CITY OF BOSTON.

Wairarapa Age, 7 March 1929, Page 7

CITY OF BOSTON.

Kiw .ana’s Old World Town. ) 3 1 TRAFFIC SWARMING INTERSECTIONS. (By C.W.M. in the “Christian Science Monitor ’ , ). , Boston is the New World’s OldWorld city. An influx of 2,000,000 , visitors yearly pays tribute to it, as such. Of the most venerated shrines of American history, of the most securely established monuments to culture in the United States, of pictorial values, of engaging traditions and delightful associations, Boston has more than its share. Its landmarks are pigeonholed in the nooks and crannies of narrow streets. They are left, perhaps inconveniently —but home picturesquely!—at trafficswarming intersections. They are preserved affectionately in near-by, yet sudden and oddly remote squares where an old tree, or a grass plot, or a mossy greenishness of granite evokes an unexpected genius of repose and quiet amid the haste and clamour of a great metropolitan centre. Metropolitan Boston, a designation which of late has come very much into vogue, comprises. forty independently governed cities and towns. These municipalities co-opeiate in control of -ewers, water supply and parks. They are recognized by the State as a unit, and as such, in> its lace as fourth among the cities of the United States, Boston might follow closely behind Philadelphia among the cities of the United States. Bostonian®, however, seem not to be city folk. Urban or suburban, they evince a preference for what might be called “townliness.” No desire has been expressed by the surrounding communities for annexation by the city of Boston, and when a suburbanite expresses himself in regard to “the Hub,” even this parent city is generally referred to as “town.” One shops ‘ 4 in town, * ’ attends lectures and concerts “in town,” or takes a train from the countryside “into town.” 1 The population of Boston proper is • only about 850,000, but of th© metro- : poiitan area—is such a conception/ be ■ not too disagreeable to quiet town ’ folk—it may be said that the inhobi- ’ tantsi are as numerous, almost, as the ■ tourists. * Perhaps this quasi equalization of numbers is a reason for the cry of “Metropolitan Boston” since, under other reckoning, to be a Bostonian at home were to be definitely in the minority. And the minority within the limit of the city proper certainly would, have a big problem to’ cope with in accounting for the great number of beans which Bostonian® supposed to do away with annually. It has been estimated that “1000 on a plate” are consumed by each Bostonian at least once a week, but just how many of the lentils fall prey to visitors cannot be ascertained.

Boston h'is been called everything from the home of beasis to an aesthetic attitude. It may more aptly be termed a transition. The European remarks that it is not so different . from his native city, after all, as he nad expected an American metropolis would be. The middle westerner finds Boston less like his “home town” than does the Englishman. Yet many who, by the “Father of Waters,” have accustomed their eyes to hazy horizons, many from the country of Bret Harte and the Holden Gates, many who have listened to the stories of mothers under the shadow of the Nortwest’s tall timbers, fell something in this old port that is strangely familiar—a character that is akin to their character and a sense that their most cherished memories arc rooted here. Bostonians, those people —just a few generations removed. Carrying it® traditions and its tourists as a city accustomed to tnem, Boston treads its certain way to as stately a measure as when the name “Eack Bay” could be taken literally; when that widely known district of imposing residences, apartment houses, students’ quarters and, in recent years, prosperous shopping centres, was really a backwater lapping its shores contentedly where now begins one of the world’s most splendid thoroughfares.

The Back Bay to-day contains what is perhaps the most carefully planned and regularly arranged section of Boston. Arlington Street, forming the west boundary of the Public Garden and the base* from which the newer Beacon Street, Marlborough Street, Commonwealth Avenue, and Newbury Street proceed westward, is the first of a series of cross streets named alphabetically thus: Arlington, Berkeley, Clarendon, Dartmouth, Exeter, Fairfield, Gloucester, Hereford. Eut even with this mechanistic arrangement for a starter, modernism has achieved in the city on the Charles iittle That is spectacular. The tranquil river may have experienced! the discipline of masonry along its once carelessly plashy banks, may have felt its far-flung reedy marshes blotted away, but its tranquillity has remained.

The gentle swell of Beacon Hill, from which torches onee guided vessels at sea, has been capped with a dome of gold, but at that discreet height to which the Massachusetts 'State Capito 1 lifts its shining crowns, not even that which glitters is ostentatious. Against the 44 mild contours” of th.’ Boston sky line no modernistic angles of cloud-piercing, isteel-and-stone struc tures hurl strident notes. Only from the very heart of 4 4 the Hub,” down where the streets still are narrow, as all streets of Boston are thought to be, down where the air still briny and where the harbour dominates with an unseen presence the genius of Merchants Row and India- Street as once it dominated an entire city with its tall masts, rises swiftly tnc lithe column of the Custom Houno to an altitude of twenty-five stories. The cerulean aspirations of modernity stop herp. Boston, as yet, is the city of a single skyscraper. For one long acquainted with the town of St. Butolph, the deepest appeal, the most constant charm, lies in the blending of innumerable mood's as colourful, as changeful as rhythmic as the shifting fragments of kaleidoscopic

i patterns. London-is a man’s town, there’s power | in the air, And Paris is a woman’s town, with flowers in her

sang a home coming American poet. Boston refuses to be dominated by any one influence. Nor does it, as do so many cities of the United State.?, look only into the future, with the cry, 44 Forward, forward,” ever on its lips. While this certainly is commendable and must be very invigorating to busy i men, Boston’ evidently feels that it is not delightful when continuously dwelt upon, nor attractive to the pilgrim in search of uplifting recreation. And the ‘ pilgrim evidently agrees. At least he demonstrates a willingness to adid something substantial to-ward the 75,000,000 dollars'which the Chamber of Commerce believes will be left behind by tourists this year. Boston is not unaware of the commercial advantages pertaining to a tourist and convention city. Neither are its 25,000 retadl stores. A larger number of conventions met at Boston during 1928 than in any previous year. The 44 Athens of America” has be come also its Paris.

If one would go abroad in this OldWorld American city, one would discover, as has a writer in its yearling magazine, the Bostonian, that there are many Bostons. There ris the Boston of the commercial man, of the artist, of the student; the Boston of the Greek, the Jew, the Far Easterner the Italian and others, as well as that of the dyed-in-the-wool Yankee. It takes all these to make the New World’s Old-World city. To those who will go “abroad in Boston,” by automobile, «iibwny, on foot, or on the magic carpet of ward”, it may appear, indeed, that Boston is the Old World’s New-World city.