1634 Beacon St
Brookline, MA 02445-2101
www.fireplacerest.com/home/
Drive a few miles north to Brookline, where you can thaw out by a stone hearth at the Fireplace, known for coziness and New England comfort food. The sweet-spiced squash bisque with Great Hill blue cheese and pumpkin seeds was a standout on my visit, but the tuna melt with Vermont Cheddar and the turkey club rolled in a Rhode Island johnnycake.
Check schedules for weekly live music and winter fireside chats!
The Providence Athenaeum, whose roots go back to 1753 and which moved to its present building in 1838, is one of about 20 historic membership libraries around the nation that continue to play a vibrant role in the cultural lives of their communities — and welcome the curious.
Via Roger Mummert of The New York Times
Some of these membership libraries, including institutions in Philadelphia; St. Johnsbury, Vt.; and La Jolla, Calif., bear the title athenaeum, a Greek term for a place of learning, culture and discourse that stems from Athena, the goddess of wisdom and the arts. In the first half of the 19th century, the athenaeum concept — a library that is also a center for edification in the arts and sciences — was popular in the United States. “From the time of our founding, this was a gathering place,” Ms. Maxell said.
(Some early athenaeums, like those in Nantucket and Pittsfield, Mass., have become public libraries, while the Wadsworth Athenaeum in Hartford now operates primarily as an art museum.)
Today, the Providence Athenaeum attracts more than 50 members and guests for Friday night discussions on culture and history. “We started serving sherry, and we’re scouring antique stores for more sherry glasses,” Ms. Maxell said of the popular series.
As if tailor-made for a weekend getaway, a series of historic athenaeums lines up along a virtual Athenaeum Alley in New England. Open for visits are athenaeums in Newport and Providence, R.I.; in Boston and Salem, Mass.; and in Portsmouth, N.H.
Visiting these bookish sanctuaries, which are housed in historic buildings in a number of architectural styles, provides an opportunity to touch remnants of American history. Many of the same books, newspapers, maps and documents that were read in colonial times can be viewed, admired and (with some limitations to nonmembers) handled.
Visitors to the Redwood Library and Athenaeum in Newport, the oldest lending library in America, can survey at close range the 755 titles in the library’s Original Collection. This is a selection of books that 46 educated Newport residents collectively purchased from England in 1748; they built the library to house the collection.
“These are some of the same books that residents of Newport carried around these streets in 1750,” said Cheryl Helms, the director, standing in the Harrison Room in the original part of the building, the first private Palladian-style structure built in the colonies.
Many volumes concern law and theology, while others describe science and practical matters (making beer and how to build a privy). Ms. Helms explained that while rare books of this era need to be viewed by arrangement, they are, indeed, there for the reading.
“This is not wallpaper,” she said. “These books are meant to be used, and they are.”
Last year, the Redwood had 18,000 visitors. Many wanted to view its collection of furniture, sculpture and painting (there are six signed Gilbert Stuart portraits and two other paintings attributed to him). Frequently, scholars make arrangements to delve into vast resources on local and colonial history.
THE New England athenaeums I visited on a recent trip maintain not only active memberships, but also some peculiar terminology. Members are commonly called proprietors; some athenaeums distinguish share-holding proprietors from a second tier of members, called subscribers. At the Portsmouth Athenaeum, the director is called the keeper.
Many athenaeums maintain lists of rules that spell out consequences for offenses like writing in books. Some prohibit pens and provide pencils for notation, as well as cotton gloves for handling aged materials. Large or old books often must be rested on wedge-shaped foam cradles to protect brittle spines.
Surprisingly, the Boston Athenaeum permits dogs — those that behave, a staff member was quick to add.
These athenaeums also provide, in those areas where talking aloud is encouraged, lively opportunities for exchanging ideas with other devotees of literature, arts and sciences.
“In addition to having access to our book stock, members find intellectual stimulation in our exhibitions and by being part of discussion groups,” said Richard Wendorf, director and librarian of the Boston Athenaeum and the editor of “America’s Membership Libraries” (Oak Knoll Press, 2007), which details histories of 16 of the largest membership libraries.
