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....So here we go, headed up 95 to Boston. Our usual Fall Foliage Trek has become, this year, a trip to the Big City. Fine by me. We wish to see the historic part of town as well as a few Rock & Roll Landmarks, as usual. Plus I remember there being a few ace used record stores on Commonwealth Ave., and I am hoping they're still there. It was, after all, 13 years ago that we were in this fair city for a company convention, and ended up coming home with more used LPs than one human could carry. So, as I say, we're on our way up 95, darting on and off from Rt. 1, just to keep things relatively scenic--of course, we are getting on Rt. 1 in all the very worst places because we don't know any better. We are sucking in, for scenery, a lot of Piles Of Tires. But hey. This is still something we can't see out our back window at home--at least not YET. Carefully-chosen music is on the stereo as usual, of course. In this case, if memory serves (since I'm typing this almost a year later) it was the Mojo Men, Vejtables, and....wait a minute, I can look this up. No, you may NOT ask how I am able to look this up....where was I? Charlatans, Keb' Mo', the new Van Morrison archive album, Kenickie, We The People, Hole....we have well-rounded ears, especially when I am King Of The Tapes and she has to either listen or jump out. Luckily this is not usually a problem. And the Mojo Men in particular have her little toes a-tappin'. Knew they would. Thank you, Sundazed Records! This euphoria, of course, cannot last--the car is making strange clanking sounds--really familiar ones, too--to the point where any minute I expect Dan Aykroyd to say, "I think she threw a raaad." Balls. We are on a particularly greasy section of Route 1 and I just wanna get to the hotel .....oh yeah, I skipped THAT headache. Apparently we have chosen to go to Boston during the ONE WEEK EVERY YEAR that you cannot get a hotel room anywhere near the city..... there's some kind of Wet Wealthy Cash-Constipated Rich Bastards' Regatta choogling down the river that week, and everyone in all of New England, apparently, has to stand on the Banks Of The River Charles waving at the Pretty Boats, without one thought given to the Standells. So where are we staying? We are staying in Braintree, which is not nearly as pretty as it sounds. Nah, actually I'm not being fair there. There's nothing wrong with Braintree, except for OUR purposes the only thing wrong with Braintree is WHERE THEY PUT IT. We are about 15 (lucky) or 30 (more likely) minutes from Boston by car--that is, IF your car is not spewing green fluids like Regan in The Exorcist. But against these odds, as David Bromberg would say, "Then we'd ride." We hobble into Braintree just as darkness is threatening, hump the bags into the room, (which overlooks a lovely 8-foot wall fronting an industrial park) and come back out to the car only to find, as I had suspected, the entire contents of my radiator in the parking lot. "C'mon home to Green River." There's a REALLY BIG MALL right down the road. We assume the car will make it there and we can make some sort of offering to Prestone, the Roman God Of Coolant, that will bail us out of the current imbroglio. (Have you ever eaten a Currant Imbroglio? Delicious.) So we get enough anti-freeze to last a while, and then wander around looking for a place to eat--there's a place (name of which I have now forgotten) which is some sort of Meat-Oriented place, big picture of a cow and everything--and it's highly recommended in the Tour Book. So we try to go there, but of course there's a 16-hour wait or something....so we hobble down the road to a little Family Restaurant place which I can't remember the name of EITHER, but it was good. Not Perkins, but close. And, at a nearby K-Mart, we obtain a supply of Radiator Stop-Leak--enough of it, actually, to fix a minor problem at Hoover Dam--and pour a generous supply of it into my loudly complaining car. We spend the next four days alternately pouring antifreeze, water, and THIS STUFF into the car in an effort to keep the poor bastard rolling till we get home. And remember, the hotel is a good solid drive away from everything we came here to see. Consequently I spend the entire four days fretting about the car and am only at peace while we're on foot in Boston. The next morning we wake up and watch Teletubbies--my theory is, I watch it because the color centers in my eyes need exactly that sort of stimulation before they're ready to face the day. (Rods? Cones? Which is it, class?) The "fay-ah" city of Boston is, at this time, in case you were unaware, Disemboweling Itself....in a truly fantastic urban highway project. They are cutting an underground highway through the entire breadth of a 300-year-old city......there's just A FEW BUILDINGS IN THE WAY, as you may imagine, and some of them have just SOME SLIGHT HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE and will tend to GET KIND OF CRANKY IN THE PRESENCE OF TRINITROTOLUENE, yes? In spite of this they have somehow managed to route traffic on the interstates in and out of town via some stupendously elaborate detours, flyovers and flyunders and Hey-Pally-Ya-Flysopens. It's a pain in the ass, to be sure, but they have managed it much better than the local Highway Cretins in our own neck of the woods could have. (With the sole exception, of course, of the redoubtable Mr. Sanzari and his Ramp Gazebo. If you're reading this outside of Northern New Jersey, I'm not even going to TRY to explain that to you.) Anyway, we deduce that, referencing the walking tour we wish to take, the best place for us to ditch the car will be somewhere near Boston Common, which is analogous to NYC's Central Park but just a large city block in depth, and you can see every corner from every other corner. Well, once again, the Traveling Rube is amazed at the simple things People In Other Cities manage to think of....stuff which would make life in Our Own City so much easier. We now see, as we approach the Common, why it's so easy for Boston to contemplate digging huge furrows through itself---they've already done it. They have hollowed out the entire underneathings of this 300-year-old park and turned it into an underground parking garage. It's huge. Monstrous. And INVISIBLE. We saw the same thing in Philadelphia, and in pretty much the SAME PLACE too--under the Liberty Bell. Why can't New York be this civilized? I mean, I know there's more rock and less dirt there--but geez. Anyway, we are taking the Historic Walking Tour today. At a later date we will take the Fancy Houses Walking Tour, but this particular bunch of sights is the one we really came here for, so here we go.
