1988 Boston

31.1.88

The tapestry room of Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum – concert by the American Brass Quintet.  3pm.

The size of everything – almost to parody.  The subway trains out to Harvard; the stretch limos; the helpings of food, the return of the coffee jug.  They do not know the meaning of the word "want" – even with derelicts lying in the street – as I saw yesterday by the Symphony Hall.  The superficial veneration for the old here – though the old is not really.  For example, the street names – Gloucester, Hereford etc. 

Harvard itself is disappointing – nothing binds together.  Especially Harvard's main courts: buildings thrown together, undistinguished architecture.  Little feel of town dominated by university.  They do build a better skyscraper in Boston; the integration of the old Irish and the new puts London to shame.  Boston Common is like Central Park on a smaller scale: surrounded by skyscrapers.

Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market – feeble restorations – inside shows no sense of exterior – doesn't link with the rest of town.  Newbury Street works very well ; a long, elegant road which manages the difficult trick of marrying flash shops with living houses.  The harmony of the design is never monotonous.  Surprisingly, the parallel streets remain relatively untouched, with the exception of Boylston Street.  

There is an ICA here too – but of Art, not arts.  I should have gone last night, but at 10pm was too tired to contemplate even less sleep to be followed by jet lag – old age, I fear.

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Moody's Black Notebook Travels