More than 150 events, from afternoon teas to lectures and concerts, are held there each year. Members also may participate in any of a dozen discussion groups (fiction, mystery novels or World War II history, for example). Visitors, Mr. Wendorf added, are welcome to enjoy art exhibits on the athenaeum’s first floor while experiencing a remarkable work of 19th-century architecture. Tours of the building are given Tuesdays and Thursdays by appointment.
L. A. Burdick @ Harvard Square Cafe
52-D Brattle Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Phone: 617-491-4340
www.burdickchocolate.com
L. A. Burdick, a cafe and chocolate shop on the other side of Harvard Square. Choose from dark, milk or white chocolate, and if you dare risk overdosing, try one of Burdick’s famous chocolate mice on the side.
Walden Pond State Reservation is just off Route 2, 18 miles west of Boston, Walden Pond’s public beach, walking trails and reproduction of Thoreau’s cabin and cairn teem with tourists in the summer. But when the calendar — and the weather — turns in September and October, the 462-acre state park is nearly deserted. Early in the morning the half-mile expanse of Henry David Thoreau’s favorite watering hole is a great spot for open-water swimming, and open-minded thinking.
Jay Atkinson writes in the New York Times:
Thoreau was known for his thrift, and I’ve followed his example by having a raw-food energy bar for breakfast and borrowing a state parking pass from my hometown library, saving myself $5. Crossing Walden Street with my gear, I’m serenaded by twittering birds and a last, insomniac cricket. The sun is rising above the wall of trees surrounding the pond, and at the far end of the beach, beyond the shuttered pavilion and empty lifeguard stand, the first blush of autumn has appeared on the oaks and maples. A pair of flip-flops and two or three mesh bags are lined up on the low stone wall bordering the strand; I can make out the heads of several swimmers churning their way toward the far bank. There’s no one else in sight.
Stripping down to trunks, I tug on a sleeveless wetsuit, strap on goggles and zero-out the timer on my watch. Spires of mist rise from the pond, which is flat and black and still. Wading into the pebbly shallows I throw water onto my neck, make the sign of the Cross and dive in. The water is significantly colder than the air, and the gasp reflex sends a spasm down my neck and through my torso. Then I set off.
Thoreau wrote, “Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.” Out on the pond the sharp intake of my breath echoes in my head with every pull, while each head-tilt produces a snapshot of the rising sun. Thoreau noted that his fellow Concordians once thought the pond bottomless, and staring into the milky-green depths I can understand why. A so-called kettle hole formed by a melting glacier, Walden Pond is 61 acres in total area and 102 feet deep.
In a few minutes the layer of water between the wetsuit and my skin warms up, insulating me from the cold, and I marvel at the slanted sun reflecting off the pond onto the trees. After listening to Neil Young on the drive I can hear “Hey Hey My My (Out of the Blue)” playing in my head along with this celestial light show.
Fifteen minutes into the swim I pop up to get my bearings. Coming the other way, another swimmer is thinking the same thing, and suddenly we’re facing each other, 10 yards apart and a hundred yards from shore, blinking through our goggles. It’s like running into a neighbor on another planet.
“Good morning,” he says, and I respond in kind, feeling like a character in an Antoine de Saint-Exupéry story.
Counting strokes induces a trancelike state, helping me overcome the weariness that sets in during long, cold swims. I lose track somewhere around 750 and go streaming onward, my breath coming in just the right rhythm so I don’t feel tired, only exhilarated.
At one point it seems as if I’d risen into the air above my swimming self and were looking down at a pair of churning legs and the thin white trail I’m making across the pond. It’s one of those transcendent (or perhaps Transcendentalist) moments that make all the pain worthwhile.
