Confessions of a former Giants fan

I've been reading a lot lately about where the equator, or the Mason-Dixon line, lies, separating New England Patriots and New York Football Giants fans. Somewhere outside of Brookline and Cambridge, Worcester and Providence, beyond Hartford and Connecticut's Tea Party country and on down towards the Big Apple. Newsroom editors assign stories in their own banal way. But the mapping of allegiances has been haunting me.
I grew up in Fairfield County and New York City. We used to walk to Gimbel's and check out the sports equipment, the Woolworth's on Lexington Avenue for the terrapins and guinea pigs, the corner newsstand for the Richie Rich comic books. Grand Central and Metro North defined our childhood -- Darien, next stop. My first ballgame was Yankee Stadium, the theatrical entrance from the interior a flash of vivid green through a portal. I could not understand why my younger brother could possibly want to leave in the 7th inning. My second game was where I first had my first beer, a Michelob. In 1986, I drove down from Torrington, Connecticut, where I worked at the Register Citizen, and scalped $200 tickets to the sixth game of the World Series, where the balled rolled through Buckner's legs and we all hugged each other like it was V-J Day. Then we went to Giants stadium and they flashed the New York score on what today would be considered a very crude Jumbotron. Yes, those Giants, the same I cheered a few years later on the field goal attempt by Buffalo, and on and on. A tradition began of partaking in he Giants-Eagles game every year in the Meadowlands, the tailgating thick with accents equivalent to a Saturday Night Live parody, the crowd noise on opponents' third downs deafening.
And so yes, I am descipable. I was a New York sports fan -- the Mets, the Knicks, the Giants, the Islanders. Even when I moved to Boston, I was clinging, defiantly, to that loyalty. As a Boston Globe reporter I interviewed Ray Flynn in Dorchester in a hideous blue and orange Mets jacket. His look of disdain was palpable. I mocked my roommate in Kendall Square for tuning in to his beloved C's. And then it all changed. And the New England Patriots were the first to turn the tide.
I started to learn the players. I read the Globe Sports section like I was studying for an algebra test. The embrace of place started rising up all around me -- New England, Massachusetts, Boston. The New England Patriots. Inevitably, inexorably, the others followed. The Red Sox. The Celtics. The Boston Bruins. I've been wanting to put the sticker of the old Patriots logo on my bumper for some time now.
I go to New York all the time; I am serene when the Acela pulls into Penn Station; I wrote a book where the action all takes place in New York. But when I settle in front of the widescreen tomorrow, Ich bin ein Bostonian. If I ever met Tom Brady my knees would wobble. I'd like for just one moment to be inside Bill Belichick's head, to see the wheels turning, the gameplan, the backup game plan, the adjustments after that. The team's victory will make history, avenge the curse of the perfect season, and secure the dynasty. But it will be, once again, like playing an old girlfriend. I'm all knots and pins and needles for all kinds of reasons. You know I used to love you. But that's all over now.

Land and Lenox

The man at the counter at Nejaime's was wistful, retelling a relative's account of continually falling snow, inch after inch, somewhere, but not here. The lack of snow and mild temperatures (until very recently), hampering even snow-making operations, is dragging down the economy of Berkshire County and its smattering of ski areas, though not in a way that seems terribly unusual. Folks around here are used to a certain amount of economic pummeling.
I am in my room at the Yankee Inn, having brought my family to the old stomping grounds, when I lived in Richmond as a reporter for The Berkshire Eagle in the 80s. Though I was physically fit from doing things like team triathlons in those days, I remember the March when I decided it was time to go -- marveling at the phenomenon of frozen mud. There's a barren quality to the landscape that feels familiar. Here on Pittsfield Road, Route 7, Lenox has grouped all its big-box commercial retail close to the Pittsfield city line, drawing in the customers and confining the ugliness and the traffic close to its municipal neighbor to the north, while realizing all the tax revenue. Places to eat are in walking distance, but not really; the four lanes of the sidewalk-less arterial almost dare you to venture out by foot. The Stop and Shop plaza looks like it was carved out of glacial rock; indeed the premiere corner at Dan Fox Drive is just that, jutting black cliffs of rock, the blasting cores visible in neat rows. Dan Fox would have been the first leg of the Route 7 Bypass, just like Melnea Cass was the beginning of the Inner Belt in distant Boston.
Earlier we walked the trials of the Pleasant Valley sanctuary just south of here, and saw the work of busy beavers. Back at the hotel, the carpeted corridors feature pictures by Bill Teague, a veteran editor at the Eagle, who used to chain-smoke Marlboros in the newsroom and ask me if I had any news from the city council meetings. They show Greater Pittsfield in the 50s, all Norman Rockwell potraits, kids eating pizza and ice cream, singing at performances, women in those flared white sunglasses, crewcut teenagers by a lifeguard chair at a local lake beach. We'll see if they've made enough snow to ski down at Bousquet in the morning.