From there, you wind through the hugely-built-up-and-just-like-any- other-city downtown area......but most important buildings have been faithfully preserved, they just have this big f***ing CITY ALL AROUND THEM.......in stark contrast to Philadelphia, which has basically preserved the entire Historic District pretty much of a piece.....and, of course, New York, which has preserved Fraunces Tavern and essentially NOTHING ELSE, thank you very kindly. Anyway, it's pretty rattling to walk this Boston Historic Tour and find these ancient (by American standards) buildings hemmed in on three sides by Starbucks-laced skyscrapers. But at least they're still THERE.
The church is at the end of a long and very overgrown courtyard. The sanctuary is open to the public and still used as a church.....all the good burghers have their names on little brass plates so no Unauthorized Personnel can perform any Pew Usurpage. Very lovely and VERY TALL room. Only shame is that you can't climb up to the tower. Quite a bit o'atmosphere, though.
While in this neighborhood, you also go see Old Ironsides, but they want money to let you on board and there's a wait as well, so we skipped that and just admired her from the dock. All in all, this is a very neat walk and the only thing wrong with it is you either go back THE SAME WAY YOU CAME, or you go back through a part of the city which is thoroughly torn up, with lots of catwalks-where-there-should-be-sidewalks, and such. That's the way we went. We ended up back at the Common, and spied, off in one corner up by the Statehouse, a very interesting-looking place called Curious Liquids Cafe. But we were all walked out by that time, and got in the car and drove back to Braintree; where we tried again to get into the Big Meat Place (I really should look up some of these names but, ah, screw it.) and, once again, the wait was enormous and we didn't go.
Next morning, we set out for the city again, this time intending to do whatever shopping was going to be done.....and to walk the length of Commonwealth Ave, which is supposed to be quite scenic edifice-wise, and its funky little sister street one block over, which of course I don't remember the name of. Most of the modern-day record shops are there. We bought a small but effective pile of stuff, including a very wacky light-switch plate which now graces the music room. Many used LPs and a few CDs as well. And a book or two.
Well, the record store was a burned-out shell, and the Rat....is gone. Still there, but shuttered. Boarded up. So much for that. I took a picture of it anyway. We went back to the car (which was in a garage this time.....closer to the action) and brought it to the Common, to scope out this Curious Liquids place for lunch.
It seemed immediately to me as though we were way too old to go in there, but we shook that off and really enjoyed the place. So much so that we went back later, after another record-store jaunt, and capped off the evening there.
One of these alleys is of particular interest. They all go straight back to a sort of precipice that backs onto a city street way down below. The people who live on this one alley decided to handle this situation in a novel way. As you walk past the alley, you see down at the end what looks like a house. Facade, stoop, everything. Except it's not a house at all, but just a facade. There's no house. You can stare at it all day and it will still fool you.
We wandered thru Harvard, and then along the main drag for awhile, ducking into record shops and such. There is also a lovely little gourmet supermarket WHOSE NAME ESCAPES ME of course, We struck up a conversation with the woman behind the counter, and at one point she asked us if we were from Connecticut. No, and why did you think so? Her reply: "It must have been the nutmeg." Yeah!!
And. to conclude our travelogue, that night we finally did make it to the Big Meat Place where I had a big heaping plate full of "Meat Comma Various." No vegetables. It was very good and I still can't move the right side of my face following the massive stroke I had on the way back out to the parking lot. We drove perforce homeward, spewing antifreeze the entire way. It was fun.  |
You start out at the Common; and at the top edge of it, across Beacon Street, is the Statehouse. Pretty impressive little shack it is, too. Virtually all areas of the building are public access and you can drool right on the marble should you so choose. The Fodor's tour takes you from there down one side of the Common, around a bend to a colonial-era church and cemetery, whose name escapes me, but it happens to contain what's left of several folks of whom you've heard, with markers still very much intact--Revere, Hancock, Samuel Adams, Crispus Attucks--the head spins. Here they are, all in one place.
