It is another glorious spring day to be out and about in my favorite big city - Boston. From my base at Post Office Square, I visited the areas of downtown, the North End, Beacon Hill, the Esplanade, the Public Garden, Downtown Crossing and, 15,000+ steps later ended up back where I began.
Above, the weekend Haymarket market is back open and folks are out in public to shop. This market has been a fixture for hundreds of years and is one of the oldest open-air markets in the United States.
Folks were good about wearing their anti-Covid masks - both the shoppers and the vendors. The Custom House is in the distance against the sky.
Over in the North End neighborhood, many restaurants have reopened for outside service and the look is much different this time around. The city closed off the parking lane on both sides of Hanover Street so restaurateurs could use the space for outside dining. What a wonderful outcome! I hope it becomes a permanent feature of the North End. It makes it feel like I am in Italy - where diners and humans get priority instead of parking cars along the curb.
My only complaint is that the use of metal crowd control barriers and the ugly plastic white and orange automobile traffic control barriers are way too tacky for a long term solution. If curb service becomes a permanent feature, I hope we see a more aesthetically pleasing solution......
........maybe barrels and ropes and planters and hedges for example.
It is such a different ambiance than in the past.
This was another delightful addition to Hanover Street, too - a second floor balcony opera-style live singer to regale the passers-by on the sidewalk below.
I don't know if the North End has tried curbside dining in the past but, I hope it works out for the restaurateurs and becomes permanent in the warm weather seasons.
It is quiet in the shady space of the private Louisville Square park in the Beacon Hill neighborhood. Many/most of these brick townhomes are valued in excess of $10M each according to Zillow!
The tourist magnet Acorn Street didn't have many lookers when I passed by today. These properties are valued in the single-digit millions.
Window box gardens are ever-popular with the residents.
Another narrow old lane in the Beacon Hill area. (Cedar Lane Way)
The ducklings at the "Make Way for Ducklings" sculpture (based on the 1941 Robert McCloskey book of the same name) in the Public Garden are sporting multi-color vests in acknowledgement of the recent Supreme Court decision which ruled the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits sex discrimination, applies to discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
The performing arts theatres are all still dark along Washington Street.
And not many pedestrians out in the Downtown Crossing area because shops aren't open yet for indoor browsing.
Along the Charles River, the Community Boating fleet is still quiet..... maybe next weekend they can reopen.
It is strange being in such a dynamic vibrant city, Boston, but seeing so few people and so few signs of pedestrian life.
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