As any New England historian will tell you, Boston was not built according to plan. In fact, very little of it had any real plan. In the beginning, Boston consisted of three hills on a narrow peninsula of land. Little by litte, two of those hills were flattened, the back bay filled, and that peninsula broadened. Hence, much of Boston can seem like a tangle of curving streets and narrow ways. This nightmare for drivers is a boon for walkers and explorers. Side streets bring you to unexpected neighborhoods, old buildings are stocked with charming anecdotes, and seemingly modern streets pave over historic events. It's a great town for finding secret places and hidden treasures.
Boston's Secret Spaces: 50 Hidden Corners In and Around the Hub attempts to do just that. A lush, beautifully photographed book, Boston's Secret Spaces devotes a page of text and a page of photographs to each of the 50 places the staff of the Boston Globe has profiled. Many of the most famous of the "secret spaces" are here: behind the Green Monster scoreboard at Fenway, the backyard gardens of Beacon Hill, the bell tower of Old North Church. Each of the textual descriptions starts off with a catchy title ("Where the Wild Things Are" for the Harvard Museum of Natural History or "Skulking amid the Sculls" for the Weld Boathouse) and then three to four paragraphs of context and back story. The entries also include information on where to find the attraction.
The prose is generally clean and compelling. For example, I enjoyed this description of Boston's famous Citgo sign: "Bostonians and visitors alike rely on the sixty-by-sixty-foot piece of illuminated advertising art as a directional landmark. Let's face it -- the flashing bands of red, white, and blue are hard to miss. Baseball fans tied to their television screens look forward to getting a glimpse of the sign whenever a batter whacks a home run over the left field wall of Fenway Park."
However, this book does fall short, and it may have more to do with the title than the book itself (I know, don't judge a book by it's..um…title). For a book claiming to offer up surprises (both "secret" and "hidden" are in the title), it uncovers precious few.
Some readers may not know about Fort Warren on Georges Island and the Mapparium at the Mary Baker Eddy library, but many of the entries are well-known. In fact, they seem to have been included because they are known landmarks like the Citgo sign, the Prudential Building, the golden dome of the State House, and, of course, the Cheers bar (known to the locals as "The Bull and Finch"). Others are merely parts of famous landmarks, like the clock towers at the Old State House and the Custom House, the scoreboard of Fenway Park, and the greenhouses of the Arnold Arboretum. Other sites seem to have been included merely to underscore where Boston Globe reporters can go that you can't: Bob Kraft's skybox at Gillette Stadium, Tom Brady's locker, and the control tower of Logan Airport. Other choices struck me as odd because they were not really hidden corners of the hub at all; they are vehicles. There is an entry on the Hood Blimp, the Acela train, and a state police car.
I guess what frustrates me is the lost opportunity here. There are so many truly wonderful hidden places around Boston that deserve mention. One example that jumps to mind is the inner courtyard of the central branch of the Boston Public Library on Copley Square. The library is even mentioned in passing in Robin Brown's forward but no description followed. The public gardens in the Fenns are another example -- an enchanting small garden painstakingly maintained by local residents. I could go on and on (and I've done that elsewhere) but this is not the forum for that.
In sum, at $16.95, this books is fine as a coffee table tome. Again, its photographs are crisp and lovely. It does shine the light on a few interesting stories. My favorite was the description of Jacque's Cabaret, an all-male drag queen cabaret in the Theater District.
However, as that trusted insider who can lead you down sides streets and alleyways to some unexpected treasure, this book fails. You'd do better to put on a good pair of walking shoes and tease Boston's secret gems yourself. After all, shouldn't that be the plan?
Boston's Secret Spaces
50 Hidden Corners In and Around the Hub
by The Boston Globe, Foreword by Robin Brown
ISBN 10: 0-7627-5062-6
ISBN 13: 978-0-7627-5062-7
Publisher: Globe Pequot
R. Todd Felton is the Literary Travel Editor for Wandering Educators. He's the author of Walking Boston: 36 Tours through Beantown's Cobblestone Streets, Historic Districts, Ivory Towers, and New Waterfront.