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Boston: More than Getting Scrod and Baking Beans

By Craig Lancto

Nothing says New England like a sweltering week in Washington, DC.  At least, that was my thinking when my two youngest grandchildren and I took off for a long weekend in Boston. As it turns out, it couldn’t have been a better decision.

We traded hot, hazy, and humid for Back Bay’s cool breezes and pleasant temperatures, where the Colonnade Hotel, with the only rooftop swimming pool in town, healed us sufficiently to allow us to face returning to the sauna we call the nation’s capital. Directly across the street from the Prudential Center, the largest shopping center in Boston, the Colonnade’s rooftop view includes not only the Prudential Center, but also an unusual view of the Christian Science Mother Church and its reflecting pool on the next block.

As a teenager living in Western Massachusetts, I had spent more than my share of time in the state capital, but it took several more decades before I discovered that there was life beyond Fenway Park.

I have to admit that I prefer having a chauffeured limo meet me at the airport to having to track down my own transport into town, so when Dav El Chauffeured Transportation Network sent a car to meet us at Logan, I was already in the mood to enjoy a few days away from my newspaper chores. With two of my favorite redheads in tow, we headed into the Hub.

Kevin, my ten-year old grandson, pronounced the Mercedes limo “wicked” and destroyed the whole spirit of pretentiousness I have worked so hard to instill in him by jumping joyfully into the shotgun seat. However, when I diverted him from this bourgeoisie by reminding him that he had to be thirteen to sit in front, he morosely joined his sister and me in the back seat.

At the Colonnade, Marketing and Sales Manager Christopher Lynn gave us a tour of the facilities, including the elegant ballrooms with trompe l’oeil ceilings in the corridors and padded silk wall coverings, and the newly renovated themed suites, harbingers of a major renovation the hotel will enjoy this fall.

The next morning, after a hearty breakfast in the adjacent Brasserie Jo, we crossed Huntington Avenue and soared fifty floors to the Sky Walk and a 360-degree view of Boston. It was a beautiful day, but we stopped long enough to watch two brief but very entertaining and informative films, “Wings Over Boston,” a beautiful helicopter tour of the city by day and night, and “Dreams of Freedom” a sensitive overview of immigration that provides an introduction to the immigration museum and exhibits along the Skywalk. {Place Pru Center here}

Holograms and other special effects made the films riveting to some of the younger people in the audience.

After a brief but costly exit through the gift shop, the children joined some new friends looking through telescopes and racing from view to view, while I spied out such sites as the scene of the Boston Tea Party, the Harbor Islands, and Fenway Park—actually Kevin and two new friends, Michael and Jamie, swore that they were watching the Red Sox play, but with the team still in Chicago, we decided it was the grounds crew, also a fun bunch, I suppose. 

When the elevators whisked us back to ground level, we emerged to find a purple Duck with our name on it—figuratively speaking. The launch pad for Boston Duck Tours is just outside the Prudential Building, and the purple boat, captained by Sven, elegantly arrayed in a Viking helmet and a fur skirt he swore was designed by Armani, awaited our party.

Clambering aboard the World War II amphibious craft (A GM truck with a propeller), we were instructed in Ducketiquette, when and how to quack at passersby, and more importantly, when to still our bills.

Passing Boston Public Garden, we dared to look longingly at the graceful Swan Boats, {Place Swan Boats here}hoping that Sven would not take Duckumbrage at our disloyalty. Secretly, we vowed to take a swan ride after we had disemducked from this tour.

As we drove between Boston Public Garden and Boston Commons, Sven pointed out that the original Boston, Shawmut, had stopped at the Charles Street fence, and Back Bay was essentially a huge landfill project.

But then we were waddling up Beacon Hill and passing the State House, {Place State House here} where Sven explained that the dome had been gilded by Paul Revere, better known as an engraver and silversmith than for the equestrian prowess Longfellow had celebrated in a grand exercise of poetic license.

Sven took us through the streets of Back Bay, pointing out sights along Boston’s Freedom Trail, as well as Trinity, the oldest church in Boston, now undergoing a $53 million renovation; Boston Common, the oldest public park in America; St. John’s, the church of abolitionist minister Henry Beecher; and dozens of other sites of historical or cultural interest, before plunging with us into the Charles River for a unique view of Beantown from the water. The children were pleased that each had an opportunity to pilot the Duck {Place Kaitlyn Duck here} under the watchful eye of our friendly Viking plunderer, and the quiet cruise along the Charles was relaxing and pleasant—anyway.

When all was said and done, there was much more to say and do, so Sven dropped us at Maggione’s in Little Italy, and we all trooped in for some of the most delicious Italian food this side of San Remo. Kevin, who would commit serious crimes for mozzarella sticks, thought that he had found paradise when Maggione’s delivered the real thing, lightly breaded and fried mozzarella looking for the world –or at least the Italian part—like chicken Parmiagana. Even I, not always a fan of mozzarella sticks, found myself contemplating sticking a fork in a lunch companion who also seemed to find it irresistible. Dish after dish came—family style—and I wished that we had a place to store the leftovers because leaving anything seemed morally reprehensible.

