BOSTON TRADITIONS
Within a ten day period recently, I had the good fortune of visiting two vital but contrasting Boston institutions: Fenway Park and the Boston Athaneum. Although the two edifices are only two miles apart, they are worlds apart in terms of their patrons, yet both, steeped in tradition, contribute to making Boston a very special place to live.
A former student had bought her boyfriend Red Sox tickets for a Christmas present, and, since she has no use for baseball, he asked me to go with him. Again, it was a sold out night ( Monday). It was good to walk through the old park, which reminded me of Griffith Stadium in Washington DC, where I grew up watching the hapless Washington Senators. The game itself was not great (the Red Sox lost to Baltimore), but it was the audience that made the best part of the evening. Red Sox fans are rabid (that's not news), but I have to admit a 26 year old fan near me provided the evening's entertainment. Armed with statistics, a cell phone where he kept us updated on the Celtics game (they lost, too) and an attitude, he knew he had an audience. In fact, he barely said two words to his very attractive companion, since he did have an audience. In another context, he would be considered boorish, but here, he fits right in. And my feeling is that the stadium and its preservation of tradition fosters such a passion.
To be sure, I was dismayed to see almost no dark faces in the crowd of 35,000, and I don't understand how people can afford to go so often. Our obstructed view seats in the back of the lower grandstand cost $48, Bud cost $6.00, and a sausage dog cost $7.00. I could have seen the game at my local bar with a big flat screen television for a lot less. But then again, I wouldn't have been at Fenway Park, with its unique and almost hallowed atmosphere. I'm glad the current owners seem to be committed to preserving Fenway Park. Boston would be a lesser place to live without it.
Down the street, I was also a guest at Boston Athaneum, now some 200 years old in a building diagonal from the State House on Beacon Hill. One of the oldest and leading libraries in country, its quiet and civilized atmosphere is a world apart from Fenway Park. Adjacent to the Granery Burying Ground ( in fact the children's room overlooks it - one can imagine children fantasizing about the ghosts of historic figures coming to life), one can find books which have been checked out to Harriet Beecher Stowe. In fact, until twenty years ago, books from George Washington's personal library was in circulation. Historic portraits are everywhere, even some good charcoal sketches in the elevator. It's another world. But one worth preserving.
The occasion was the last of a monthly concert series. It was a Beethoven piece performed energetically by a quartet from the New England Conservatory, and, while I listened, I was reminded of the difference between seeing a Red Sox game live and seeing it on television. The small but appreciative audience was enthusiastic in its response, and we were so close that we could see the passion for playing in the musicians' faces and body language that was akin to the passion in the Red Sox fans.
Walking around the Athaneum after the concert, seeing the magnificent reading rooms, I felt good about the fact that such a place could survive. True, it is a bastion of Boston Brahimism, although it is trying to do outreach younger patrons (people under 40 - Kris and Lee take note - hoping to draw younger members from Beacon Hill) but it helps to make one aware of why civilization might be worth preserving in the first place.
Having grown up in Washington DC, with few neighborhoods and having a history that because of the transiently, has no tradition, these two visits made me happy to have relocated to Boston more than 40 years ago. And, as I think of a family member having moved to LA, a city with no community or neighborhood, a souless city in the extreme, I'm glad to live in a city with all of its quirkiness.
And my visit to the Athaneum was topped off with lunch at Durgin Park in Faneuil Hall and a visit of a coffee shop in the North End, around the corner from Paul Revere's house. The day was neighbor a tourist day, nor same exercise in nostalgia. It was a day to savor the good fortune of living in a city that values tradition.
A former student had bought her boyfriend Red Sox tickets for a Christmas present, and, since she has no use for baseball, he asked me to go with him. Again, it was a sold out night ( Monday). It was good to walk through the old park, which reminded me of Griffith Stadium in Washington DC, where I grew up watching the hapless Washington Senators. The game itself was not great (the Red Sox lost to Baltimore), but it was the audience that made the best part of the evening. Red Sox fans are rabid (that's not news), but I have to admit a 26 year old fan near me provided the evening's entertainment. Armed with statistics, a cell phone where he kept us updated on the Celtics game (they lost, too) and an attitude, he knew he had an audience. In fact, he barely said two words to his very attractive companion, since he did have an audience. In another context, he would be considered boorish, but here, he fits right in. And my feeling is that the stadium and its preservation of tradition fosters such a passion.
