Boston’s South End: A Photo Collage

A photo collage of sites in Boston’s South End.

Learn more about these sites on the South End Walking Tour presented by Boston By Foot, this Sunday August 26th at 2pm.

Buy advance tickets for the tour online and meet us across from Back Bay Station on Dartmouth Street.

This Sunday: Boston By Foot South End Walking Tour

Come join a South End Walking Tour presented by Boston By Foot.

I will be one of the guides, but this is not just shameless self-promotion as the other five guides are a dream team of some of the best walking tour guides in Boston.  Come learn about one of the largest, most diverse, and dynamic neighborhoods in Boston.

Buy advance tickets for the tour online and meet us across from Back Bay Station on Dartmouth Street at 2 pm on Sunday August 26th.

Walking Tour of Davis Square in Somerville

I’ll be leading this Boston By Foot Tour of the Month of Davis Square in Somerville (which I also researched and co-wrote) on Sunday, July 29th from 2pm-3:30pm.  Admission is $15 per person, $5 for members (and you can become a member on the day of the tour).  No reservations needed, just show up a few minutes before 2 pm on Sunday at the plaza opposite Somerville Theatre.

October 30th: Avenue of the Arts – Boston By Foot Tour of the Month

Huntington Avenue photo courtesy of Yarian Gomez's photostream on Flickr

Come out this Sunday October 30th at 2pm for a guided walking tour of Boston’s Avenue of the Arts lead by Boston By Foot guides (including yours truly).  The tour begins in front of The Church of Christ, Scientist on Massachusetts Avenue and the cost is just $15/person.  If you become a Boston By Foot member admission is reduced to just $5 and you get lots of other benefits as well.

Have you ever wondered why so many cultural institutions dedicated to fine arts, music, education, religion, and sports are clustered in one area in Boston?  As we walk along this cultural corridor we’ll explore the history of Huntington Avenue and learn about:

• landmarks created by two of the most remarkable women in Boston’s history: Mary Baker Eddy and Isabella Stewart Gardner
• not one but two acoustically perfect concert halls
• not one but two historical figures named Eben
• the oldest artificial ice sporting arena in the world
• Boston’s lost opera house
• the many innovations and contributions of the YMCA
• the site of the first World Series game
• expansion and development at Northeastern University, the Museum of Fine Arts, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
• and much, much more

I’m particularly proud of this tour because I originated the idea and collaborated on the research and manual writing.  So please come out and join us to learn more about this fascinating Boston district.

Huntington Avenue in 1920, courtesy of Boston Public Library's photostream on Flickr

Book Review: At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson

Author: Bill Bryson
Title: At Home: A Short History of Private Life
Publication Info: Books On Tape (2010), Audio CD
ISBN:  9780307707376

Books Read by the Same Author:

• A Short History of Nearly Everything
• A Walk in the Woods
• Notes from a Small Island
• In a Sunburned Country
• I’m A Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After 20 Years…
• The Mother Tongue
• The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America
• Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe
• Made in America: An Informal History of the English Language in the United…

Summary/Review:

Bill Bryson travels through his English home and uses it as a launching point for this history of the uses of the rooms and the types of things one finds in each spot.  It’s something of a cluttered attic of a book (pun intended) with little bits of cultural history, material culture, architecture, and all sorts of odds and ends.  To be honest I listened to some of the audio discs out of order and didn’t realize it at first, so linearity is not important to this work.  While focusing on the broad topic of the home and private life, the focus of the book tends to stick with British and American history, and while some examples go back to Classical times most of the book is set in the past three centuries with the Victorian Era being Bryson’s favorite.  It’s a nice bit of compiled history told with Bryson’s usual wit and insight, although surprisingly his own voice is not as prevalent in this intimate book as it is in his other works.

Recommended books: How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They’re Built by Stewart Brand, The Archaeology of Home: An Epic Set on 1000 Square Feet of the Lower East Side by Katharine Greider and In Small Things Forgotten: An Archaeology of Early American Life by James Deetz
Rating: ***1/2

Boston By Boat

Boston By Foot is known for leading excellent walking tours of Boston’s architecture and history.  Now you learn about Boston’s architecture and built environments on a 90-minute cruise!  Teaming with the Boston Society of Architects and the Charles Riverboat Company, the Charles River Architecture Cruise offers a unique perspective on Boston and Cambridge.

I took the debut cruise yesterday morning on a beautiful late summer day and got enjoy a relaxing cruise and learn a lot about buildings and history along the river.  The cruise will be offered on Saturdays and Sundays at 10 am through October 17th (yours truly will be narrating on Columbus Day Weekend).  Tickets are $20 for adults, $15 for members of Boston By Foot. Come on out and sail with Boston By Foot!

The slideshow below offers some highlights of what you can see from the boat.  No captions, you’ll have to come on the cruise to learn about what you see in these photographs.

