An Aussie in Boston

Photo of the Week - Boston Public Library

Woooo, long time no post! It's been a very hectic and just plain rooted week. Anyways, this is one of the statues they have outside the Boston Public Library. The Boston Public Library is the largest municipal library in the United States, so there's your random trivia for the day. Here's what it says on each side of the library:

On the south is inscribed: "MDCCCLII • FOUNDED THROUGH THE MUNIFICENCE AND PUBLIC SPIRIT OF CITIZENS"; on the east: "THE PUBLIC LIBRARY OF THE CITY OF BOSTON • BUILT BY THE PEOPLE AND DEDICATED TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING • A.D. MDCCCLXXXVIII"; and on the north: "THE COMMONWEALTH REQUIRES THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE AS THE SAFEGUARD OF ORDER AND LIBERTY".

Also, just about every philosopher, innovator, and inventor has their name chiseled into the sides of the walls. It's truly a site to behold.

The library is HUGE, and has stacks and stacks of books inside, a sorta nice cafe (if you like ready made sandwiches) and a decent restaurant inside. In the summer (and I can only imagine this, as it's still cold enough to freeze dangling body parts) there's a nice courtyard in the middle, which would be a great place to get a decent book and a coffee and read all day. That sounds like a great idea, I might do it now, except it's a Friday night, so I'll replace coffee with beer, a book with people to meet, and a courtyard with a dance club. So I guess I won't be doing that now at all.

Hope you are well, and family at home, hope I get to talk to you before the Easter Bunny drops its eggs everywhere!

Photo of the Week - Boston Skyline from South Boston

Another quick post today, just running off to meet a mate for St Patty's Day.Speaking of St Patty's day, here's a photo of Boston from a roof deck I was on during the St Patty's parade. Didn't really get into the spirit of things this year, but got to see a lot of "Tough Guy" Bostoners. Ah, funny stuff.

Photo of the week - Boston Skyline from North Station

 

Right in the center of the Boston Financial District is the customs house clock tower, which, if you are lucky enough to get inside and up to the top, provides an excellent view of the Boston Harbour. (Habor? American spelling?)

Boston really has one of the most beautiful skylines if viewed from across the sea. There's one of the many things that Bostons shares with Perth, along with it's safeness and.... not quietness, but you need to really dig if you want to get the most you can out of Boston and Perth. Boston is unlike New York, it doesn't just jump out at you, which is a good thing. The people are amazing, but you have to put the hard yards in before you can really get the most out of Boston.

Picture of the Week - Boston City Hall

 
Here's my attempt to try and make this building look good. It looks very nice when it is the most well lit building in the frame. It almost looks radiant.

I walk pass this space on my way to work everyday, and I find it really odd that an area that is meant to be like the center of town could be so underused. The building is rather ugly, and ruins what could have been a great vantage point to see both Faneuil Hall and the Holocaust memorial.

Its history from Wikipedia:

This monumental building was designed by Gerhard M. Kallmann, Noel M. McKinnell, and Edward F. Knowles, three Columbia University professors, who won the nationwide contest in 1962 to design the building. Their design, which was chosen out of 256 entries, revolved around the theme of creating a public and accessible character for the headquarters of the city's government (columns and eagles were out of fashion at the time). The architects were inspired in their aim for civic monumentality by precedents as varied as Le Corbusier’s works, especially the monastery of Sainte Marie de La Tourette, with its cantilevered upper floors, exposed concrete structure, and its similar interpretation of public and private spaces, and Medieval and Renaissance Italian public spaces. Many of the elements in the design were abstractions of classical designs such as the coffers and the architrave above the cement columns. Kallmann, McKinnell, and Knowles collaborated with two other Boston architectural firms and one engineering firm to form the Architects and Engineers for the Boston City Hall, responsible for construction, which took place from 1963 to 1968.

And how it is viewed now, also from Wikipedia:

Despite the widespread dislike of City Hall among the city's residents and workers, many architecture critics consider it a fine example of brutalist architecture. It is listed among the "Greatest Buildings" by Great Buildings Online, an affiliate of Architecture Week.^[4] In a 1976 poll of historians and architects, sponsored by the American Institute of Architects, Boston City Hall was voted the sixth greatest building in American history.^[5]

In 2004, Project for Public Spaces identified the building and space around it as the worst single public plaza in the world. In 2008, the Boston City Hall gained some international notoriety when Reuters reported that editors from Virtualtourist voted the building the ugliest building in the world.^[6][7]

Photo of the Week - Zachem Bridge

The Zachem Bridge is named after Lenard Zachem, who was able to bring people of different races together to work on improving the community. Pretty happy with the way this turned out, but it would have been nice to get rid of the highway lights. I really dug the angles the bridge used. You rarely see triangles used as arches in bridges.

It just looks so symmetrical.