In Boston today...calling all Boston lovers

My daughter is graduating high school next month and needed to shoot her last roll of black and white film for her photography class. The assignment was to find a famous photographer whom they liked and to imitate that style.

So I asked Arleen Hodge to recommend someone, because my daughter's favorites were not in this region of the country.  Arleen recommended Helen Leavitt.

We spent about 6 hours in Boston. First, Park Street and The Boston Common, The Public Gardens.

Not much in the way of grunge factor at lunchtime on a Friday afternoon.

Violin, guitar, sax players along the bridge in The Public Gardens.

Children running on the grass next to the sign "Please do not walk on the grass." Swan boats tucked away for the winter, waiting their turn. Kids taking turns sitting on the bronze ducklings while parents photograph them. 

A guy sleeping on a bench. Kids playing on the frog sculptures at Frog Pond; kids playing on the plastic jungle gym in Tadpole Park.

Too cute for grunge.

Walking to The Boston Common, a bagpiper plays and a park ranger stands near his van. God, I miss the days not that long ago when the Park rangers still rode horses. They were worth a ton of photos, for which these handsome guys posed and smiled.

A bunch of homeless people, rare this time of day, begging for money.

Off to Chinatown. First, the Chinatown Gates. Tyler Street, Beach Street, China Pearl. Korean Grocery. Sneakers on a wire, tied together. Ramshackle fire escapes. People unloading things and not liking our presence. We leave.

We read the history of Chinatown, Ping On Alley, where the first residents set up tents in the 1850s and a communal roasting oven was still in use in the 1950s. Still poor but a few condos dot the neighborhood. Jade figurines in all shades of green, white and black in a store window. Green tea, Chinese silk slippers, Chinese silk kimonos, the kind I've bought many a time.

People wheeling groceries in a rundown cart, people looking rather rundown by life.

A walk on lower Washington Street where we walk by a couple of lone clubs, both Gentleman's Clubs, then to Kneeland Street and the Medical Center. The Wang Center, Shubert (I remember CATS there). We talk about the ballets we've seen. A dip into Bay Village, which she says reminds her of Savannah and Montreal. Beyond the Park Plaza, and the Castle toward Columbus Avenue.

She wanted to return to the Back Bay. We walk by the former Boston Police Headquarters and the Old Hancock, where I saw Alvin Ailey's troop perform, and near the YWCA where I swam every morning at 6 a.m near the New Hancock my first year in Boston.

Boylston Street's Shreve Crump & Lowe took over our fave childhood toy store: FAO Schwartz where we used to go after church at The Paulist Center. Oh yeah. BIG. Tom Hanks. We used to dance on the piano. Oh well. Newbury Street.

We go to Commonwealth Avenue near where I used to live, and watch the dog walkers, the cell phone talkers, the iPod wearers, all wearing business suits and sneakers.Too business-y for grunge.

Back to The Public Gardens. Too cute. Back to The Boston Common. Shady characters beginning to show up. Cross down West Street, where I worked for years, past the Brattle Bookshop where my hubby went to Boston Latin with the current proprietor. Lots to photograph there. Fajitas and Ritas. Suffolk University. Mass Bar Association, all much more rundown than when I worked there some years back.

Along Washington Street at Downtown Crossing, the scene is even wilder than it ever was. And a lot less safe, but the BPD keeps an eye on everybody.

500 cyclists cycling down Washington Street for Earth Day. How amazing to see real people on real bicycles, not fancy Bike club bikes and gear racing the roads.The historical section of the old Filene's building is still standing, but the more modern building has been gutted. She snaps a few more photos.

Fruit market in front of the Old South Meeting House on Milk Street, where some of my ancestors were. A cute interpreter near the Freedom Trail. Some years back, The Globe Corner Bookstore was sold and is now a melange of shops.

School Street boasts no schools but it once was the home of the nation's first public school, Boston Latin, the very first educational institution in the US. Four years after Boston Latin was founded, Harvard College was founded, so that Boston Latin graduates would have a place to further their education.

A short walk through Macy's to go to the bathroom and then back on the T at Washington Street, where we stood a chance at a seat to Alewife.

Of course, the inevitable happens when things are going too smoothly. "Everybody off. This train is coming out of service. No passengers." A delay but only about half an hour. 

Starved and thirsty, despite a Diet Pepsi earlier in the day and a shared McDonald's order of fries in the most disgusting McDonald's I've ever seen. Once home, we head for the grocery. She wants  a roasted chicken, I settle for lemon seltzer to go with my lemons and oranges.

God, I love the city.

You can always tell if someone is from Boston, or if they are a tourist.

Correct: Bostonians always say: The Boston Common and The Public Gardens.

Invariably, some hapless writer will reverse the two, and you know they never actually inquired as to the proper name. Published books are ALWAYS wrong, and so are magazine articles printed outside of Boston.

Mind you, the signs do read: The Boston Commons, The Public Garden.

But everybody who lives here ALWAYS says, The Boston Common, The Public Gardens.

Just like we love our Red Sox and our Boston Celtics (GO SOX AND GO CELTICS. DOWN WITH YANKEES AND DOWN WITH LAKERS), we INSIST on calling our public properties the way WE want to and to heck with everybody else.

God, I love the city even more. Will be back there next weekend for the 20 miles Walk for Hunger.