Chinatown in Boston

4 March 2024 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Bon appétit, Shopping Reading Time:  7 minutes

Paifang gate © Ingfbruno/cc-by-sa-3.0

Paifang gate © Ingfbruno/cc-by-sa-3.0

Chinatown, Boston is a neighborhood located in downtown Boston, Massachusetts. It is the only surviving historic ethnic Chinese enclave in New England since the demise of the Chinatowns in Providence, Rhode Island and Portland, Maine after the 1950s. Because of the high population of Asians and Asian Americans living in this area of Boston, there is an abundance of Chinese and Vietnamese restaurants located in Chinatown. It is one of the most densely populated residential areas in Boston and serves as the largest center of its East Asian and Southeast Asian cultural life.   read more…

Faneuil Hall in Boston

1 July 2021 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, House of the Month, Shopping Reading Time:  2 minutes

© flickr.com - Kevin Rutherford/cc-by-sa-2.0

© flickr.com – Kevin Rutherford/cc-by-sa-2.0

Faneuil Hall is a marketplace and meeting hall located near the waterfront and today’s Government Center, in Boston, Massachusetts. Opened in 1743, it was the site of several speeches by Samuel Adams, James Otis, and others encouraging independence from Great Britain. It is now part of Boston National Historical Park and a well-known stop on the Freedom Trail. It is sometimes referred to as “the Cradle of Liberty”. In 2008, Faneuil Hall was rated number 4 in “America’s 25 Most Visited Tourist Sites” by Forbes Traveler.   read more…

Portrait: The architect and founder of the Bauhaus School Walter Gropius

24 July 2019 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: Architecture, Portrait, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  17 minutes

Walter Gropius in Ulm, 1955 © Hans G. Conrad - René Spitz/cc-by-sa-3.0-de

Walter Gropius in Ulm, 1955 © Hans G. Conrad – René Spitz/cc-by-sa-3.0-de

Walter Adolph Georg Gropius was a German architect and founder of the Bauhaus School, who, along with Alvar Aalto, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright, is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of modernist architecture. Gropius was also a leading architect of the International Style.   read more…

Harvard University in Cambridge

7 September 2018 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Architecture, Universities, Colleges, Academies Reading Time:  6 minutes

Harvard Law School Library in Langdell Hall at night © Chensiyuan/cc-by-sa-4.0

Harvard Law School Library in Langdell Hall at night © Chensiyuan/cc-by-sa-4.0

Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1636 and named for clergyman John Harvard (its first benefactor), its history, influence, and wealth have made it one of the world’s most prestigious universities. Harvard is the United States’ oldest institution of higher learning, and the Harvard Corporation is its first chartered corporation. Although never formally affiliated with any denomination, the early College primarily trained Congregational and Unitarian clergy. Its curriculum and student body were gradually secularized during the 18th century, and by the 19th century, Harvard had emerged as the central cultural establishment among Boston elites. Following the American Civil War, President Charles W. Eliot‘s long tenure (1869–1909) transformed the college and affiliated professional schools into a modern research university; Harvard was a founding member of the Association of American Universities in 1900. A. Lawrence Lowell, who followed Eliot, further reformed the undergraduate curriculum and undertook aggressive expansion of Harvard’s land holdings and physical plant. James Bryant Conant led the university through the Great Depression and World War II and began to reform the curriculum and liberalize admissions after the war. The undergraduate college became coeducational after its 1977 merger with Radcliffe College.   read more…

Theme Week New England – Massachusetts

21 February 2017 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  13 minutes

Eastham - Cape Cod National Seashore © Cholmes75/cc-by-sa-3.0

Eastham – Cape Cod National Seashore © Cholmes75/cc-by-sa-3.0

Massachusetts, officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous state in the New England region. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east, the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island to the south, New Hampshire and Vermont to the north, and New York to the west. The state is named for the the Massachusett tribe, which once inhabited the area. The capital of Massachusetts and the most populous city in New England is Boston. Over 80% of Massachusetts’ population lives in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, a region influential upon American history, academia, and industry.   read more…

Boston, the birthplace of America

13 March 2013 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  7 minutes

Downtown Skyline © Nelson48

Downtown Skyline © Nelson48

Boston is the capital of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and its largest city, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. It was named Boston by early settlers from Boston, Lincolnshire in England. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial “Capital of New England” for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper, covering 48.43 square miles (125.43 square km), had an estimated population of 625,087 in 2011 according to the U.S. Census, making it the 21st largest in the country. Boston is also the county seat of Suffolk County and anchor of a substantially larger metropolitan area called Greater Boston, home to 4.5 million people and the tenth-largest metropolitan area in the country. Greater Boston as a commuting region is home to 7.6 million people, making it the fifth-largest Combined Statistical Area in the United States.   read more…

The museum ship USS Constitution

1 February 2013 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: Tall ships, Museums, Exhibitions, Yacht of the Month Reading Time:  9 minutes

USS Constitution sails into Boston Harbor during an underway Battle of Midway commemoration © U.S. Navy - Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Kathryn E. Macdonald

USS Constitution sails into Boston Harbor during an underway Battle of Midway commemoration
© U.S. Navy – Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Kathryn E. Macdonald

USS Constitution is a wooden-hulled, three-masted heavy frigate of the United States Navy. Named by President George Washington after the Constitution of the United States of America, she is the world’s oldest commissioned naval vessel afloat. Launched in 1797, Constitution was one of six original frigates authorized for construction by the Naval Act of 1794 and the third constructed. Joshua Humphreys designed the frigates to be the young Navy’s capital ships, and so Constitution and her sisters were larger and more heavily armed and built than standard frigates of the period. Built in Boston, Massachusetts, at Edmund Hartt‘s shipyard, her first duties with the newly formed United States Navy were to provide protection for American merchant shipping during the Quasi-War with France and to defeat the Barbary pirates in the First Barbary War.   read more…

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