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earlgreytea68) wrote2010-06-22 09:44 pm
Boston Foot Tour No. 5: Fenway--Part One
This is the last of the Boston foot tours, and encompasses my area of the city (or at least it will be my area of the city for a little while longer). I want everyone to know that, for this tour, I actually took a bus, which I almost never do, because I find them confusing and unnecessarily stressful as a result. However, I sacrificed for the sake of the 1937 book and all of you.
70. Christian Science Church
I’ve seen this church many, many times, but I’ve never before realized how thoroughly beautiful it is. Maybe because it was a rare gorgeous, sunny day in Boston, and so it was just a perfect tableau, but it was almost like you could trick yourself into thinking you were in Europe, coming upon a beautiful cathedral in a graceful plaza. Just gorgeous. And I’d certainly never been inside it before, it’s a very impressive church.
The book calls it, simply, “The Mother Church,” and then provides a brief history of Christian Science, which “was discovered in 1866 by Mary Baker Eddy.”
As the book points out, there are actually two churches here.
This is the older, smaller one, dating from 1894 and constructed of granite. It was the first Christian Science church in Boston, and it was obsolete almost as soon as it opened, giving way to:
This much grander building, called “the main church,” which was completed in 1904. It’s done in the Italian Renaissance style, with a great central dome, and a church that seats 5000 people. The dome rises 108 feet above the congregation, “with no support of pillars.”
This is the Publishing House, the headquarters of the Christian Science Monitor, which sits right next to the church.
The Mapparium is awesome. In all the years I’ve lived in Boston, I’d never been to the Mapparium, although I’d heard about it. I took the opportunity of this foot tour to finally go inside. You have to pay to go through, but I thought it was completely worth it. I’ve never seen anything like it, and I strongly recommend it. It doesn’t sound like much when it’s described, but it was incredibly neat. I’ll let the book tell you what it is: “unique in the world, a spherical room, thirty feet in diameter, with walls of colored glass depicting a world map.”
They wouldn’t let you take photos in the Mapparium, but I did take a photo of the bathroom, because look how nice it is:
71. Symphony Hall
Built by the famous architects McKim, Mead and White in 1900, it’s “a subdued adaptation of Renaissance forms,” “admirably suited to its specific function.” It seats 2,500 people and houses the Boston Symphony Orchestra, founded in 1881 by Major Henry Lee Higginson (and, in 1937 at least, “one of the finest in the country”). It is also, as you can see from the banners, the home of the Boston Pops, which is famous around these parts for its free Fourth of July concert on the Esplanade, at which the 1812 Orchestra is performed the way it’s supposed to be performed, with live firing cannons. The 1937 book describes the Pops thus: “In early summer a reduced orchestra gives a ten-week season of popular concerts, affectionately known to all Boston as ‘the Pops.’ For this series Symphony Hall assumes a gala appearance with gay lattices adorning the stately walls and the floor occupied by small square tables at which refreshments are served.”
Symphony Hall was also home in 1937 to the Casadesus Collection of Ancient Musical Instruments. I have no idea if it still is. I didn’t see a sign, but there was no performance the day I was there, so the building was all closed up.
72. New England Conservatory of Music
Established in 1867, this is one of the oldest conservatories of music in the country. In 1937, its graduates numbered 140,000, many of which had “attained eminence.” Inside the building is Jordan Hall, an auditorium with “perfect acoustics” and the capacity to seat a thousand. I have never heard of Jordan Hall, and I have no idea if it’s open for public performances anymore, although it probably is.
73. Northeastern University
The book locates Northeastern at 316 Huntington Avenue, which is now evidently the YMCA, as you can see from above. However, Northeastern still sprawls along this area of the city, as illustrated by the name of this T stop.
Indeed, Northeastern is so sprawling that it’s impossible for me to get a good picture for you. It’s almost every building along the street I was walking down. Anyway, in 1937 it was much smaller. Having been established in 1916, it boasted an enrollment of 5,293. The book notes that “the student is enabled to combine classroom instruction with supervised employment, effectively uniting theory and practice,” and this is still the case today: Northeastern is known for operating on a trimester system, with some of the trimesters spent interning.
74. Boston Opera House
Well, Opera Place still exists, but the opera house that used to sit on the corner of it doesn’t seem to. It could have been this building:
Built in 1906, the opera house is described as “a massive brick building of somber Neo-Classic design,” and this building roughly sits that description, but it just doesn’t look like a former opera house to me. For one thing, it has a lot of windows. So, my best guess is that the opera house was torn down to make room for this Northeastern building:
In 1937, the opera house was “plastered with billboards advertising downtown theatrical attractions, except during brief visiting engagements of operatic companies.” The book praises the Boston Opera Company, which debuted in the opera house on November 8, 1909 and was maintained for three years “at a heavy loss” by its founder Eben D. Jordan. I have no idea whether the company disbanded after those three years, started turning a profit, or began to be maintained with the help of other Boston merchants: the book does not elaborate. If the company only lasted three years, that might explain why the building seems to have been eventually torn down to make way for progress. As you can see from the rest of this tour as well as the other tours, the other Boston auditoriums are all maintained and used pretty much the way they were in 1937.
75. Museum of Fine Arts
As the 1937 book notes, it’s actually several buildings, but this is the main one. The book sniffs at the architecture, calling it “not-too-well-designed Neo-Classic,” but I think it’s a very pretty building, and exactly what an art museum should look like. The statue in front is the “Appeal to the Great Spirt,” by Cyrus Dallin, which has set in front of the MFA since at least 1937, apparently. Another angle on it:
The book may not think much of the building itself, but it praises the collection, which includes Millet, Copley, and Stuart, as well as “many examples of the work of Paul Revere” in its American Colonial silver collection. “Equally memorable are the Colonial interiors, consisting of entire rooms transferred from New England houses, together with their original period furniture. Notable among these in the American Wing are three complete rooms designed and execute by Samuel McIntire from his ‘Oak Hill’ in Peabody.” These rooms still exist in the MFA.
The book also discussed a copy of a statue called “The Dancing Bacchante,” by Frederick MacMonnies, which I think may actually be inside the museum. Apparently, the original of this statue used to be in the central courtyard of Boston Public Library, where it was unveiled in 1895. However, the statue’s nudity provoked “a storm of protest still clearly remembered by middle-aged citizens. Morals, especially the morals of youth, were regarded as imperiled and a suggestion was made in all seriousness that the sculptor be asked to clothe the figure.” Rather than altering the statue, it was shipped to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where it still sat as of 1937.
To be continued...
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I've never heard of the Mapparium, but it sound fantastic! I'll have to get down there soon!
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The Mapparium is very cool! I highly recommmend it! I did it because the 1937 book told me I should and so I felt compelled, but I didn't think it would be impressive, and it oddly was. Almost indescribable.
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Again - love these posts - especially this one with some familiar stomping grounds.
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I'm glad you enjoyed this visit to your neck of the woods!
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I'm thinking it wasn't always a bathroom, just because it has a lovely large window, and I feel like rooms built to be bathrooms in public places don't get a huge window like that.
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(Sorry. My throat gets sore, I get philosophical.)
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All lovely pictures, these! I especially love the Main Church and the statue of the Appeal To The Great Spirit, which I find very moving indeed.
Thank you for doing this!!!
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The Main Church is especially beautiful, and I'm glad you enjoyed the statue! Actually, I'm glad you enjoyed the whole tour!
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Thanks for another great tour!
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Glad you enjoyed!
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