Worcester's next steps

I'm reprinting my Community Voices This Land blog posts here:

WORCESTER -- It's painful to walk around the common here and see the devastation still apparent from urban renewal -- the vacant parcels, the surface parking lots, the double-wide arterials, the monstrosity of the Galleria mall -- a hulking white spaceship plopped downtown as if it was a deliberate attempt to destroy the urban fabric. But perhaps equally sad has been the repeated attempts to recover from that era --not only urban renewal in the 1950s and 60s but the delcine of manufacturing and the flight to the suburbs -- with reinventions and grand new schemes aimed at finally putting the City of Seven Hills back on the map. If only -- and this is what cities like New Haven are thinking, too -- some of the magic of Providence could catch on.
So it is with guarded optimism that Worcester is wecloming yet another plan to breathe new life into downtown, based around the rehabilitated Hanover Theatre, and covered by the Worcester Telegram & Gazette -- itself a property that is poised to be part of surgical but ambitious redevelopment of the area. The Worcester Business Development Corporation, which has been successful retrofitting the area north of downtown, at the site of a shuttered vocational school, with new and rehabilitated space for bio-tech and life sciences, is signing a memorandum of understanding with the city to assess how the emerging "theatre district" might be embellished and reconfigured. The Cambridge firm of Chan, Krieger-NBBJ has been hired to draw a master plan. All of it will accompany the ongoing redevelopment of the Galleria mall, the $583 million CitySquare project set in motion initially by Young Park and Berkeley Investments, and now an undertaking of Hanover Insurance Co.'s Opus Investments Management group. In that redevelopment, new towers will be accompanied by the demolition of some of the fantastically ugly structured parking and the squat mall section that was blocks Front Street like a giant tree lying across the road. Opening that street up so it once again leads to the elegant Union Station will be like Worcester's own version of the dismantling of the elevated Central Artery (if anybody still remembers that).
But this is a tricky business, trying to cultivate downtown living in Worcester, given the current market -- and also the legacy of urban renewal, which messed things up so much in the first place. Civic leaders are essentially saying trust us, we'll get it right this time. There isn't much appetite for tearing down buildings if they have the slightest historical significance, or using eminent domain, ever since the Kelo case prompted by failed redevelopment efforts in New London. The signs at the CitySquare construction site read, "Coming Soon: Mixed Use." What that really means is "Coming Soon: More People." Worcester can only hope, and keep the shoulder to the wheel.

