Thick as a brick
Labels: Architecture, Boston
By Robert David Sullivan (escargot555 at yahoo dot com)
Labels: Architecture, Boston
Labels: City life, grumpiness
Labels: House, television
Labels: House, television, The Riches
...at La Contessa, which is closing after nearly 50 years in business, tradition was everything. A statue of St. Anthony stood watch over the counter, even as hip restaurants and Internet cafes opened around the corner. Magliaro, who retired in 2000, learned his trade in the North End during the Depression and never changed a recipe. During holidays, window signs would advertise specials like zeppole or pizza chiena that only a true Italian would recognize.I have to confess some guilt here: I went to the Contessa only about three times in five years, and I'll probably go to the sushi bar that's replacing it a couple of times a week. But as DeMarco points out, baked goods aren't as popular as they used to be. When I'm not bringing liquor to a friend's house or to a party, I usually bring cheese, olives, or some kind of appetizer (often from Dave's Fresh Pasta, which has become a neighborhood hangout in the same way that bakeries and soda fountains used to be). The same people who refuse dessert on dietary principle are often too hungry to pass up appetizers, so decadent foods have migrated to the first course of the evening. It's rather sad when one has to trick acquaintances into enjoying themselves.
Labels: Food and drink, Somerville
Labels: maps, television
If the Farm were prone to speculation, we’d say now would be a great time for IN’s corporate parent, HX Media, to put the thing out of its misery and relaunch it as a glossy free gay nightlife guide, like the ones they have in New York and Philly. Not that anyone asked us or anything.Great idea ... except that there is no gay nightlife in Boston. There are only seven bars in Boston and Cambridge that are gay every night of the week, and one of them (Jacques) closes at midnight at the insistence of Bay Village residents who apparently didn't notice the place was there until after they bought their condos. So it's not clear where the advertising revenue for a new glossy magazine would come from. How about Home Depot, the MBTA, and hospitals? Those are among the most popular places to meet gay men, at least according to the "Missed Connections" section of craigslist. (Sample entries: "You are a cute neurosurgeon at Baptist hospital today" and "You were the cute guy walking into Dana Farber.") In other major cities, you can go bar-hopping. In Boston, the best way to meet a guy on a Saturday night is to buy a nail gun, shoot your foot, and ride the Red Line to the emergency room at Mass General.
Labels: Signs, Somerville
Labels: Food and drink
Labels: television, The Sopranos
Labels: Food and drink, Montreal
Labels: television, The Sopranos
In a gush of excitement over the potential of mass-producing souvenirs out of our piles of broken glass, one of our partners had the bright idea of sending off a sample to the John Hancock CEO.... A week or so later, the package was returned with a carefully worded and wonderfully restrained letter indicating that this type of souvenir was not considered appropriate.
Too bad. I would have liked to have a set of John Hancock Goblets (for when you want to get falling-down drunk), along with some Big Dig Dinner Plates (for when you want to subtly let your guests know that your cooking is way behind schedule) and a City Hall Plaza Brick Pizza Oven to keep my pies nice and hot from May through October (or for freeze-drying them the rest of the year).
Labels: Architecture, Boston
Labels: Boston, Food and drink
Labels: Food and drink, French, Montreal
I hadn't known about the stacking; I always thought all the outdoor staircases were part of the Montreal trait of refusing to accommodate the cold climate. Not only are many apartments accessible by steep staircases that are covered by snow and ice for much of the year, but almost every housing unit has a balcony or terrace facing the street (another feature considered a luxury in Boston). And I have never seen as many houses with swimming pools as I have on the bus trip from the Vermont border to Montreal. However they came about, I still think the medium-height rowhouses in Montreal are perfect for fostering vibrant neighborhoods. They provide density without casting shadows over the street, and they maximize interactions with neighbors -- unlike Boston's triple-deckers separated by driveways. But I could be romanticizing things, and maybe a Montrealer will set me right.With their distinct form - several superposed flats, each extending from the front of a building to the back - plexes are a popular form of housing, adaptable to many different lifestyles.
But what's their story? How did Montreal come to be a city of walkup apartments, outdoor staircases and balconies? (Although plexes can be found in a number of other cities, like Boston and Chicago, only in Montreal have they become so ingrained in the local culture.)
According to David Hanna, professor of geography at the Universite du Quebec a Montreal, the origins of the plex can be traced to a 19th century "marriage of convenience" between French and Scottish traditions.
Some French-Canadian settlers used outdoor staircases to link the first and second floors of their houses; immigrants from Scotland, meanwhile, brought with them the custom of stacking one flat on top of another.
"It kept morphing in the 19th century until it settled into the form of an outdoor staircase leading to each apartment," Hanna said.
(Name withheld just in case she likes real-life psychopaths too)I'm excited to see how The Sopranos ends, but I hope Tony survives — so we can see him again, hopefully on the big screen! Bye for now to the greatest show ever made — may you go out with a bang.
Labels: television, The Sopranos
Labels: Montreal
Labels: Food and drink, maps