Beacon Hill

Here are a few more shots from the same day as the Boston Public Garden photos taken on Beacon Hill. I could take photos of this damn hill all day it is so picturesque and I’m certainly not the only one as the streets are crawling with tourists and other photographers like myself this time of year. The Joys of Boston Parking This first shot is a tribute to all that is the wonderful experience of parking in Boston. Those who have ever driven through Beacon Hill know that finding a free parking spot is about as likely as lightning striking the same spot… five times. And even if you do find one it has likely been vacated because it will be turning into a tow zone the next day due to some very, very cryptic street cleaning schedules (first and third *insert day of the week here* of every month, second and fourth *insert day of the week here* of every month). I can count on two hands the number of times I’ve found parking on this hill, and I’ve been living here for a year now. Most of the time I just give up and drive to my parent’s house (not even in Boston btw) or I find a meter… or if it’s after 4 PM I can park in my garage (full time parking in the garage would cost me a whopping $450 per month). It seems as though the owner of this sign had a few run-ins with parking-spot-seekers like myself. My guess is that one too many people parked in front of this guy’s driveway. And apparently one parking-spot-seeker thought the sign a tad too elitist and decided to write profanities over said sign (if you must see what it says you can look at the full sized version, but it’s quite offensive so I don’t encourage anyone to do so). I post it here only for comic relief.
Flowery Alcove This particular street on Beacon Hill is undoubtedly the most gorgeous, as flowery trees like these ones pretty much engulf the buildings. I setup my tripod in the middle of the road to take this shot, but that’s ok because the streets are so narrow that it is impossible for cars to drive any faster than 3 miles per hour and so I would have had time to pack up my tripod, put away my camera, and fly to Paris well before a car would have ever come close to hitting me. Anyway, I digress – The owner of this alcove is a very lucky person. Imagine waking up to the sight and smell of these flowers every morning then walking down this street to go to work…
Flower Sills & Car Grills Flowers on the right, cars on the left (notice no free spots) and a completely uneven brick sidewalk absolutely rife with the imperfection that makes it so beautiful. If there is a place that looks any more like Europe in the US, I’d be hard pressed to find it. I am convinced that there are some sort of chemicals emanating from the streets of Beacon Hill because it is nearly impossible to walk through them without smiling at every person you see. People are just friendlier on the hill, I love it. Dog owners even pick up their dog’s “dirt” and put it in a plastic bag. You won’t see that in Europe!
For my Boston readers out there, I recently discovered a Boston based blog / fun news site of sorts that has been linking to my site occasionally. Upon perusing the site a bit more it turns out that it contains some very interesting content. I can relate to a lot of the topics being posted and if you live in the Boston area I’m sure you can too. Check it out HERE.