2. HOW AND WHY?

In the course of sifting and sorting through so many images, I was able to view hundreds of historic maps and photos from the Boston area.

I also served as a book editor for a Boston historical publisher. I edited 16 illustrated books for the imprint “Pictorial America.” My background in publishing will help with this project.  

In 2014, I decided to take a break and began driving PT for Uber. Beginning in 2017, I ramped it up to FT.   I didn't start out thinking I was going to make a blog out of all this.  But serendipitous things began to happen.

The combination of driving all over the area and having studied historical prints the past decade got me thinking about Boston history.  What were neighborhoods like 100 years ago? What were the original roads leading into Boston in colonial times?  What things are out there to see that we don't know much about?

My discoveries and note taking began with secret panoramas. Read the blog post about it.

A Ride In Arlington & the Secret Panoramas of Boston - Blog Post

THE SECRET PANORAMAS OF BOSTON

There are secret panoramas all around us. From the present and the past. Our forefathers enjoyed these secret views for centuries. I drew inspiration from the historic images I had seen. Now, through the miracle of digital scanning and the Internet, these views from the past previously hidden away in libraries are available for everyone to see. After driving all over the area, I’ve been making discoveries about where these lost views might be located.

The 1841 print above is a good example. The scene is of well-to-do people, perhaps out for a Sunday picnic, in the desirable countryside enclave known as Dorchester Heights. This print will shock many people as Southie looks nothing like it did 180 years ago. What struck me is how the state capital sits neatly at the top Beacon Hill. If you stood at the foot of the capital you would have a beautiful view off to Boston Harbor.

Contrast this with a photo taken on the Longfellow Bridge. One can sense that at some point in time, perhaps in the 1960s or 1970s when high rises went up, a secret panorama enjoyed for centuries was lost. Are there those among us who would remember when this transition took place? Or who even noticed?

You wouldn’t even realize these views existed unless you happened to find these old prints and you made a habit of driving everywhere in order to make a connection with then and now.

244 years ago, the same spot on Dorchester Heights is where George Washington stood as the British evacuated Boston, March 17, 1776. This is now a holiday in Boston, Patriots Day.

SECRET PANORAMAS OF THE PAST

Above are two more secret views. The first, from Corey Hill in Brookline, comes from the Normal B. Levanthal Map Collection at the Boston Public Library. The second is an old print of Mt. Bowdoin in Dorchester likely from the mid 1800s. Corey Hill is easy to find in a car and the panorama, although much different 150 years later, is no less breathtaking. I’ve tried to locate Mt. Bowdoin. I think I found it once driving to the top of a hill along what is now Bowdoin Street in Dorchester. Sadly, there is not much of a view there anymore. Who could imagine that Dorchester was just a bunch of farms?

These are a few of over 100 secret panoramas I’ve come across while driving throughout the region. I will write about them in the blog.

THE BOSTON BASIN

At some point, I realized that Boston was surrounded by hills on all sides. This is not so easy to notice because over the past 150 years continuous road, housing and commercial construction has hacked away at much of the original landscape of the region. I found a photo where this phenomena is strikingly visible. The above topographical model of Boston was exhibited in Paris in 1900. It shows Boston in a basin or a bowl. The book detailing this model is available on Archive.org and from the Google Books at Harvard Library. It also seems like an attempt to reconstruct this model was made recently as evidence by this photo gallery on Flickr. There is also a terrific booklet by the USGS entitled, “The Geology and Early History of the Boston Area of Massachusetts,” that details geological origins extensively.

SCENES FROM THE ROAD

115 PAGES NOTES, 4,000 PHOTOS

My note taking began around April 2017 with the discovery of a secret panorama in Arlington. Above is a video clip of my notes 3 years later. The full length the document is actually 6x as long! I also began to keep lists of other things I would see. Secret Panoramas. Bad intersections and rotaries. Secret neighborhoods. I took photos. And screen shots. Funny bumper stickers. Waze Map Chats. Odd, curious and interesting businesses and roadside attractions. To date, I have 115 pages of notes and 4,000 photos. It took me about 6 months just to categorize them. I compiled a list of over 20 categories and subcategories.

