PLOT HUB TIME MACHINE: FOUR OLD BOOKS SHOW US NOTHING EVER CHANGES IN BOSTON
We often encourage DigBoston interns and writers to spelunk through the stacks at the Boston Public Library. Not just because they may stumble upon valuable unattended works of art, but also because not everything is readable online. Though the internet is loaded with old documents, location information isn’t always parsed very well; as a result, when looking to the past for answers, the most revealing narratives are often those that are bound or on microfilm. For this same reason, some of us dig for relics about Hub life in every cultural nook and corner imaginable, and last week secured some obscure paperback gems at a used book oasis in Maine. As usual, we perused our picks for signs of progress on the Boston front …
‘A Handbook to the Art and Architecture of the Boston Public Library’
Our day trip came before a city archivist—after people were already emotional and taking action about potentially stolen pieces—discovered two valuable prints that had previously turned up missing from the BPL collection. Because the works seemed likely to be gone for good, we couldn’t resist copping this map to the library’s riches for some kind of joke. Now, however, we’re starting to regret the purchase. There’s a punchline in there somewhere about how the BPL used to be more organized, but we can’t exactly pinpoint it; meanwhile, since it’s signed by the author, Peter Arms Wick, we paid $12.50 for this 1977 bore fest, and there’s a no-return policy.
‘Car-Free in Boston and all Massachusetts’
We’re pretty sure this book of maps and facts from 1984 was intended as a handy pocket tool for tourists without wheels, as opposed to a Utopian how-to guide for weaning the Bean off of gasoline. In any case, the rainbow-riffic throwback pocket-stuffer is essentially still up to date, give or take a couple of Green Line stops and the old elevated Orange Line stations. The same goes for other modes of transportation …
While driving in any part of Boston can be difficult, traveling downtown by car is guaranteed to be frustrating. Most streets are one-way and narrow, and many even change names. Even the most experienced Bostonians have trouble driving downtown, and agree that the best way to travel is by ‘T.’
We wouldn’t change a word, so long as we can assume “best way to travel” was a relative phrase then as it is now.
‘Jeremiah Murphy’s Boston’
Here’s a cliche so applicable in this case that we don’t mind using one: They no longer make Boston Globe columnists like Jeremiah Murphy. Case in point: this line about bitter Old Southie natives from Jeremiah Murphy’s Boston, a prophetic 1974 compilation of his columns:
They stayed, many because they could not afford to move, and now they deeply resent newspaper editors and editorial writers and reporters who write about the city’s awful problems and then drive home to Lincoln and Lexington and Rockport, because they must remain and live these same problems.
All the current Globe hacks together on acid couldn’t muster such self-awareness in a mansion of mirrors, let alone begin to fathom what those on the bottom tier are actually thinking. Despite the writers of today being cut from more designer cloth though, going by Murphy’s descriptions, politicians are the same as always …
Mayor Kevin White came up with a memorable line when I asked him during last fall’s campaign about $2500 in campaign contributions from a Toronto businessman … ‘But I’ll call you back on that one,’ he said, and I waited a week but no call came … Finally, after making two calls myself to White’s chief of communication or something, I learned that the Toronto man was a building contractor and his company was sharing a substantial school building addition contract in—guess where?—the City of Boston.
‘The Alienated Voter: Politics In Boston’
Finally, we thoroughly enjoyed this 1960 study by then-Boston University political science professor Murray B. Levin, who you really have to give a lot of props to for the morbidly abstract illustration on his cover of what’s mostly a dry academic review. As you may suspect from the title, The Alienated Voter is about Bostonians who “feel angry, resentful, hopeless, and politically powerless.” You know, like a lot of Dig readers in 2015. Based on post-election surveys, Levin’s work found …
A large proportion of the electorate feels politically powerless because it believes that the community is controlled by a small group of powerful and selfish individuals who use public office for personal gain … To these voters the election tends to be meaningless and the democratic process a farce because neither candidate is seen as honest, and for them meaningful alternatives do not exist.
The more things change …
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