Tag Archives: Boston

One if by land, two if by ice

Even though New England was the heart of the original thirteen colonies, in my experience you’re more likely to find this type of flag flying here than this one. For me there’s no real surprise here: Boston is a city that takes its sports seriously, and the Bruins flag is as much a symbol of Beantown as the Old North Church. I can certainly relate—New Englanders are my people and hockey my sport, but even beyond that, I know what it’s like for a winning goal to feel something like a religious experience.

Don’t believe me? Ask Our Lady of the Slapshot here.

Save

Holy cannoli

If you want the best cannoli it’s possible to get outside of Italy, you really can’t go wrong in Boston’s North End—there are plenty of places that will deliver the goods (special shout-out to Maria’s!). Probably the most famous are Modern Pastry and it’s rival, Mike’s. I’ve visited both many times over the years, and you know? They’re both wonderful. (Mike’s is especially good if you want something other than a cannoli, for a change—lots and lots of choices there.) To me it’s not worth it to go into the finer points of which ricotta is slightly sweeter, which shell is heavier, etc. Either way, I’m not complaining.

But hey—I’m an illustrator, not a food critic. If it’s going to take something extra to make me choose between two fabulous pasticcerie, I’m goin’ with the place with the best neon sign.

Just sayin’.

Boston Strong

I wasn’t there at the time of the Marathon bombings last year—I was here, on the opposite coast. But Boston is my home city, and I remember feeling at the time that I had to do something, no matter how small. So I grabbed the first thing I always think of—my sketchbook—and put together this little tribute while I waited anxiously for news with the rest of the country.

A year later, I’m still far from the scene, but you can bet I’ll be cheering for the marathon runners this year, and for my favorite city. Stay strong, Boston.

Follow the Red Brick Road

These days there are many places where the Freedom Trail is marked with ugly red paint on concrete. But wherever you can find the path traced in brick, running out from one of the old bronze markers—well, that’s where you can almost feel history pulsing under your feet.

The last roundup

I couldn’t be here in person for this, and I haven’t actually eaten here since I was a kid. But Giuffrida’s has been a familiar (and completely incongruous) landmark on countless drives north of Boston over the years, and this is the first neon sign I ever loved. So when my dad told me it was closing after over fifty years, I dug out a blurry old photograph I had, and whipped up this sketch. It’s not the same as sketching the real thing, but I’m sorry to say it’s too late for that now. Apparently even the shiny fiberglass cows have been rounded up and carted off.

I have no idea what on earth a giant neon saguaro cactus and a ranch-themed restaurant was doing just ten miles from Bunker Hill. But I’m so glad it was there to be one of the first points of interest on my mental map.

I see dead people

Okay, you’re going to think I’m a total weirdo for getting so excited over bunch of headstones (and I have many, many more sketches than these…), but since it’s Halloween this week, I figured I could get away with it. I have to tell you, I have a serious, major thing for colonial graveyards. My grandfather loved them, too. As a lifelong, dyed-in-the-wool New England Yankee, he knew where all the good ones were. I used to take the train up from Providence and then drive him around three states (uh, about a thirty mile radius, ’round those parts…) in his car, while he showed me all the best, oldest, and weirdest headstones he could remember, in every little town and village. If you want a whole colony’s worth of specimens in one place, though, you can’t beat Boston. My two favorite burial grounds there are like little cities, in and of themselves.

But I’m not into 300-year-old headstones for any normal reason, like colonial history or possible genealogical discoveries (though I’m not knockin’ that stuff). I love them because they’re literally monuments to early graphic design. Great typography? Check. Graphic symbolism? Heck, yeah. Amazingly inventive, refined and creepy illustration? In spades.

(Sorry. I can’t resist a grave-digging pun—not this close to Halloween.)

T-time

Twice in my life (about 15 years apart) I’ve lived within an hour of Boston; and a couple of years ago I got to show the Tailor around my old stomping grounds. The city’s undergone a lot of transformations in recent years (Big Dig, I’m looking at you), but I love that the trip in on the T has hardly changed at all.

As we approached the city, I glanced at the system map to decide where to go first. As I read, the name of each stop triggered a flood of memories and images, all arranged by the cardinal directions, rather than by the years. This is probably why I love maps so much. Not only do they describe and organize a particular place—they also catalogue my entire relationship to that place. For unfamiliar cities, I love watching my mental map grow from a blank slate to a rough sketch and beyond. For places like Boston, the grid in my head is chock-a-block with minute, accurate (though sometimes obsolete) details, annotated pictures and pinned moments in time.

How about you? Do you have a place where your memories unfold like a treasure map? Or somewhere you know so well that every subway stop tells a personal story?