One of the things that makes Boston so attractive to me is its age. I’m always drawn to old things, ancient things that have a history that goes back to the before. Ancient Roman coins, 19th century novels, and 17th century cities: they spark something inside me.
I can imagine the people that have walked down roads that have been in place since before there was a United States and back. It doesn’t matter that they’ve been paved over a dozen times since they were first laid down, the roads are still there, beneath the blacktop and the yellow painted lines. God alone knows how many feet have walked those paths, at first just to walk cows to pasture and now so cars can rush through five times as fast.
We saw the first subway built in the United States, which stretched all of five blocks, if that. And I thought about the first people to ride it and wondered if there were the people who cursed this newfangled underground train system. Or if they were all aflutter over being the first in the country to have such a thing, a point of pride to point of to visitors, just as it is now.
There are buildings built on top of buildings, buildings that have supplanted older buildings, history stacked on history. Little cemeteries tucked into little corners between buildings, little pockets of forgotten stories engraved on stone tablets, the dead of those first settlers to arrive.
It’s a city that has embraced its past, enhanced it, built up around it and become embedded with old tales and memories.
Dylan Charles
dylancharles.net 