A Rising

In the city, they say the buildings rise to reach the sky.  The street-scape is crowded, and buildings touch each other.  The only way to stretch out is up.  And so, from time to time we witness a rising.  Looking east on Massachusetts Avenue, a rising is underway.  Reaching high for the sky, a tall crane lifts up the steel skeleton of this new tower.  Berklee College of Music is constructing "a mixed-use building that will include ... student housing" with "two-story community rooms, practice and ensemble rooms, and a small fitness center. It will also include a 400-seat dining hall and evening performance venue, ground floor retail space, and recording studios and other music technology spaces two levels below grade."

Certainly good for the college.  But its rising will interrup for many generations a view seldom seen of St. Cecilia Church, which was available for a few months  while construction was reaching down to set a firm foundation in the gravely glacial deposits that bordered Boston's Back Bay.  Unlike other nearby towers founded on piles into the muck of the Back Bay, this new tower sits firmly on dry land that's existed since the glacial recession, some 12,500 or more years ago.

Driving Massachusetts Avenue from Cambridge, Boston's two tallest towers rise high above the Back Bay.  The green bridge rail in the forground obscures the height of the typical Back Bay residences.  The contrast reveals what giants these two are, rising so high out of what was once the muck of the tidelands along the Charles River.

The Prudential Tower rises above the tree-lined Commonwealth Avenue.  In the forground, the shorter brick-clad buildings of Back Bay are in the shaddows, while the Pru stretches high and enjoys bathing in the sunshine of a fall afternoon.

The Hancock Tower rises to touch the sky as seen from Bay Village.  Immediately to its right, another rising as Liberty Mutual erects a tower that obstructs the view of the iconic original Hancock Tower, with its lighted beacon.

A View Seldom Seen

Cities like Boston have been around for centuries.  While the urban vistas evolve over time, with new buildings replacing the old.  But, all in all, the view corridors tend to stay the same over time.

But, once in a rare while, a new view corridor opens up, if only for a short while.

This view down St. Cecilia Street in the Back Bay section of Boston was only available for a few months early in 2012.  In the foreground, Berklee College of Music is constructing a new mixed use tower.  With the older buildings demolished and construction focused "in the hole" on the new foundations, there is no obstruction blocking this view from Massachusetts Avenue.  Months later, workers were erecting the steel frame of the new tower and the view was gone.

The tower on the right is St. Cecilia Church, one of the largest in the Back Bay.  St. Cecilia's is Catholic and, when built, it served the maids who worked for the wealthy Brahmans of Back Bay, who worshiped at churches prominently located on the main thoroughfares.  But for a few months, St. Cecilia's is in clear view of all traveling along Massachusetts Avenue, the arterial separating the Back Bay from the Fenway neighborhood.

Churches of Santa Fe

In the end of May I found myself in Santa Fe, New Mexico, attending a family wedding. Santa Fe has an interesting history that weaves Native American and Spanish cultures into the ethnic stew of the present-day southwest in the US. Perhaps most unexpected was that Santa Fe was settled by Europeans before my hometown of Boston. The City of Santa Fe was founded in 1610 while Boston dates from 1630.

The architecture of the churches particularly caught my eye. Typical of the southwest, the palate of the facades consists of earth tones, reflecting Spanish architecture and local materials. The results are a very appealing simplicity in these sacred spaces. Following are samples of these churches.

Above right: Simple interior of the Santuario Diocesano de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe (Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe).

Below: Exterior of the Santuario Diocesano de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe.


Below: San Miguel Mission Church, recognized as the Oldest Church in the United States San Miguel Mission, dates from the early 1600s.

Below: The St. Francis Cathedral Basilica





Right: The famous spiral staircase in the Loretto Chapel. It was constructed in the 1870s. As the taped recording in the chapel tells the story, the chapel was built without a stairs to the choir loft, and this required climbing ladders. This was ok for men, but this chapel was used by nuns. As the referenced web site states, "many carpenters were consulted for a solution, but all of them felt that a traditional stairway would take up too much room." What to do? "The Sisters sought divine guidance, and on the ninth and final day of their Novena, a mysterious carpenter appeared who designed and constructed a circular stairway to the loft. His 'miraculous stairway' contains 33 steps in two full 360-degree turns, with no center support, nor is it held from the sides. Upon completing the stairway, the carpenter disappeared without receiving payment for his work." It still is a mystery to architects and structural engineers as to how it is self-supporting. In recent times, they added braces so it does not collapse with the vibrations on traffic on the street outside.