September 6, 2011

Labor Day Weekend in Boston


Labor Day weekend in Boston might not sound like the greatest idea with a few million college students starting the school year, plus a few million more tourists in town for the last gasp of summer. But we had a plan.

First stop was the Decordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln. More popular with locals than tourists, as it is sixteen miles west of Boston, the setting is spectacular. Thirty-five acres of parkland and a mansion were bequeathed to the town of Lincoln in 1938 by Julian Decordova. The museum opened in 1950.

While the museum was to open at 10, you can roam the grounds earlier, so we got there at 8:30. Good thing too because there was so much to see.  And while there were so many sculptures out in the open, many more could be found in a grove of pines, or hidden by grasses, or just around a corner. Here are a couple, the rest can be found by clicking here.

ense pense by Ursula von Rydingsvard, 1997
Reflex by Michael Hansel, 2004

We finished up at the door to the museum, which is where we discovered that the museum is closed until September 18th as a new installation was being installed. Unfortunately, there was also a show of Anthony Gormley still up that we were not able to see. We weren’t the only ones caught unaware, but that’s the way it goes.

 Reflection II by Anthony Gormley, 2008

The early departure gave us a chance to drive down to Wellesley College to take pictures of the library doors. On the way we saw people harvesting in the fields:


And an old diner in Natick center:


Wellesley College has a beautiful campus and we had little trouble finding the Clapp Library where we sought the doors sculpted by Evelyn Longman.


They were done in 1911 in memory of Eben Horsford, president of the college, as well as founder of Rumford Baking Powder and advocate of the Viking discovery of North America. In addition to placing a plaque and erecting a tower on the spot he claimed the Vikings settled on the Charles River, Horsford commissioned a statue of Leif Ericson on Commonwealth Avenue that remains today.

(not mine)

We did find a piece of contemporary sculpture on campus:

Mozart by Kenneth Snelson

Then we checked into our room at A Village Bed & Breakfast in Newton Highlands. A nice old place, it wasn’t as colorful as some of it’s neighbors:


It was just a short walk to the T (Boston-area rapid transit) where we caught a trolley for downtown. It's funny that they call a ticket a Charlie Ticket and a reloadable card the Charlie Card.  This is from the song The Man Who Never Returned by the Kingston Trio.

On the way we met a family who lost their father/husband/son-in-law just three weeks prior. It was the first ride for the little girls, the grandmother told us, so they were distracted.  But the mother seemed to be on the edge of tears. They were from Millis, where my father used to work in the local hardware store on Saturdays.


I always enjoyed the ride into town on the Green Line as it goes through the Newtons and Brookline, under Fenway and Kenmore Square, and through stops at the Public Garden and Common. We changed at Government Center for the Blue Line heading north, under Boston Harbor and past Logan Airport. You can see the beach in Revere before the stop for Suffolk Downs. Just up the line is the stop for Wonderland dog track.

And they're off...

But we were here for the horse racing and to see Marty’s horse, Fitchville, run in the sixth race.

#5 Fitchville heading for the finish

I had never been here before, but you could sense that it was once more than it is today. I heard someone say they used to get crowds of over 15,000. Seabiscuit ran his first race at Suffolk in 1935, just five days after the track opened. It was here that he was “discovered” the following year and won the Massachusetts Handicap with jockey Red Pollard in 1937.


Fitchville, who went off at around 50-1, didn’t fare so well. But it was a beautiful day for racing. People watching was great as the track had lots of Boston characters. Mostly male, talking horses, and occasionally Red Sox.

Back in town, we went to the Public Gardens to ride the Swanboats. The Garden was established in 1857, while the Common, across the street, is from 1634. The Swanboats began in 1878 when Robert Padget created the first bicycle-peddled Swanboat, inspired by the opera Lohengrin. The opera is based on a medieval German story in which Lohengrin crosses a river in a boat drawn by a swan to defend the innocence of his heroine, Princess Elsa. Even though Robert died one year after launching his creation, the Paget family has operated the concession ever since. It was one of my favorite things from my childhood and was eager to share it with Marie.


Part of the lore of the Swanboats was captured in Robert McCloskey’s Make Way for Ducklings, first published in 1941. It tells the story of a family of mallards who took up residence in the Public Garden and followed the Swanboats while riders would toss peanuts and bread crusts to them.