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Photopost: Providence

Today I took my toddler son Peter on a day trip to Providence, RI.  The main appeal of the outing was for Peter to finally get a chance to ride the double-decker commuter rail trains but I’ve been wanting to explore Providence for some time.  Despite living a combined 27-years in the neighboring states of Connecticut and Massachusetts I’ve not given much attention to Rhode Island.  I’ve driven through Providence past the giant termite, I went to a basketball camp at Providence College 20 years ago when I was in high school, I’ve been to a couple of Providence Bruins games, and … and that’s about it.

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The Providence railroad station is centrally located right next to the Rhode Island State House.  For the smallest state, Rhode Island really has an enormous capitol complete with gleaming white marble, neoclassical facades, and a looming hilltop presence.  I didn’t have any destination in mind, just wanted to get out and  explore. Peter & I strolled through Waterplace Park an attractive urban development of recent vintage which apparently replaced railroad tracks that once covered the river.  Then we visited City Hall Park where Peter chased after many, many pigeons.

While I would be content to study the attractive architecture of Providence, Peter wanted a playground and not being able to find one, we made our way to the Providence Children’s Museum.  The museum is located in the Jewelery District which actually looked like a district of unoccupied industrial buildings which was a little creepy.  The area around the museum was friendly and the museum itself was great – smaller but also less intimidating than the Boston Children’s Museum.   On our way back to the railroad station we walked through another part of downtown.  It feels someone how more urban than Boston and very different architecturally.  I will have to return to explore more when my attention is not so focused on a toddler.

Boston By Foot Avenue of the Arts Tour

Huntington Avenue photo courtesy of Yarian Gomez's photostream on Flickr

Come out this Sunday July 25th at 2pm for a guided walking tour of Boston’s Avenue of the Arts lead by Boston By Foot guides (including yours truly).  The tour begins in front of The Church of Christ, Scientist on Massachusetts Avenue and the cost is just $15/person.  If you become a Boston By Foot member admission is reduced to just $5 and you get lots of other benefits as well.

Have you ever wondered why so many cultural institutions dedicated to fine arts, music, education, religion, and sports are clustered in one area in Boston?  As we walk along this cultural corridor we’ll explore the history of Huntington Avenue and learn about:

• landmarks created by two of the most remarkable women in Boston’s history: Mary Baker Eddy and Isabella Stewart Gardner
• not one but two acoustically perfect concert halls
• not one but two historical figures named Eben
• the oldest artificial ice sporting arena in the world
• Boston’s lost opera house
• the many innovations and contributions of the YMCA
• the site of the first World Series game
• expansion and development at Northeastern University, the Museum of Fine Arts, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
• and much, much more

I’m particularly proud of this tour because I originated the idea and collaborated on the research and manual writing.  So please come out and join us to learn more about this fascinating Boston district.

Huntington Avenue in 1920, courtesy of Boston Public Library's photostream on Flickr

The Best Dam Walking Tour in Boston

I promote a lot of tours on this blog, but if there’s one tour you must take this summer it’s the Exploring the Charles River Basin tour offered by Boston By Foot guides (including myself).  The tour steps off at 2 pm on Sunday, June 27th from Nashua Street Park just opposite the exit from the Science Park MBTA station (exit to the right, not toward the Museum of Science).  Admission for this tour is $15/person and $5 for card-carrying members of Boston By Foot.  A great excuse for getting a membership now!

Not to frighten anyone off but this tour covers about two-miles of some-times rough ground with little protection from the elements.  So come prepared with appropriate clothing and fresh liquids.  The tour lasts approximately 2 hours but you can duck out pretty easily at the 90-minute mark if you need to.

While Exploring the Charles River Basin,  you will:

• discover three brand-new parks that most people don’t know exist.
• history of the Charles River and its ever-encroaching banks
• hear mellifluous words like bascule, freshet, and sluiceway and find out what they mean too
• cross not one but two dams
• see the only city jail with a waterfront view and a park across the street
• ponder our litigious society
• find what remains of Miller’s River
• get a new perspective on the world’s widest cable-stayed bridge
• and without fail you’ll see all manner of transportation, roads, railways, bridges, and waterways

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FREE Tour of Jamaica Pond on Saturday!

Saturday June 19th at 11 am, meet at the Jamaica Pond Bandstand near the intersection of Pond Street and Jamaicaway for a 90-minute tour around Jamaica Pond.   Yours truly will be one of the guides for this Jamaica Plain Historical Society walking tour.

Official description of the tour from the JPHS website:

Once a gathering point for Boston’s elite, the Pond had previously been put to   industrial use as tons of ice were harvested there each winter. Learn about the movers and shakers such as Francis Parkman who made their homes on the Pond’s shores. Discover how the Pond was transformed from private estates and warehouses into the parkland we know today.
Leaves from the Bandstand, Pond Street and Jamaicaway.

Come join us for a fun and informative tour.  Last year I lead this tour for 27 people and 4 dogs.  It should be a nice escape on a hot day.  Don’t forget that the price of this tour is FREE, although you may want to sign up for a JPHS membership starting at $15.