Roaring Ireland

Recently returned from Ireland, to report that the Celtic Tiger is still showing strength. The taxi drivers all bemoaned the recession in that way that taxi drivers do. The Irish Times business section ran headlines like "Cleaning up after the bust," the Irish banks and the Euro remain in tumult, and the roadside is dotted with the equivalent of foreclosure notices. But the streets and the pubs were full in Dublin. Plenty of tourists and unusually sunny weather. The way down probably felt more intense because of the heights that had been achieved.
I was in Dublin presenting at the 1st international Conference on Age-Friendly Cities, co-sponsored by the World Health Organization, the International Federation on Ageing, and Ireland's Age Friendly County Programme. Age-friendly cities are those that accomodate the growing cohort of older persons -- including aging baby boomers like me -- and allow them to age in place, walk or take transit. In other words, the way great urban neighborhoods function for anyone. I suggested in my talk that the 21st century city needed both attention at the neighborhood scale using the urban owner's manual left by Jane Jacobs, and a vision for regional planning and infrastructure demonstrated by Robert Moses. The concept of age-friendly cities is taking hold especially in countries with low fertility rates and where the older population is quite out of balance with under-35 year olds.
P.s. Hotel of choice in Dublin? The Merrion, fashioned out of four Georgian townhouses at the streetfront, and with fully modern facilities out back, a nice adapative re-use, and exceptionally attentive service. A nap was prerequisite by the fireplace in the lobby sitting area, having arrived at 5:20 a.m. on the short Aer Lingus flight from Boston.

Cape by design

Staying at the goose hunting shack converted to country retreat by Ben Thompson, on a bluff in Barnstable overlooking Sandy Neck, prompts me to re-post this dispatch on Jane Thompson's wonderful book Design Research, first appearing at my boston.com Community Voices blog:
Every once in a while an enterprise comes together that helps define a place -- that captures a time but lives on and becomes part of the story of a place, even long after it's gone. Such is the case with Design Research, housed in the concrete and glass structure that also houses offices and the Harvest restaurant, designed by D/R founder Benjamin Thompson, at the corner of Brattle and Church streets in Harvard Square.
Thompson (1918-2002) was the man behind Fanueil Hall marketplace and Harborplace in Baltimore, a pioneer in the now-familiar practice of revitalizing industrial waterfront areas. He was a founding partner along with Walter Gropius of the Bauhaus in The Architects Collaborative (TAC), which designed the equally pioneering Six Moon Hill community in Lexington, a planned neighborhood with a common modernist aesthetic that is cherished to this day.
And he was also the driving force behind Design Research, a general store for modern living -- undisputed precursor to Crate and Barrel, as well as influence for Design Within Reach, Esprit, and West Elm, for that matter. Walter Gropius and Jose Louis Sert brought modernism here in association with Harvard University's Graduate School of Design; Le Corbusier built the Carpenter Center, his only building in North America; but TAC and Six Moon Hill and Design Research all brought modernism to New England in a somehow more accessible, comfortable way.
Design Research was founded in 1953 in a clapboard house at 57 Brattle Street, replaced by the building now occupied by Harvard's Graduate School of Education. Then Thompson designed the award-winning new home for the general store of design, fittingly home to Crate and Barrel until recently -- "concrete without brutalism, glass without glossiness, contextual without imitation," as aptly described in the wonderful new book Design Research: The Store that brought Modern Living to American Homes (Chronicle Books), by Jane Thompson (Ben's wife) and Alexandra Lange.
At Design Research the showrooms of dinnerware and furniture coincided with some big-name collaborations, from Marimekko to Julia Child. I was honored to be at a Loeb Fellowship gathering at holiday time not long ago, where Thompson brought out all her Marimekko prints and umbrellas and scrafs, and they were arrayed all over the empty store (in transition to its current occupant Anthrolpologie). Not a moment went by without people knocking on the door, hoping to get in, thinking it was a museum exhibit or groovy new emporium. The building itself is understated and welcoming, a low-pressure place for people to gather, though the concrete reminds one a bit of Boston City Hall. It was spared the rock-throwing students of 1970 around Harvard and won numerous awards; the New Yorker came up to see what the fuss was all about.
Today Harvard Square has changed in many ways, but walking around the complex is a marvelous throwback to the 1970s. Give me some bellbottoms or at least a wide tie, and let's order martinis at the Harvest.

