Last of two parts
“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” —Henry Miller
Thus it began. Thus it ever was.
Thus it is remembered.
Faneuil Hall is often called the “Cradle of Liberty” as America’s first public meeting place. The Old North Church was built in 1723. On the night of April 18, 1775 two signal lanterns were hung in the steeple to alert Patriots outside of Boston that the British were marching to Lexington by river, not by land, which launched the American Revolution.
“One if by land. Two if by sea,” is part of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem “Paul Revere’s Ride.” On the midnight hour of April 18, 1775, Revere took his historic ride from Boston to Concord on the verge of the American Revolutionary War. His friend, John Pulling, held the two lanterns aloft in the Old North Church.
The British were coming.
Now to last week’s questions. Cows were banned in the Boston Common area in 1830. The Common’s only body of water is the Frog Pond. It is used for ice skating in the Winter and as a children’s wading pool in the Summer. The Robert Gould Shaw 54th Massachusetts Regiment was the first Civil War unit made up of free black people. There is a deep relief bronze to commemorate it that was forged in 1897.
Counting all the book stores in Boston is similar to counting grains of corn in a cornfield. There are 30 bookshops around downtown, and Russian, Japanese, and Chinese bookshops. There are the Boston College, Boston University, Tufts University and the Harvard book stores as well as the Kennedy Presidential Library bookstore. There are dozens of used bookstores. To visit them all would take a very long time and I had only a few days so I had to map out my route to visit as many as possible.
I especially liked Brattle Used Books on West Street which has more than 250,000 titles and now includes mine. Commonwealth Books was delightful and I could have lingered there all day to read. I was returning from breakfast at the Langham Hotel and a visit to the Quincy Markets when a Boston cop directed me to the bookshop.
The Old Corner Bookstore where Longfellow and Hawthorne visited has been torn down. A Chipotle Restaurant is at that location. I was walking where those men had walked and it was exhilarating. In 1718 the building was an apothecary shop and home. This gambrel-roofed building was the center of American book publishing in the mid-1800s.
I attended Mass at St. Anthony’s Church with lively music. Walked the grounds of Boston College. Took the underground tram to and fro. Met the nun Sister Luce from India when I purchased a small piece of Florentine art.
Restaurants were plentiful with every cuisine imaginable. I spoke to those from the Netherlands, Venezuela, Ethiopia, the Philippines, Amsterdam, China and others. I enjoyed the walk through Chinatown, even when a soft sprinkle of rain fell.
I had an appointment with the Mayor’s Office, Art and Culture Division. The City Hall Library now has my copies to share.
The hotel was chosen on expedia.com because of its location. It did not disappoint. It was close to everything and clean. Each morning the Boston Globe, USAToday, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times were free to guests. I read them all. I could live happily in historic Boston. I would hope to return.
Why do all the happy hours go so quickly? Well, it was time to go to the airport and for home. My driver to Logan Airport told me he had won the Boston Marathon in 2005 and had come from Ethiopia. His name was Hailu Negussie, one of 14,400 men in that competition. His time was two hours, 11 minutes and 44 seconds. When we parted, he bowed to me and said “God’s blessings.”
One Boston ad proclaimed “Life is an event. We have the tickets.”