warmth it provided.

The last of the Burying grounds in the Freedom Trail, and by far the largest. Again, I was moving fast at this point and had seen enough death heads. But I did try to get some of the beauty of this ground.

One of the few places you can find trees off the Common. They were turning so while you still have greens, many were gold, like these, but we also had motley trees or ones that were red.

Some motley trees and a look at about a sixth of the Copp's hill graves. (If that).

The burying ground did have a decent view of the Charlestown River with some decent light, despite the rain. You can see how many of the graves are canting from the wear.

These old DUKW (pronounced and often spelled DUCK) amphibious vehicles are used to give tours of both the town and the harbor. A lot of people recommended  these tours but we were unable to go. It was fun to see them tooling around town (and later the harbor).

The view off of the bridge I had to cross to get to the Charlestown Naval Yard. You can tell how grey it is and I had to watch for cars driving too close to the swollen curb so as not to be splashed. However, the bridge itself was most metal grating. It made an unusual sound as they drove over it. I got a recording, but I can get it to post here.

I just got a kick out of this. Who names their boat Due Process? The Harbor Patrol.

The next two pictures are of the interstate suspension bridge, which I thought looked pretty cool. It's a little hard to see the lines here, but that's the angel and the grey background.

The other tower for the interstate bridge.

The caption is part of the picture. This is dry dock 1 at the Charlestown Navy Yard. One of the fist built on the East coast and one that has seen use from the 1800s on. It is certainly complex repairing a ship but this makes it easier. 

This was a board in the visitor's center of the Charlestown Navy Yard as part of a display about the changes that have been made in the navy. One of the things that ships have used for years is chain and I've never known how it is made. This board showed the different ways they made it. the chain links shown are one inch in diameter. 

Here she is! Or at least the back of her. This is the USS Constitution.

And her is her front.

And her middle. You can see the fighting platform on the middle mast. Marines would climb up during the fighting at try to shoot enemy sailors and boarders. These pictures also give you an idea on how much rope it takes to sail a ship.

Here is some of the carronade and one cannon (the cannon is on the far right). The carronade are short barred guns used for close quarters fighting.

The starboard side gun rail. In addition to seeing the rope on the pin rail to the right, you can see the black static line on the pin rail to the left. The fact that they have both "period" ropes and modern lines tells me that they built this ship to be able to sail. You wouldn't want to put to sail in using inferior rope.

A look into the rigging. I'm sure there had to be about two-thousand feet of rope. It just blew my mind.

The lower gun deck. These guns were the longer barrel cannon. I asked one of the sailors there and he explained how the carronade shot 32 pound shells while the cannon fired 24 pound shells.

You can tell that the Constitution was a fighting ship. Not much room for anything other than the guns. 

A carronade and a cannon next to each other on the forward port side.

Here you can see the difference between the barrel lengths. 

This is the view looking over the prow of the ship out into the Charlestown river and the harbor.

Downtown Boston is visible only because it sticks up. The buildings along the shore are the North End.

Looking up river.

Looking down river. See the yellow Duck!

The USS Cassin Young. She wasn't open for tours, but she is a Fletcher class destoryer that served in WWII and Korea. She served at Leyte Gulf and Okinawa. And while it was before my Grandfather served on her the USS Iowa was in a neighboring task force. This panorama shot was stitched together from the three pictures below. Not a bad job either.

The USS Cassin Young

The USS Cassin Young

The USS Cassin young

I took this on my way back to the hotel. It's the suspension bridge for the interstate. Can you guess what time it is from the traffic?

This is the top portion of the Soldiers and Sailor's Monument. It's tall enough to look out over the trees around it. Not the best picture unfortunately.

And... here is the bottom part.

I was delighted to see this. I recognized it right away as Ms. Mallard from Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey. While the story isn't true the Public Gardens placed this statue here to Robert McCloskey whose story "has made Boston Public Gardens familiar to children throughout the world." The book doesn't say the name of the park where the Mallards end up, but When I saw the duck pond it did look very familiar to me. 

This was what gave it away as the park that Mr. and Ms. Mallard come to. The island looks beautiful with it's red tree on it.

Day 2

The Island at the Public Gardens. I love the colors. With the rain the day before it seemed like the colors were brighter than usual.