In 1987 artist Nancy Schön created sculptures of the ducks, which have served as mounts for many little riders. There is also a set in Moscow, oddly enough.

Perhaps the highlight of the afternoon was the bridal show taking place around the pond. An ideal place for wedding photos, there was at least one ceremony held as well. Here are a few shots:


We then took a stroll up Newberry Street. On the way we discovered that the venerable Ritz-Carlton is now the Taj. I guess all things must change eventually. But the ambiance of the area hasn’t. It is still the center for fashion and Art in Boston and was mobbed with people. We stopped at a couple of galleries that had for sale lithos by Matisse and others, and originals by Dali, Picasso, and some by the Pissarro clan. We didn’t buy anything. Further up the street we hiked up four flights for an opening by four or five “edgy, gritty” young artists. Nothing memorable, nor edgy or gritty, but they did serve refreshments. We took the trolley back to Newton Highlands.

Also on the train were our hosts, Claudia and Allen, who suggested O’Hara’s for a beer and dinner, and it was a good one. The full-sized pints of Guinness were more than welcome and the Red Sox were on the television. They won that day, but lost the day before and after.  We saw lots of Red Sox shirts throughout the weekend.  My informal survey says that there were more Pedroia shirts with at least equal numbers of Youklis, Ortiz, and Elsbury, plus a few Yastremskis and a couple of Ted Williams.  Also in the crowds were Brady Patriot shirts and Paul Pierce Celtic shirts.

On Sunday morning we were greeted by a lovely breakfast before we made our way to the Boston waterfront. There we got tickets for the 11:00 boat for Georges Island. While waiting, we wandered past the Quincy Market and Faneuil Hall to Post Office Square, where we found this sculpture honoring the Hungarian Revolution of 1856 with a sculpture by Gyuri Hollosy done in 1986:


Riding through the Harbor Islands is one of the great treats in Boston. There was a jazz group from Berklee College of Music performing on Spectacle Island, which we passed on the way to Georges, home of Fort Warren.

Codzilla

While the fort began construction in 1850, it was still being built in 1861 when P.S. Gilmore brought his band out to play for the Boston Light Infantry. It was a member of this unit that wrote the words for John Brown’s Body (though it was called John Brown’s Song at the time.) When Gilmore heard the tune, he arranged it for his band and subsequently played it at many a concert or rally. There are those that believe that Julia Ward Howe heard Gilmore’s Band and used the tune for her Battle Hymn of the Republic.

the parade grounds

The fort was named for Revolutionary hero Dr. Joseph Warren who sent Paul Revere off on his famous ride and was later killed at the Battle of Bunker Hill.

We had a nice time wandering around the island, enjoying the views, before the boat returned us to the waterfront.


It was a fairly short walk to the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA). Founded in 1936 as the Boston Museum of Modern Art, it has always been a place for innovative approaches to Art. The waterfront location was designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, who, most notably, did the redesign of Alice Tully Hall and the High Line in NYC. The new ICA was opened in 2006, the first new Art museum in Boston in nearly 100 years.


We began by grabbing a snack at the Wolfgang Puck café where we ate outside overlooking Boston Harbor. The generous under-$10 plate of humus, baba ganoush, kalamata olives, roasted red pepper, black olive slices, cheeses (smoked, brie, feta) with warm pita, more than quenched our appetites.

Everything was on the fourth level and on the way up in the large glass-sided elevator we were able to get a good look at Swoon’s Anthropocene Extinction. The piece by the Brooklyn street artist began on the wall as you enter the museum and continues along the ceiling and up next to the elevator.


On the fourth level we found a variety of exhibits starting with a lot of work about record albums. There were pieces made from old disks, artistic reproduction of old covers and even David Byrne’s artwork for the More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978) which he did with 529 Polaroid prints. Turns out he studied at RISD.

There was work from 41 artists on display including Jasper Johns and Laurie Anderson and her Viophonograph.

Jeroen Diepenmaat's Pour des dents d'un blanc éclatant et saines, 2005

Other rooms contained work by Eva Hesse, Laurie Hewitt, and Doris Salcedo. Not my cup of tea, but there was a fairly large crowd on this Sunday afternoon. The museum offered great views of the harbor from a long solarium.



We decided to call it a weekend and took the Silver Line (underground bus) to South Station and the Red Line to Park Street then the trolley back to Newton where we retrieved our car and headed home.

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