South Station, Boston

South Station at the intersection of South St. and Atlantic Ave is one of Boston’s many landmark buildings. I took several photos that show more of the building, but none of them are worth posting, so I stuck with this image of the main entrance to the station. The entrance way today looks much as it did when South Station first opened in 1899. Completing this representation of urban America in 2022 is the ubiquitous homeless person with her worldly goods on a cart to the left of the center entrance. In a country as rich as the United States, there is just no excuse for the legions of indigent homeless trying to eke out an existence in our cities. You are a disgrace, America.

The Old State House, Boston

I returned to Vietnam last week from a one month visit to the United States, my first trip in three years. It was great to see family and friends in Petaluma, California, Boston and Amherst, Massachusetts, New York City, Baltimore, and the Denver area. That said, and while the US is the country of my birth, I am glad I no longer live there. The United States has too much tension, anxiety, and simmering anger for my taste. Life where I am in Vietnam is a good deal more relaxed and laid back.

Boston’s Old State House served as the seat of the Massachusetts colonial government from 1713 to 1776 and, after the American revolution, was the seat of the state government until 1798. Now hemmed in by office towers in downtown Boston, this national and Boston historic landmark is the city’s oldest surviving public building.

Boston City Hall

Boston City Hall

Boston City Hall opened to a lot of fanfare (and controversy) in 1968. A lot of people saw it as a dramatic symbol of a modern, new Boston. As I recall, that is how it looked to me when I moved to Boston in 1970. Almost 50 years later, the building sure has lost its luster. It looks ugly and out of place in Boston’s otherwise people friendly, rather intimate downtown. Brutalist Modern indeed. When I visited recently, a friend told me Boston is thinking about tearing the place down and building a new city hall, something more comfortable and on a more human scale. Good idea.