You can see the Soldier's and Sailor's monument through the trees. This is on the Commons.

I loved the color of this tree. Still on the Commons.

This is the courtyard at the Boston Public Library. There was all kinds of other architecture and art that was fascinating. I went to the library for three reasons. The first was to see what they had that was unique. The second was to get in out of the cold. The third was to find a bathroom. Not three fantastic reasons, but three very valid ones. 

The library houses the marionette collection of William Addison Dwiggins a printer and puppeteer. These next few shots are from his collection that he made. I liked dinosaur and the bug. The detail and complexity took my breath away. 

These are the control paddles for the marionettes pictured above. I have no idea how you would even go about controlling these things.

This display hows designs, models and tools used for creating and controlling the marionettes.

As I looked at these different marionettes I would ask myself what stories they had been used in. I particularly liked the monkey on a rope here.

More marionettes showing the detail and variety of the collection.

Paddle designs and models.

This is the rare books and special collections room. The books along the upper balcony are from the private library John Adams. I asked if I could go up and look at the titles but that was not allowed. However, they library is online at http://www.johnadamslibrary.org/ for anyone who is interested. The lower shelves are from a group of personal libraries as well as books that are not associated with any particular persona.

A small selection of the potentially hundreds of sermons written by Thomas Prince, being held at the public library for the Old South Church. The volume that caught my interest in particular is the "Election Sermons from 1718 - 1721." I don't know how election sermons differ from regular ones, but apparently they do. 

After looking at the special collections, I found the section on local history and sat down for a bit with Mapping Boston edited by Alex Prieger and David Cobb with Amy Turner. It was an interesting book both about cartography and the history of Boston. The picture above is what the land looked like at the time of Boston's settling in 1630. The parts that show in dark green were the original land masses. The lighter green is what the land looked like in 1995 (the time of the books publishing). You can see how Boston went from a virtual island to a more then doubling its land area. An impressive feat that was accomplished little by little over the intervening 380 years.

The Trinity Church across from the Library towards noon. You can see the colors of the stone better. As well as my finger. 

A stand of trees in the Public Garden showing the variety of colors. It really was quite beautiful.

I spent the afternoon of day two at the Museum of Science. I made it just in time for their indoor lightning show. It was impressive. This is a petrified bolt of lightning, called fulurite. When lightning hits a patch of sand it will melt along path and you end up with this. The display said that such artifacts of lightning are rare, most are less then one foot or so. This one was close to five feet total.

I shot this video to show my kids what kinds of things you can do with science. Sorry for the angle and the light. The disc is made of aluminum, which is not inherently magnetic. However, when I push the button it discharges an electromagnet which creates a magnetic field strong enough to repel the disc with enough force to launch it about twenty feet in the air.

This and the next two pictures are of an exhibit on scale and perspective. The three chairs shown all share the same relationship. See if you can guess what it is. I'll put the answer at the end of the third picture.

This is the normal sized chair.

So, did you get it? I don't think it's very intuitive, but I was able to spot it because I had seen a Youtube video that talked about it. Each chair is twice the size as the last. The measurements are doubled. It's interesting to note that while the linear distances are twice as much, the area is the square of the previous and the total volume is cubed. Again, I wouldn't have known that without ViHart.

A giant grasshopper - part of their display on the importance and use of models.

Another set of pictures I grabbed for my kids. The museum had a space dedicated to natural science including mineralogy, taxonomy, and animal behaviors. This central display had size comparisons of several known predators. I didn't initially realize that it was a display of lions....

and tigers.....

And bears. "We're off to see the wizard!"

They also had a small section about dinosaurs. Every museum needs dinosaurs. Over all I really enjoyed the museum and would love to take my kids there. In fact, the souvenirs I picked up for them were from here. I don't think that science is appreciated as much as it needs to be. Odd statement for someone who got their formal education in the humanities and social sciences. But I think that science is really cool!

It wasn't until we got home that we realized that we should have got a picture with the two of us, but I was able to snag this one of Angel in the Public Gardens. Not bad for a sub par camera.

This is the sunrise as we fell out of Boston on our way home. Granted, this is looking west, so you can see the light from the sunrise. Either way it was an early morning flight and we were glad to get home.