One rather unsettling thing, if you're not used to seeing it, is a certain quaint custom favored in colonial times.....they're not content with simply quoting the concept of "dust to dust" in church. They feel a need to underline it in their cemeteries. A significant number of the headstones have a macabre grinning skull and crossbones carved into them.......some of 'em are very small and nondescript, so that when you first see it, you're not quite sure what you just looked at, till you stare at it a little longer.....but some of 'em (like this one here) just threaten to bite your kneecaps off. Eeeek!
A couple of churches and meeting-houses and what-have-you later, you come to Faneuil Hall, which is of course Boston's equivalent to New York's "Houston Street"--the barometer by which the locals measure you, by your ability to pronounce it properly. Well, we had the Fodor's book, pal....we weren't being caught out. (In case you're wondering, either "Fanwool" or "Fann'l" is acceptable.) The former Meetin'house is now a little mini-mall, but that's not as bad as it sounds. Kinda neat, actually.
And outside, they have a big courtyard and two long hangar-like buildings comprising many shops and about six hundred places to eat. In the long courtyard in the middle, you will find, inexplicably, a big ol' lifesize chunk of iron forged into the shape of Red Auerbach. It's not in a sort of "Hall Of Heroes" or anything like that.........it's pretty much just Red and the Pigeons, (Great band, weren't they?) and whatever IDIOT is currently sitting there getting his picture taken with Red, who is not so much red as gun-metal gray, and not looking any too healthy. Just like the IDIOT.
From here you go crosstown, across the Big Dig (this is NOT a wily Captain Beefheart reference......that's what they actually call it) under some overpasses and through some SERIOUS construction.....to a little nondescript wood-frame house, which turns out to be Paul Revere's house, still standing and lovingly restored. How about that? It looks perfectly period-authentic, inside and out. The roof is a little warpy, but the place is in great shape otherwise. And it's MADE OF WOOD.
From here you go through some more serious construction, up to the Northernmost part of the city, heading toward the famous "One if by land, two if by sea" church. On the way, you pass another cemetery on a high and very scenic knoll, and across the street is a most interesting little house.....one window wide and three floors high. Actually, it's just set sideways from the road but you don't immediately notice that. You picture the entire innards of the place being taken up by a firemen's pole.
Way way further down on Commonwealth, past most of this stuff, was one more record shop, and a famous rock-and-roll landmark.....Boston's Fillmore, as it were...the Rathskeller, or "Rat." These two being right next door to each other, we concluded that it would be worth the walk.
Well, I fell instantly in love with the place. It's not a standard-issue coffeehouse by any means. First of all, the menu is nonexistent. They hand you a mix-and-match form, which you check boxes on. This flavor, with this kind of base, with this kind of bubbles....etc. If you're hungry, they'll make you a sandwich: this kind of bread, these kinds of meat, this kind of cheese, these kinds of toppings.....just check 'em off. And they build it right in front of you. Cheerfully. The atmosphere is just clean enough and just grubby enough. The drink I decided on was some sort of creamy seltzery limey kind of thing...... really good. I could have had eight or nine more.
What's even more interesting is the place itself. You don't really get a sense of it from the pictures here, but basically they've carved a little coffeehouse out of a building whose shape is good for pretty much NOTHING. All their kitchen machinery stuff is in the center, and there are just a couple of tables, stools, and counters splayed around the perimeter, which is all floor-to-ceiling windows. Downstairs are two rooms, both of which look very deliberately like college-campus activity rooms, but very different from each other. Much more room down there....couches, tables, posters, etc.
On the final day we took another walking tour....the Beacon Hill tour. Quite a bit to see, and all of it great. Not much to give it in the way of WORDS, though. Except for this: a kindly old fella walking his dog sees that we're taking a walking tour thru his neighborhood, 
and gives us some extra counsel on said environs. Including the little info-nugget that you can just open the gates on the little gated alleys and walk right in, and nobody cares. We suspected it might be A TRAP, but we went in to a couple of them anyway and it was nice to have had that chance.
Finally, we got in the car and drove to Cambridge. We walked through the town and straight to Cambridge Common, imagining we might run into the ghost of Jonathan Richman, but of course he's still alive, isn't he?
and a 
Our last Sworn Duty in Cambridge was to visit the two former sites of famed folk-music venue Club 47. The second site evolved into a club named Passim's, which is still there.....turns out I had been there before, while still in high school, when cousin Pete took me to see BU, where I had applied. And we went to a Jim Dawson concert at this same Passim's. (Which is why Pete was there.) And it looked just as I remembered it, but with less hippies and wealthy revolutionaries.
The original Club 47 is gone, of course....what's there now is a dry cleaners', and Joan Baez was NOT there, and I don't even think it's the same building.....looks too new. Well, I took a picture of the condos where Winterland used to be, so why not take a picture of this too?