But leave we must, if we wanted to drive tantalizingly close to Fenway Park for a visit to 5W!TS and the lure of Pharaoh’s tomb.

5W!ts is the brainchild of Matt DuPlessie, a mechanical engineer who has also designed for Disney World. The MIT and Harvard Business School graduate chose the name of his company as an allusion to the five wits Shakespeare defines as memory, imagination, fantasy, common sense and estimation in ‘‘Much Ado About Nothing.” The current show at 5W!TS on Brookline Street near Fenway is Tomb, which DuPlessie describes as being inside a video game.

 Our visit was marked by a fascinating cohesiveness of several travel writers and their children who suddenly galvanized as a coordinated team when it was necessary to beat the Pharaoh at the challenges he imposed, despite the increasing pressure of a descending ceiling that threatened to crush everyone in the room, laser beams that shot out of walls when players manipulated clues properly, or several other impending dangers that encouraged rapid teambuilding and problem solving. Hence the 5 wits.

Congratulating ourselves on surviving the worst that Pharaoh could throw at us, we headed for the much gentler venue of the Mary Baker Eddy Library for the Betterment of Humanity {Place Eddy Library here} and its popular Mapparium. It took less time to get there than it did to say it, but when we entered the polished wood and soothingly lighted building, it was as if we had indeed entered a kinder, gentler world.

The neoclassic Hall of Ideas {Place Word Fountain here} is a beautiful and serene space, featuring a fountain from which flow holographic words that overflow onto the floor, swirl towards the walls, and reform as words of wisdom, great inspirational ideas, from great leaders in history.

For a taste of the concept, (although it does not do justice to the brass and cast glass fountain) visit http://www.marybakereddylibrary.org/exhibits/streamingideas.jhtml.

From the fountain, we trooped along to view the unique three-story stained-glass globe, from the inside. Some of the countries don’t exist anymore; the globe remains as the world was when the globe was designed 60 years ago, but looking at the world from a glass bridge at its core reinforces the idea of the connectedness of people and countries around the globe. For those of us of a certain vintage, it evokes a realization of change, as well.

The acoustics within the glass globe provided a discreet educational experience—and a good bit of excited noise.

Of course, Mary Baker Eddy founded the Christian Science church as well as the well-respected Monitor. Each of the well-designed spaces gently reinforces Ms Eddy’s commitment to making the world a better place to live. The Quest Gallery leads visitors on a journey, with interactive exhibits that invite visitors to explore their own values and choices. The Monitor Gallery also uses multimedia presentations to excellent effect, looking at the world through the pages of the prize-winning newspaper that Ms Eddy founded “to bless mankind.”  One of the most interesting ideas for an old newspaperman was that the wall that adjoins the Monitor newsroom is glass so that visitors can see the reporters and editors at work without, interfering with them.

Nestled against the back of the library is the original Christian Science Mother Church, built in 1894. The graceful Romanesque church, made of New Hampshire granite and lighted with stained glass windows, has been augmented by a 1906 extension that added 2,000 additional seats to the original 1,000.

Christian Science Plaza, with its huge reflecting pool, nearly the length of two football fields, offers an unobstructed view of the Prudential Center across the street, and the Colonnade Hotel, which was good enough to remind me that it was time for dinner.

We ate at the rooftop pool: lobster tales, sweet and tender, steamers and pots of drawn butter, corn on the cob and sliders for the kids. Cocktails, a pleasant breeze, and a birds-eye view of Boston made the evening an event. Lucindo, probably the kindest and most considerate waiter of the century, served mozzarella sticks to the kids at poolside so that they wouldn’t have to get out, {Place Lucindo feeding ducks here} (and when seven-year-old Kaitlyn scraped her foot on the pool, it was Lucindo who asked whether she needed it massaged).  

When the pool closed and we returned to our connecting rooms, (which the Colonnade guarantees on reservation for families with children) the children didn’t need to be reminded to go to sleep.

Before we left, of course, we had to ride the famous Swan boats in Boston Public Garden. Powered by pedals and steered by ropes, the boats glide silently around the pond and under what is surely the shortest suspension bridge in the world. We saw a wedding taking place on one shore and tiny ducklings cuddling on a rock in the small island. When we left after the short ride, we visited the “Make Way for Ducklings” statues, where the children dutifully took their turns sitting on each duckling in turn until they reached the back of Mother Duck, and the children petted the park Ranger’s gray

mare before we strolled around to the magnificently maintained grounds and flowers near the statue of George Washington. Looking back at the bride and groom, the Swan boats gliding by and the grounds of Boston Public Garden, I understood how someone could describe a day as “achingly beautiful.”

Despite its stodgy Puritan reputation, Boston provided our family with one of the most pleasant weekends we have ever enjoyed.

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