Boston Rambles

Boston Rambles

A Rambler Walks and Talks About the Hub of the Universe

Archive for August 2015

Racial Composition of Precincts along the Upper Road to Braintree

The following unwieldy table is an attempt to summarize the 2010 Census for the specific precincts through which the Upper Road to Braintree passes. This chart is meant to accompany the previous entry, Taking the High Road in Roxbury and Dorchester. My intention is merely to highlight the fact that the road passes through neighborhoods… (read more)

Taking the High Road in Roxbury and Dorchester

The Last of the ‘Old Roads’ from Boston is the road variously referred to as ‘The Way to Braintree’ or the ‘Upper Road to Dorchester.’ It is the last in the sense that the road was laid out in the 1660s to provide a shorter route to the bridge over the Neponset River at what… (read more)

Birds of Boston

One of my interests is birding. I am also interested in Boston. Naturally, one or more of these entries will be about birds in Boston. This is the first. How many birds are there to see in Boston? This is a much more complicated question than it appears to be. What do I mean by… (read more)

The Road to Harvard, Part 2

One of the difficulties in doing a project of this nature is the internal tension between a desire to produce these entries in a steady stream and the fear of making mistakes or of being superficial. I have an urge to generate as many entries as I can as quickly as possible. I also know… (read more)

The Road to Harvard

In a couple of previous entries I described the original road to Cambridge from Boston which passed along the Neck and through Dudley Square, winding its way to Brookline and what is today Allston and Brighton, crossing the Charles River at what is today the Larz Anderson Bridge and ending at Cambridge Common. I wrote… (read more)

Main Travelled Roads

Recently I was watching a documentary the French filmmaker Louis Malle produced in the late 1960s about India. In this film, which to me was as interesting a period piece reflecting the ideas, values, and prejudices of the era in which it was made as the subject matter of the film itself, one scene replayed… (read more)