A Sense of Place Quiz for Boston

In honor of Jane's Walk this past weekend, held around the world to explore the kind of great urban neighborhoods celebrated by Jane Jacobs, whose seminal The Death and Life of Great American Cities was published 50 years ago, herewith a test of knowledge of the Boston area:
1. At what spot are there are four layers of transportation possible, one on top of the other -- a boat on water, a train on tracks, pedestrians, bicycles and cars on a roadway, and an aircraft in the sky?
2. The Massachusetts Avenue connector and Melnea Cass Boulevard form the beginning of what was to be the Inner Belt, an expressway that would have provided an alternate route around the Central Artery. What is the other evidence of the Inner Belt, still in place today?
3. Where is Scott Harshbarger Square? (Not a trick question)
4. Kendall Square was the site of the first telephone call and a booming tech center, home to Microsoft and Google. Back in the days of John F. Kennedy's administration, what was originally supposed to go there?
5. What city is the densest city in the Commonwealth?
6. What town famously refused to be annexed by the City of Boston, and in what year?
7. Frederick Law Olmsted's Emerald Necklace was originally intended to loop back around down what street, ending where?
8. The Rose Kennedy Greenway is littered with unbuilt dreams, from the botanical gardens at Dewey Square to the YMCA. What is the only public building to actually start construction?
9. What is the area north of Charles Street in Beacon Hill known as?
10. Where in Cambridge can the view to the Charles River never be obstructed -- from the front door of what house?
Write your responses in the comment section. Answers in a forthcoming post.

Reflections from Vermont

Back in Peru, winding up another August, and therefore time for the Priest Lane observations collection:
-- My son and I took the Prius to see "The Other Guys" in Bennington a few days ago. The pilloried vehicle served us well as always. The movie, preceded by stops at the Gamer Grotto and the Rattlesnake, was amusing; my son is a big Will Ferrell fan, though I thought Mark Wahlberg really stepped up. Downtown Bennington is an interesting case. No critical mass of people living downtown as far as I could see. But coming down from the north on the "new" Route 7 you would think it was a huge metropolis, with wide, sweeping off-ramps and massive interchanges. This got us talking about why there's a new Route 7 in the first place, through such a rural area. It's great for trucks, and it certainly whisked us from Manchester in a hurry, but how many trips like that are in demand? The answer is, even in crunchy, local-food, local-energy Vermont, we can't shake our love affair with bigger and better roadways. Patrick Leahy has clearly steered millions in stimulus money for repaving here; Route 11 is as smooth as could be. Departments of Transportation are as single-minded as they have been for decades. They were trying to create a Route 7 bypass in my hometown of Wilton, Conn. nearly 40 years ago; the neighbors fought it, Jane Jacobs-style, though the Norwalk segment was built. They wanted the same thing around Pittsfield, Mass., when I was a reporter at The Berkshire Eagle. The road construction work around Bennington seemed to suggest the same old thinking -- that somehow a lot of big roads and bridges and overpasses will save a city. On this point, at least, there is little recognition that the fossil-fuel era is over.
-- The farmer's market in Londonderry continues to be a wonderful experience. We are veterans now. We take out a lot of cash to be prepared, but we spend wisely. You have to pick and choose. We're big supporters of locally grown produce and meats and everything, but $13 for a pound of bacon, $4 eggs and $7 unprocessed milks tests one's principles. Like moths to a flame, however, we are heading back this morning, our last Saturday here.
-- Wildlife sightings included a big heron swooping down to the pond and departing at the first sign of dawn movement in the kitchen; a wild turkey mother who seemed like she was six feet tall with a half-dozen (chicks?); Eastern newts and red eft salamanders with their neon blue dots, which I am convincing my middle son we can't keep as pets; springy frogs, Monarch butterflies, crickets and grasshoppers, finches, jays, hawks, and hummingbirds.
-- Something about being up here and real estate. We made an offer on the new house while here on Memorial Day; we accepted an offer on the old house also while here, in both cases borrowing printers and fax machines from stores and neighbors.
-- My youngest son, being toilet-trained here (with great success!) just sprinted from the training potty and out the door, naked, scampering on the dew-soaked lawn in the sunshine. That ain't happening back in Boston. But for everything there is a season.