New-York tribune., 1907-08-04
BOSTON OLD HOME WEEK
Impressions on ReJiating the HHb
by a Former Resident.


from the North Station. gentieman-a gent 1
would say If were Boston-touched me on
the shoulder and said Can ask you for the prlcs
OF a plate of beaus?'
I chuckled being reminded thus that was
home again Though. OF course. be would have put
II May T. if lie had been real BOston)-
Back again to the old town where even the
tramps attend Lowell lectures and the vaudeville
shows Introduce An Hour with the Poets and
the the old cemeteries reIninlsce or telr
favorte authors and offer look up your heraldry
in the public library. feels that he must tighten
his whole intellectual rigging. You 80 TO New York
20 take in the town, but Boston TO improve your
mind. New York may be seen with q cab. but
Boston must be seen with a handbook New York
the natural outlet for the earnings Of one VINO
hungers and thrss after unrighteOusnesS. but Bos-
ton was a classic even in our school books and Is
10 be undertaken. like matrimOny, not lightly or
unadvfsedIy. but revereny, sOberiy and in the fear
OF God New York's heart is her Great White Way.
l'but Boston's neart-"r rather her cereoel-lS 'l7
Common where encounters none but earnest
looking people with EeEealogfes who have found
q life purpose The New York servants dress more
expensive!y and nearer Paris when they 90 70 walk
than do Roston's society matrons but the New
York ignorance is so cbysIna and unconscious that
Il is almost respectable. New York is allure
relt to flesh. bat Boston is challenge TO the
spirit.
was 70 have an Old Home Week at all Hospital
fly OF mind rather than of heart has been Boston
characteristic. II you 20 San Francisco and meet
friend he will ask yol 10 stay q week Wlth Alil
in Omaha Will take you home overnight in Chi
=
he viii hurry you of 70 luncheon n New Haven
he will hand you good cigar. in Boston he VIII
give YOU apple. But when Ne saw them WASH
ing Josiah Qutncys face in front Of the city HAN
and putting Up historical tablets on every third
house and in gorgeous announcement circulars at-
vert!sln2; even the East Wind knew that Bos-
ton must be learning as her old Home Week
motto suggests. 10 Get Busy.
The reyisitor 70 Boston hasters to tie dear Old
haunts, and lie is seldom disappointed The pigeons
stuI hover as numerous the doves of Venice
around spire If phillips Brooks's church ana
indeed all the parks and houses. and the gray
| squirrels rs tam" as ever on the common me
narrow tLoro,shfares are just as crowded and one
stjU what he sees nowhere else t1e population
fling so!elrnly down tine middle on t.e street OF
doIcfng nimulv through the s1.UisNius; alleys
The views from Harvard Bridge. the ~ M marshes
at sunset the state House - night are all as
beautiful as ever. The Grauary Buryins Ground
FaneIu Hall and Bunker Iiiii are all here The
$3.50, NiIlssur1 whose :.ara. and iurocIous eN-
nfbirs were our first introduction the drama is
gone. The same crowds gather on the edge or t-r
Common Sunday afternoons 70 hear the same soelal
doctrines. which il carried into effect would de-
moish the neIshborng palaces on t9InIl9T''''-.'L
avenue but the old who preached a tAvoSopIiy
OF his Sundays ami gave readings from a sht.
In Il bat; weekdays has been suppressed Inc ltte-
scope is departed from the Mall and the old Cor
ucr bookstore. that nervous centre OF the grow
ing literary system as a contemporary called IT.
where we used lurf, Watching Tor LouSfellow
to come in has moved and all thc elder poets nave
gone onto the celestial Boston.
other less noticeable changes are taking pace
We tried find some OF those old seventeenth Gen.
fury mansions in the North End so charm'iG![
f
BOSTON" and even in these twenty years since tEe
book was published. all but two have vanished
still the Old World flavor cli.gs about the region
The first impression gets of Boston upon
revisit is of her fast growing cosmopohtanISf'.
There was a when Boston was easily and
wittlIy To be divided into Boston and Boston
proper or. To put II in another way. Patrick ana
patrician 1t is stI easy point out certain Sec
lions as having their definite Charactcrizdtions
such as Here - Board and Rooms; Here IS
browning and Reform Here is Fiety and Golf;
Here is Business and Lawson e'c. E-ch cil"r-
acterzat!on has its own characters In the virtu-
Gus i,oherniu of Pinckney street presided over by
widows with military fronts. would still look
for Wistfu faces like those who sat at breakfast
concerts where. to quote Margaret Ahston.
none enjoy but all respect One anticipates find
ing ii the social settlements people with eNaS-
gcrated New England dialects and extraordinary
family trees who dine weekly IN COtSrleS 10 talk
social shop. And behind the frowsy laceS in the
South End and between the signs OF medical quacks
and meal tickets one knows how many intense and
pathetic young people are studying oratory and
beginning life
Boston has 4 truer of responsibility for her
own civic future than any other city in America
when sha learns to kill off of her overlapping
phiIant hropies and municipal organizations. she
will rise head and shoulders above even the noblest
OF other civic centres boston Provihcl,tlSi
in national affairs been explained by Mr.. NJ ~
De Wolfe Howe due to her location, in a corner
whereas New York philadelphia. Baltimore ana
washington are central and neiGhbors- This aloof-
ness of Boston has meant magnificent individual
ism You went other cities 10 sights You
went to Boston to see men If. as a newspaper
sot,ib has it, a young Chicago mans fnvorite cpl
tanb would be He got his share the Boston man
,,d,,Id rrafer HE did his share The trouble with
Roston's pride has been that it has meant self
satisfaction, behind spectaces. The Westerner Is
nroud but his pride looks forward and outward
rather than backward and inward. He wants
cvervhodv to share it.-W f. Furbush in The Con-
gregationalist.
/ rAso IL Al