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Posts Tagged ‘beacon hill’

Looking at Photos

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 10, 2024| 12 Comments »

We’re saying good-bye to our home of 42 years.

I haven’t posted photos for a while. Increasingly, I feel uninspired on cloudy, overcast days, and we have had a lot of those this winter. But here are the photos I did shoot. They were all all taken in Massachusetts, with the exception of the last one, my Providence granddaughter’s Model Magic dragon.

Happy Year of the Dragon!

First comes the big snowfall we had in early January, then the bleak, rainy days that came after the snow melted. The river is the Sudbury. The river photo is followed by a memorial at the neighboring hospital, where everyone from our community goes, at least initially, when they have an emergency.

I think it’s good to be reminded what it was like in the early days of the pandemic.

Finally the sun came out. I took photos of the footbridge over Nashoba Brook, which was hurrying along as if it were spring already. Also in sunshine, a mossy-roofed shed caught my eye.

Do you see balconies next? After the balconies, is the train depot. I was there in the early morning to catch the train to Boston for annual checkups at MGH. While in town, I also took a shot of the Beacon Hill area off Charles Street.

PS All dragons smile, if we know how to look at them.

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UUs Move From Beacon Hill

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on March 11, 2015| Leave a Comment »

A year or so ago the Unitarian Universalist Association sold their historic but drafty headquarters on Beacon Street near the Massachusetts State House and started fixing up a former warehouse in the Fort Point area, also referred to as the Innovation District.

Whether in the long run this will prove to have been a wise move remains to be seen. But having decided to take a peek at the new place recently, I feel I am qualified to opine that the new headquarters is better insulated.

The building at 24 Farnsworth Street, which in addition to the UUA headquarters, houses the Beacon Press and a UU bookstore, was extremely quiet when I went on a weekday afternoon — like a library of yore. There was a receptionist in the reception area, two people working quietly at computers in the bookstore, and low voices from two meeting rooms in the back. I took a few pictures. I really liked the high ceilings and the tall warehouse pillars and windows.

I am crazy about the Fort Point area, but I am also concerned that the plethora of brand new office buildings is not helping the area’s vulnerability to a future Hurricane Sandy. It’s next to Boston Harbor and extremely exposed. Some builders are actually incorporating flood walls.

The Boston Globe had this story: “Boston’s effort to redevelop its waterfront is running into a major obstacle: Water. From downtown to East Boston to Dorchester, rising sea levels are posing an increasingly urgent threat to developers’ plans to build hundreds of homes, offices, stores, and parks along Boston Harbor, with many acknowledging the need to reinforce existing properties and redesign new ones in case of flooding from another Hurricane Sandy-like storm. …

“Several building owners are already preparing for the growing possibility of flood waters. At Fan Pier, developer Joseph Fallon has moved critical electrical systems higher in his buildings. Nearby, developers of a residential tower at Pier 4 are proposing to use special flood barriers for lower entrances. And the newly built Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Charlestown is surrounded by protective walls and landscaping buffers, and no patient programs are located on the ground floor.”

The entrance to the new UUA headquarters is up several stairs, so maybe the planners were cognizant of potential floods and hoping never to regret their loss of the hill.

wall-of-large-donors

UUA-bookstore

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

24Farnsworth-windows

 

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Behind this Door Lies … What?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on August 17, 2013| 6 Comments »

Suzanne sent me this door from Denmark.
doorway-in-Denmark

It made me think of the book The Door in the Wall, by Marguerite De Angeli. I don’t remember the story, but I do remember the illustration of the door and the scent of mystery: What is behind a door like that?

I started taking photographs of doors.

Behind almost any one of these I can picture Frances Hodgson Burnett’s Little Princess dining on bread crusts and water in her drafty garret until an emissary from the man who back in India bankrupted her father sneaks through a window (with monkey) while she is out doing chores, and redecorates her space with luxurious fabrics and fittings and a luscious spread of sweets.

Can’t you?

doorway

doorway-2

doorway-3

dorrway-4

doorway-5

doorway-6

doorway-7

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Autumn in New England

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 25, 2011| Leave a Comment »

This is the time of year for walnut trees to bear fruit, for bees to bring in the last of the wine, and for block parties. Beacon Hill’s party is way more elaborate than any block party in Concord and is considered a time to raise funds for a cause. See if you can guess which party is which.

Orchard
by H. D.

I saw the first pear
as it fell—
the honey-seeking, golden-banded,
the yellow swarm
was not more fleet than I,
(spare us from loveliness)
and I fell prostrate
crying:
you have flayed us
with your blossoms,
spare us the beauty
of fruit-trees.

The honey-seeking
paused not,
the air thundered their song,
and I alone was prostrate.

O rough-hewn
god of the orchard,
I bring you an offering—
do you, alone unbeautiful,
son of the god,
spare us from loveliness:

these fallen hazel-nuts,
stripped late of their green sheaths,
grapes, red-purple,
their berries
dripping with wine,
pomegranates already broken,
and shrunken figs
and quinces untouched,
I bring you as offering.

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