DRIVER THOUGHTS

JFK & THE CURSE OF THE BAMBINO

As I began to develop the blog, I started to think about what kind of stories to write about. I created a category called “Driver Thoughts".” I estimate there are probably about 500 - 1,000 stories I can write based upon things I’ve seen and stories people have told me. A new kind of crowdsourced guide-blog. Here are some connections I’ve made of “then and now”:

1. JFK AUTO TOUR. Would you find it interesting to learn about all the different places that Boston's most famous resident, John F. Kennedy, did things over the course of his life before he became President?  Take the JFK Auto Tour.

2. REVERSE THE CURSE. Did you know that a famous sign hung for decades on a bridge over Storrow Drive?  This sign was removed, as seen above, by none other former Governor Mitt Romney in 2004.  Why?  Read my blog post.

3. MORE BABE RUTH. Did you know that Babe Ruth used to live in Watertown?  Neither did I.  A rider told me.  He said the house he lived in was recently torn down.  Public works employees collected bricks from it as souvenirs.  The Babe also lived in Sudbury. He supposedly pushed a piano into a pond. But attempts to prove the myth have failed.

4. THE FAMOUS ARCH. Before the highways of the 20th century brought people in and out of the Boston, there was an intersection at Huntington Avenue and the Jamaica Way / Riverway in Brookline, along MA. Rt 9. Above this ancient juncture stood a famous arch that marked the gateway which all travelers passed under.

5. BOSTON’S FIRST SUBURB. Did you know the Longwood section of Brookline, now consumed by hospitals and BU, was the first affluent suburb of Boston in the early 1800s? Here are three blog posts that tell the story as well as detail other findings through historic drives:

   1. Town of Brookline, Pt. 1

   2. A Nostalgic Drive through Brookline, Pt. 2

   3. History of Turnpikes of New England: Brookline, Pt. 3

6. BIKES v. CARS. There is a long standing battle between cars and bikes that goes way back in time. Did you know that Boston used to be a bike manufacturing capital of the US? And also a car manufacturing center too! Read the blog posts:

   1. The Car and the Bicycle, Pt. 1 - Boston and the Invention of the Bicycle

   2. The Car and the Bicycle, Pt. 2 - Rise of the Bike Lanes

There are hundreds more driver stories I’d like to write about.

RIDER STORIES

The bulk of my notes consist of stories told to me by riders. From this I created another category, aptly called “Rider Stories”.

In collecting stories, I made a point only to write things down if someone told me something directly, and if the comment seemed out-of-the box, interesting or worthy.  I never wrote about private discussions I happened to overhear if I was not part of the conversation.  I always made a point to tell riders if I was going to write something down and that I may publish comments in the blog.  All have been supportive of my effort.

With each passing year, I began to realize that this massive archive gathering on my iPhone and hard drive was something no one had ever likely accumulated before, perhaps because of the technological and logistical hurdles described above.  Who in their right mind would have the opportunity to drive such a vast distance just in the state of Massachusetts?  And take notes the whole time? 

I did.  

What is it like talking to thousands of people, from Boston and all over the world? I can't even describe it.  It’s kind of like being a bartender, a politician or a social worker.  It is nothing like I have ever experienced before.  Thousands of cab and rideshare drivers are seeing the same things, but no one seems to be talking about their experiences.

FAMOUS RIDERS

Now for the good stuff.

Riders have asked me if I've ever picked up any famous people.  I haven't picked up any "Hollywood" famous people.  However, I do pick up a lot of LA people at the airport and lots of these people have tales of their experiences with interacting with A-list people.

• I picked up the wife of the hair dresser of Mark Wahlberg (he was in town filming a movie).  

• I took an Uber with a driver who lives across from Gronk.  He said he gives rides to Gronk's physical therapist.  

• Another driver told me he thought he picked up Julian Edelman once.  

• I shuttled a woman who was the mother of a Patriots player (in town to visit her son).

• I once gave a ride to a woman who said that she was in another Uber and in that ride the driver told her he had another rider who was on the phone with Tom Brady during the trip.

• I picked up an Englishman near Harvard Square whose 4th great grandfather fought in the Battle of Bunker Hill. For the British! He sent me the whole story.

• One rider’s ancestor was George F. Baker, founder of Citibank. And the first benefactor of the Harvard Business School (eg, “Baker Library”).