To be sure, I was dismayed to see almost no dark faces in the crowd of 35,000, and I don't understand how people can afford to go so often. Our obstructed view seats in the back of the lower grandstand cost $48, Bud cost $6.00, and a sausage dog cost $7.00. I could have seen the game at my local bar with a big flat screen television for a lot less. But then again, I wouldn't have been at Fenway Park, with its unique and almost hallowed atmosphere. I'm glad the current owners seem to be committed to preserving Fenway Park. Boston would be a lesser place to live without it.
Down the street, I was also a guest at Boston Athaneum, now some 200 years old in a building diagonal from the State House on Beacon Hill. One of the oldest and leading libraries in country, its quiet and civilized atmosphere is a world apart from Fenway Park. Adjacent to the Granery Burying Ground ( in fact the children's room overlooks it - one can imagine children fantasizing about the ghosts of historic figures coming to life), one can find books which have been checked out to Harriet Beecher Stowe. In fact, until twenty years ago, books from George Washington's personal library was in circulation. Historic portraits are everywhere, even some good charcoal sketches in the elevator. It's another world. But one worth preserving.
The occasion was the last of a monthly concert series. It was a Beethoven piece performed energetically by a quartet from the New England Conservatory, and, while I listened, I was reminded of the difference between seeing a Red Sox game live and seeing it on television. The small but appreciative audience was enthusiastic in its response, and we were so close that we could see the passion for playing in the musicians' faces and body language that was akin to the passion in the Red Sox fans.
Walking around the Athaneum after the concert, seeing the magnificent reading rooms, I felt good about the fact that such a place could survive. True, it is a bastion of Boston Brahimism, although it is trying to do outreach younger patrons (people under 40 - Kris and Lee take note - hoping to draw younger members from Beacon Hill) but it helps to make one aware of why civilization might be worth preserving in the first place.
Having grown up in Washington DC, with few neighborhoods and having a history that because of the transiently, has no tradition, these two visits made me happy to have relocated to Boston more than 40 years ago. And, as I think of a family member having moved to LA, a city with no community or neighborhood, a souless city in the extreme, I'm glad to live in a city with all of its quirkiness.
And my visit to the Athaneum was topped off with lunch at Durgin Park in Faneuil Hall and a visit of a coffee shop in the North End, around the corner from Paul Revere's house. The day was neighbor a tourist day, nor same exercise in nostalgia. It was a day to savor the good fortune of living in a city that values tradition.
1 Comments:
BOSTON NOUS APPARTIENT
dear david,
( and i do speak has a hordcore Boston fan and have gotten in to many an argument when i declare Boston "the greatest and most culturally significant city in the world") ... It's always a releif to see the endless rejuevnation... but what the hell happened to the passion of the cities filmgoers???( the ones who make the effort to go TO a theatre? What was your take on the audiences at this Year's BUFF? I realize thatBoston has ot been singled out ( art houses have been closing steadily for the last two decades, and the illusion that ALL is availible on DVD and people have curbed bestirring themeselves to travel and make that EFFORT... and effort is part of the definition of PAssion ... ) and throughout north america has had significant downturns in thearical attendence for what we would deem "confrontational" cinema...
Anyway, there are just periods where you can't hep but wonder WHAT HAPPENED, as the days when theatres were full during retro screenings of the Marx Bors film at teh Park Sq. cinema... while a Preston Sturges Doouble Bill played beside a double bill of Last Tango and Streetcar at The Central Sq. Cinema in Cambridge, and down the road... Chabrol's Juste Avant La Nuit was doing first run at the Orson Welles and the Brattle was doing it's bit in Making Jean Pierre Leaud a household name, and reminding us of how great the Warned Bros. Studio was... and there were significant, knowledgeable and PASSIONATe audiences, often as eccentric as the Sox fans...
Oh to see Mean Steets screened at teh Harvard Epworth Church one more time.....
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