In 1845 the iconoclastic Thoreau built his tiny cabin beside the pond, where he grew a garden, worked sporadically as a hired man and announced his intention to “live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life.” After some time I arrive at Thoreau’s Cove, a shallow inlet close to where he lived for two years and two months. I stand in the waist-deep water, looking up at the cairn that marks the site, and a red maple leaf drifts past, a symbol of the Canadian weather that will soon be coming our way. I snatch it up and stow it under the chest plate of my wetsuit, and resume swimming.
Nothing lasts — especially not a New England summer — and I want to wring every stroke, every breath, every passing thought and sensation from the sanctifying waters of the pond.
OVERVIEW
Marriott’s Renaissance brand is the big chain’s attempt to grab the boutique traveler. The Waterfront is a sleek nautically-themed hotel with Marriott’s service-with-a-smile touch.
GREAT FOR CONVENTION GOERS
In the South Boston Waterfront area, hard by the Fish Pier and the new Institute of Contemporary Art. The Convention Center and the World Trade Center are a stone’s throw away, but getting to major tourist destinations can take multiple stops.
THE ROOM
Our fifth-floor rooms didn’t have much of a view — they both overlooked a deserted patio outside the hotel fitness center. But they were bright and comfortable. The desk, with a plug-in technology panel, was big enough to work at, and it came with a sleek Keilhauer desk chair. In addition to the flat-screen TV, there was an iHome dock for our iPod(s). Overall nothing really felt “boutique.”
ROOM SERVICE
Standard fare.
AMENITIES
The lap pool (open from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m.). The adjoining fitness center with treadmills and elliptical machines is open 24 hours a day. In addition to 606 Congress, the hotel’s “modern American” restaurant, there’s a Starbucks in the lobby and 24-hour room service. Wired and wireless Internet are available for $12.95 or $16.95 a day, depending on access speed.
THE BOTTOM LINE
If you’re in town for a convention or to do business in South Boston, the Renaissance would be a no-brainer — convenient, with high-end tech toys and a friendly, helpful staff. (Plus, an early run on the nearby Harborwalk is a delight. You can say hello to the seals outside the aquarium before turning around to come home.) For families or those looking for a classic Boston scene, the out-of-the way location may override the positives. Doubles run from $199 to $499.
Renaissance Boston Waterfront Hotel, 606 Congress Street, Boston; (617) 338-4111; www.marriott.com.
Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge (580 Mount Auburn Street; 617-547-7105; www.mountauburn.org).
America’s first horticultural cemetery and it’s so popular that they rent out audio headsets! Created in 1831 the landscape is laced with ponds and streams, filled with birds and they have two chapels filled with stained-glass windows.
Best of all visiting and touring are free and all the trees/shrubs from all over the world are labeled.
At the Mapparium at the Mary Baker Eddy Library, 200 Massachusetts Avenue, (888) 222-3711, www.marybakereddylibrary.org, visitors traverse a 30-foot glass bridge, surrounded by hundreds of brightly colored glass panels depicting the world as it was in 1935.
Children can stand on one side while parents whisper from the other, and you will all learn how sound travels inside a glass sphere. Admission $5, students $3, younger than 6 free. Closed Monday.
Charlie’s Sandwich Shoppe
429 Columbus Avenue, 617-536-7669
This diner serves breakfast until 2:30 in the afternoon. You can twirl on stools at the Formica counter and eat fried eggs and bacon, fat English muffins and heaping stacks of blueberry pancakes — with Boston cream pie for dessert.
Orinoco Kitchen
477 Shawmut Avenue, 617-369-7075
www.orinocokitchen.com
A cozy Venezuelan restaurant, the tiny, tin-ceilinged room is packed with the South End’s beautiful people listening to Nuevo Latino music and drinking plenty of wine — malbec from Argentina, carmenères from Chile — as they wait for tables.
There isn’t a lobster roll in sight! The chef is Carlos Rodríquez, and his hearty food is not for calorie accountants. Order the arepas (grilled corn muffins stuffed with shredded meats and cheeses), or the empanadas (dough filled with beef, plantains and cheese).
The line is outside the door every night around 6, but you can skip the wait if you eat later; Orinoco serves until 11 p.m. on Fridays.