• I picked up a man who served in British Military Intelligence for 12 years in Iraq and Syria. He told me he spent most of his time getting information out of people who didn’t want to give it to him. (I didn’t ask any more questions). He is now a mild mannered software man.

• I picked up a man whose relative is Neighbor Aber from Mr. Rogers

Whereas I don’t give rides to A-list superstars, I have given rides to famous people at the B, C, and D levels and what I can only describe as "nerd" famous people. Harvard and MIT professors and students, as well from every other college in the area. Lots of tech people from the airport: Google, Apple, IBM, Oracle, Redhat, Microsoft, et al. Boston is 2nd to San Francisco in terms of high tech and startups after all. I have a 2” stack of business cards I’ve collected from riders I’ve had interesting conversations with. Networking on steroids.

Having gone to college at the University of Michigan, I began to notice every few weeks I would pick up someone up at the airport either living in or originally from Columbus, OH (home to the arch rival Buckeyes). Our conversations tend to start out formally with an acknowledgement of traditional rivalries. I remember an older man and his wife I picked up at the airport. They were returning to Boston area. Without any prompting, upon entering the car the man told me, quite proudly, that he and his wife were from “Columbus Ohio!" I paused and said, “you know I went to Michigan.”

Silence. (Which lasted for more than a few seconds.)

Then, in a low voice he uttered, “Well, I guess you are getting a zero.” We became fast friends after that.

A rider told me about a night he partied with Charlie Sheen (in Green Bay, Wisconsin).  He texted me some pictures (and said I could share them). The most famous politician I've met?  The Haitian Ambassador to the UK. One rider told me he is a relative of the man who played Neighbor Aber on Mister Rogers.

I have many stories from riders who bumped elbows with famous people.  

I’ve picked up a few major social media influencers.  One rider, who goes by the Internet name of Ricegum, told me he was a gamer. I asked him what a gamer was (which, I’ve learned, automatically tells anyone under 30 how old I am). He explained, then said he had half as many followers as Ninja, a leading gamer. I acknowledged and that was the end of our chat.

It took a dozen other riders (notably teenagers), who had seen that he had written in the in-car journal, to excitedly point out who he was.  But still, I didn’t understand the gravity of his following. Finally, another LA rider, “lilmayo” on Instagram, noted that he knew Ricegum (went to a party at his house once), then told me the guy had 10 MILLION followers on YouTube. Lilmayo, a shirt designer, noted he himself had 2 MILLION followers on Instagram. Finally, I guess I could say that I have picked up famous people. It’s not the Kardashians, but, hey! I’ll take it!

A returning student at BC, a swimmer, also from LA, offered up the following (after getting excited by my Tom Brady story):

1.       He was friends with Sylvester Stallone’s daughter.

2.       He was friends with Larry King’s son, Chase.

3.       He lived down the street from Kevin Hart.

4.       He lived down the street from Lamar Odom and Khloe Kardashian, when they were married. (A Kardashian connection, at last!)

5.       His mother was a realtor and showed a hose to Serena Williams once.  But she didn’t know who Serena Williams was. 

FURTHER READING

Lost Boston (1980)

Lost Boston (2014)

Boston: Then & Now (2002)

Dirty Old Boston: Four Decades of a City in Transition (2014)

Boston Ways (Weston)

Boston – Its Byways and Highways, Being Twenty-Five (full book - public domain)

Boston, A Short History

Gaining Ground: A History of Landmaking in Boston

Mapping Boston

Antique Views of Boston (full book - public domain)

Sketches of Boston, past and present, and of some few places in its vicinity (full book - public domain)

Stranger's Illustrated Guide to Boston and Its Suburbs ...: With Maps of Boston and the Harbor (full book - public domain; tons of cool antique advertisements in the back)

Boston Illustrated; Containing Full Descriptions of the City and Its Immediate Suburbs… (full book - public domain; lots of great hand illustrations)

Then and Now, Antique Boston Guide Book (full book - public domain)

The Silent Traveller in Boston (Chiang Yee) (outstanding book, discussion of Boston history by a visiting Chinese scholar in the 1950s)

Note: A good source of info that could be mined would be the archives of the Boston Globe.  Lots of interesting material to be found there.  Also Wikipedia has a lot of articles that can be mined for bibliographies.