Going to Boston...
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- thegreenfairy
I just decided to go to Boston next weekend. What's there to do (besides the normal tourist stuff) for a design nerd?
- thegreenfairy0
so looks like my options are eat at some places and go to newbury street...
- Josev0
pretty much
- dito0
- monkeyshine0
I think the Design Museum is more of a virtual idea vs. a real museum...though they do have an exhibit right now (Creative Capital) in City Hall.
Am I the only one who thinks Newbury St. is overrated? Maybe I've just lived here too long.
- yep
but that poster shop is cooldoesnotexist - No, I think Newbury is overrated . It's basically an outside mall, with annoying tourists. Not very out of the ordinary shops. The only thing that's interesting about it is the architecture.Josev
- only thing that's interesting about it is the historic architecture.Josev
- yep
- randommail0
To sum it up, don't go as a "design nerd".
Just go as a normal, average tourist and have fun with the collegiate and historical venues. Drink some Guiness and have some pub food.
IF the weather is nice, you'll really enjoy the fact that it's a walking city and it's different neighborhoods. If it rains or worse, then, prepared to hate Boston for the rest of your life. haha.
- Greedo0
allright, if by 'design nerd' you mean you want to see lots of international style clean swiss (it stays) design, then, yeah, boston will disappoint.
but if you want the broader view, there's lots of hidden gems here, if you care to seek them out.
let's see, the Eameses did an exhibit about mathematics at the museum of science that's been there since 1981, and it's immensely pleasing, fun, and unmistakably Eames.
http://www.mos.org/
(plus they have old space capsules and some massive old steam-powered industrial machines from mass' heyday as a manufacturing powerhouse)The Boston Athenaeum is having an Edward Gorey show right now, but they recently had some flooding problems, so maybe check with them first. Interesting place nonetheless, oozing history.
http://www.bostonathenaeum.org/Trinity church in Copley Sq is HH Richardson's masterpiece, and pretty interesting on the inside. It's meant to look like a massive fortress but is actually quite lightly built, and has some lovely murals on the inside.
More practically, there's a plumbing museum in Watertown:
http://theplumbingmuseum.org/ind…
industrial design right there.There's actually a military history museum right in Faneuil Hall which pretty much nobody knows about:
http://www.ahac.us.com/index.htm…
Has some nice old pieces of mass destruction weaponryYou can visit the Adams national history site, the actual home of both Adams presidents, full of historically relevant stuff:
http://www.nps.gov/adam/index.ht…then, my personal favorite, but also pretty hard to access, the Warren Anatomical Collection at the Harvard Medical School Library:
https://www.countway.harvard.edu…Then there's the new Norman Foster-designed wing on the MFA, the ICA down by the waterfront, and the aforementioned 'poster shop': http://www.internationalposter.c… on newbury st,
they actually sell josef müller-brockman originals if you haven't seen enough helvetica to please your sensibilities.The one bummer is that the WPA murals of the history of the telephone in post office square have been taken down, those were pretty amazing.
Couple more museums:
http://web.mit.edu/museum/
and another personal favorite, the harvard natural history museum:
http://www.hmnh.harvard.edu/There's way more excellent crap to visit outside of boston, but you'd need a car and way more time. Sick of people saying there's nothing to do in Boston, they lack imagination.
Also too: http://boston.aiga.org/
- maikel0
Boston reminds me of England (not necessarily London).
The weather is probably worse in there tho.
I remember a cheap-o place to got for lobster near the dodgy fresh pond mall (it look like a bar for lorry drivers!), overpriced pasta in cafe armani (newberry street), good creeps and chai latte in the harvard yard... plenty of wealthy international students in mini coopers, shit loads of snow and old ladies with gray hair.
-mind you the harvard yard and the dodgy lobster place is in the other side of the charles river, so technically cambridge-
oh, and the big dig. is it finished now?