In the Mist Outside the Science Center and Other Photos of a Sunny Friday

Friday afternoon before Memorial Day, I scheduled a late afternoon appointment near home. That gave me the opportunity to just stroll around on a most beautiful, warm, sunny late day in spring! Living a short walk from the campus of Harvard University, I headed in that direction.

Right: sunlight in the tree canopy over Harvard Street.

Below: a view through the mist of the spray founation outside the Harvard Science Center. I spent many a hot afternoon here with my toddlers who enjoyed a bit of the cool spray. Also, Memorial Hall in the background is also famous as the "analog" structure from which the CG version of the Great Hall at Hogwarts was created for the Harry Potter movies.

Below: a young woman finds the stones of the fountain a convenient place to sit while making a call.

I Don't Think We're Still in Cambridge, Children!

That's the feeling I have everytime I walk into this little isolated part of my current home town of Cambridge. This little neighborhood is off the beaten path, partly bordered by the sprawling campus of Harvard University. While the rest of Cambridge is very much a city -- high rise buildings, the subway, closely spaced building, itsy bitsy back yards -- I enter this area and everything changes!

This was a favorite place to stroll when my children were little. First, it was quiet! All those city noise of traffic and people and activity are gone. The houses feel like I'm in the suburbs, maybe an older suburb with a slightly rural character as afforded by the canopy of very mature trees. Some trees, like the one on the right, have grown into the street, beyond the curbline. This never happens in the rest of the city.

There are lawns and real backyards. There are even some single-family houses, which are a rarity in a city of triple deckers (3-family homes with one unit on each floor).

I still enjoy strolling here, and did so today on this beautiful, sunny Sunday in May. Thought the photographs you can join me on a stoll through this part of Cambridge which doesn't feel like we're still in Cambridge.

Urban Evening

It is evening when my workday is finally over and I can leave my environmentally controlled office (visually isolated from the world outside) and enter the urban environment of this great city where I am employed. Many days, I'm rushing home and take everything for granted. Other evenings, when I have some time, I stroll, taking in the scenes as though I was a tourist here for the first time.

Here are some evening photos. All but the park were taken just last Thursday.

Above left: The classic Boston Back Bay skyline reflecting into the Charles River, as seen from the Massachusetts Avenue (Harvard) Bridge. The tower on the left in the Hancock and on the right it's the Prudential (the results of a rivalry for tallest building in Boston between these two insurance companies in the 1960s). To the left of the Hancock tower is the old Hancock tower with its lit single spire.

Below: A view across the lagoon at the Public Garden as the shadows of evening fall.



Below: Up close, the Hancock tower's glass facade reflects its plaza and the buildings around it.

Below: A view down St. James Avenue, with the Hancock tower to the right.



Below: The evening setting sun backlights clouds over the Boston Public Library and the Old South Church.