To anyone with a long memory of the place, it comes as a shock to hear Boston praised as a “cool” city, a place where “hipsters” wish to settle. To read how Forbes Magazine in recent years chose Boston as the best city for singles seems unreal to us veteran residents of the area.
Social critic Richard Florida goes so far as to to call Boston the third most desirable city in the country for highly talented people. He does so because this place can boast diversity – “bohemians, technologists, and other cutting-edge types” – who find it a comfortable place to live. Professor Florida of Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Mellon University cites the presence of gays in particular as a sign of a stimulating urban environment. Beyond tolerance of differences, he also places high importance on the city’s acceptance of human diversity as a value.
Talent attracts more talent and that is why cities like Boston and Austin continue to flourish at the present time. They have transformed themselves into “talent magnets” attracting others whom Florida refers to as “the creative class.” The presence of a varied gay community and its acceptance by the local populace also makes a difference, he says.
The Boston I remember from my growing-up days seems located on a different planet from the one described above. The Old Howard burlesque theater and the Scollay Square district in which it lived were among the few sections of the city that defied convention. The city’s mainline institutions – the Boston Symphony, the Museum of Fine Arts, and hotels such as the Parker House and the Ritz – upheld the tradition of decorum and solidity.
Looking back, I recall a time when the city seemed to be sleepwalking, in absolutely no danger of being called cool or hip or the then equivalents. Yes, Boston had its charms but they were largely of the classical sort, without the dynamic diversity and experimental spirit of other places.
A Boston dowager, refusing to buy a hew hat, said that she had her hats. Like our hats we had our buildings too, and the Custom House retained its dominance while other cities (notably Chicago and New York) grew structures that were imposing and often architecturally distinguished. We allowed the wrecking ball to destroy the Boston Opera House on Huntington Avenue. Though the building may have been past its prime, it still hosted the annual visits of the Met and featured the greats like Caruso and company.
The highways and streets remained unmodern, with the city apparently committed to the charm of its slow-moving traffic. Before Storrow Drive took shape, the main arteries did not offer great views of the Charles and other beauty spots of the area. And the Southeast Expressway was about to despoil central parts of the city.
The district that I found most congenial was Newspaper Row, that narrow section of Washington Street where the Boston Post, my father’s paper, faced the Globe directly across the way. The Post was housed in five thin ramshackle buildings tied together by no one knew what. When, during one of my college summers, I came to work as a copy boy at the Globe I found it a sleepy tradition-bound publication, filled with cigarette and cigar smoking city room editors and reporters, some of them hung over from the night before.
For lunch I would often hasten down to Durgin Park, the fabled restaurant near Faneuil Hall where the waiters took pride in almost throwing the food at you. Even by Boston standards the food was plain and simple but I used to gobble it down with pleasure. Or sometimes I would go to Thompson’s Spa, a favorite hangout for local newspapermen (and a few women) where gossip about politics reigned.
As in my pre-college days, the only people I knew were much like me. Irish Catholics and Yankees constituted my whole social circle and I never remember the presence of people of color. Protestants made for about as much diversity as I ever experienced in that era of apparent uniformity. The only variant on this sameness I remember came from the trips I used to make to a club on Mass Avenue in Roxbury where jazz musicians like Fats Waller performed with great style.
My memory remains sharp enough for me to resist nostalgia for those days. By and large I find the new Boston much more dynamic and entertaining. That we now have so many immigrants from other countries I see as a revitalizing force. Thankfully, Boston is much more like the rest of the world than it used to be.
The terms hip and cool now applied to the place may strike me as forced but I welcome many of the changes that the transformation of Boston has brought. Though I do not live within Boston’s narrow city limits, I enjoy sharing in the lively atmosphere of the region. The place certainly has formidable problems as always, but it has grown into an area that is indeed worth living in.
Richard Griffin