Drawn the Road Again

Tag: MA

  • One if by land, two if by ice

    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…

  • Kings of the road

    Kings of the road

    Well, if I’m going to spend all this time talking about roadside attractions, I would be remiss if I didn’t include the legendary Muffler Men—guardians of gas stations, presidents of photo ops. If you’ve ever taken a road trip, you’ve probably seen at least one of these guys along the way. These behemoths started appearing…

  • Holy cannoli

    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…

  • Boston Strong

    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…

  • Follow the Red Brick Road

    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.

  • Duck dining

    Duck dining

    A “duck” is kind of the architectural version of “you are what you eat”—at least in this case. Hey, if you’re looking for good roadside food, it’s hard to go wrong with a place that gets a blue ribbon in the atmosphere department.

  • The last roundup

    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…

  • I see dead people

    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…

  • T-time

    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…