Hairspray and history

From Washington, it was on to Boston for the weekend, touching down shortly before 10:30pm on Friday night. I'd always wanted to visit this city but had never quite made it. Our first day, Saturday, was largely washed out by heavy rain, although we took time out to see a hilarious Broadway show called Hairspray. It's about a plus-size girl who defies the odds to become a teen idol TV star. I'd seen it in NYC several years ago and wanted to share it with Garry. He loved the show. As for me, it was just as funny the second time around. 

Thanks to the inclement weather, we limited ourselves to a damp afternoon walk around our hotel's neighbourhood on Saturday. All in all, we eventually walked about 3km. Our scenic route took us through nearby Copley Square, the Boston Public Gardens (home to an iconic statue of George Washington on horseback), Boston Commons and the Granary Burying Ground (the final resting place of Paul Revere and Samuel Adams), before finishing up at Faneuil Hall. We stopped for a light pub meal as darkness fell, then caught a cab back to prepare for our night out. 

Faneuil Hall is an interesting place. This ruddy brick building, now the centerpiece of the restored Faneuil Hall Marketplace, was erected by the Town of Boston in 1742. It is sometimes referred to as "the Cradle of Liberty" as it was the venue for speeches by revolutionary Americans like Samuel Adams encouraging independence from Great Britain. Adams is immortalised by a statue at its entrance.

Sunday morning dawned with better weather, enabling us to see most of the old town on foot. Boston's oldest suburbs are filled with beautiful old buildings and history. One such building is Trinity Church, a soaring 19th-century Episcopal church on the edge of Copley Square. As luck would have it, we enjoyed a superb view of this local landmark from our hotel room. I secured our impressive view courtesy of some Starwood loyalty points I'd cashed for three nights at the Westin Copley Place.

Copley Square is also home to the finish line of Boston's renowned marathon. This athletic milestone is preserved in marble on the pavement along the plaza's western perimeter. Nearby, on our first day wandering, we also came across a delightful, but damp, sculpture depicting the Hare and Tortoise of Aesop's fable folklore. 

However, I preferred the equally quirky Make Way for Ducklings sculpture we encountered a few blocks away in the Boston Public Gardens. It depicts the duck family from the children’s classic of the same name. Next door in the famous Boston Common we found more fictitious characters cast in bronze by the aptly named Frog Pond. Apparently, the pond doubles as an ice skating rink in winter.

On Sunday, I was thrilled to finally visit Old North Church in North End, Boston’s original historic neighbourhood. The church’s steeple was used to warn locals of approaching British soldiers during the American Revolution. Two lanterns were hung in its distinctive white tower for less than a minute to avoid attracting the attention of the Brits. We've all heard of Paul Revere who saw this signal. He went on to ride through the night warning nearby counties.

Boston’s revolutionary horseman is immortalised in bronze nearby. This imposing statue rests on a pink granite plinth at the end of Paul Revere Mall, a leafy pedestrian boulevard extending eastward from the church. Cyrus Dallin, a 23 year old artist, won a competition to erect the sculpture in 1885. We later learned that he cast several versions of this statue, some of which are displayed elsewhere in the city.

You can also tour Paul Revere's home, a three-story weatherboard house located few blocks from his bronze effigy. It was built about 1680, making it the oldest surviving house in downtown Boston. Despite several renovations, about 90 per cent of what you see today is still original. Garry and I took one look at the queue to get in and decided it wasn't for us.

Curiously, the Old North Church’s sanctuary isn’t fitted with regular rows of parallel pews. Instead, its seating is divided into low-wall cubicles called box pews. Families and congregation groups once paid a weekly fee to retain exclusive use of their cubicles. The layout visible today was restored in 1912 and includes some of the original doors, hinges, and panelling from 1723.

Another unexpected highlight was our visit to the Christian Science headquarters. Here we saw the Mapparuim. It's a three-story spherical stained-glass globe room glazed with a political map of the world as it appeared in 1935.

You effectively walk into a spherical room across a glass bridge suspended in mid-air and view the world as if you were standing at its core, looking outwards. It's an incredible experience!  However, visitors aren't allowed to carry cameras and loose items inside. Hence the image below was ripped from the internet. You can read more here. 

One final highlight from Boston. This one’s for infrastructure nerds. I was delighted when our cab from the airport took us through tunnels that make up Boston’s new Big Dig highway. This massive infrastructure project in the central city re-routed a highly congested, elevated highway underground and added a new underwater link to the airport. 

The project has taken almost 15 years to complete. Construction delays and cost overruns have made it the USA’s most expensive highway project. However, despite these challenges, it helped inspire Sydney’s burgeoning network of underground motorways. For a geek like me, it provided an impressive and seamless transfer from the airport to our hotel.

From Boston, it was on to Princeton where I briefly broke my sabbatical to attend a global Text 100 conference. Over the next five days, I met the leadership team I now work with across Europe. I was also given the floor to share a few insights into the success we'd achieved in APAC.  Much of my presentation was crafted on our overnight flight across the Pacific.

Staying at Princeton brought back more childhood memories. I'd last been here during my exchange student year. My host father, host sister Marcia, and I had driven down from Syracuse to see the University campus in February 1984.

At the time Marcia was considering Princeton as a college option for studying a computer science degree. I recall that she visited the campus computer lab, a room filled with large clunky desktops. It was more than a little ironic that I found myself back in town 21 years later, pursuing my own career in the technology industry.

While I attended the conference, Garry spent most of his time playing golf, shopping, and enjoying the parklands around the town. Princeton is stunning, filled with many old gothic buildings and parks filled with autumn-coloured oak trees. As you'd expect, the squirrels are everywhere preparing for winter.

Once I'd completed my professional obligations, Garry and I got back on the road. Our next stop was the French Canadian city of Montreal.