If I'm hoping, then I'm hoping for the frost

[sovay]

I am feeling non-stop terrible. I took a couple of pictures in the snow-fallen sunshine this afternoon.



Paperbark maple, peeling in snow.



The sky still too cold a blue for spring.



The dogwood's illusion of shadow.

spatch sent me a 1957 study of walking directions to Scollay Square. Researcher's notes can be unnecessarily period-typical, but the respondents themselves are wonderful. "You're a regular question-box, aren't you?" It turns out to be part of the basis for a seminal work of urban planning and perception. I like the first draft of the public image of Boston, including its conclusion that it is a deficit to the city not to be thought of as defined by the harbor as much as the river.

Comments

[movingfinger]

Perhaps if we chose our guide carefully, we too could still walk to Scollay Square. They all know Scollay Square. It's a good long walk. It's not far. It's far, to walk. It's five minutes. It's an hour. Maybe ten minutes. You go straight down Huntington Avenue. Tremont runs right into it. Cross the Common. Go straight down here and through the underpass. The Market Building's there, yeah, right in the middle. There's a policeman in the middle. You'll see the subway entrances, right in the middle. No, no. I don't live around here.


Thank you so much for linking this! It reminds me of Visa for Avalon, but in Boston.

[sovay]

Thank you so much for linking this! It reminds me of Visa for Avalon, but in Boston.

You're welcome! When you make it that kind of litany, it reminds me, too.

(I have since fallen down a rabbit hole of György Kepes.)

[asakiyume]

Love this.