November 2002			The Days of the Dolphins Who's Afraid of the Big, Bad Bear? Annual Report 2001-2002 Annual Donor Report 2001-2002	E Line Sports Alumni Passages Books From the Field Classes First-Person Huskiana
		Uncommon Ground Chronicling one of the Hub's most dynamic districts. By Susan Diesenhouse "Beacon Hill: The Life and Times of a Neighborhood," by Moying Li-Marcus (Northeastern University Press; Boston; 2002; 224 pages; $40) The charms of Beacon Hill have long lured locals and tourists to its brick sidewalks. The picturesque neighborhood dating back to the colonial era has shown a knack for self-rejuvenation, nimbly incorporating well-chosen aspects of modernity. In a compact chronology of this living heirloom, Beacon Hill: The Life and Times of a Neighborhood, author Moying Li-Marcus traces the hill’s evolution from wilderness, to metropolis, to historic treasure hotly engaged in the tumult of contemporary life. Through spare, agile prose, she puts historic events into perspective by relating them to the ideas and values of the hill’s residents: individual freedom, intellectual curiosity, responsible community, enterprise, and diversity. From all these traits springs the neighborhood’s vitality. “While Beacon Hill is known as one of the nation’s best-preserved historic districts,” Li-Marcus observes, “it is charged with energy for renewal,” by which it reinvents itself and its myths. The first British settlers harbored ideals related to fresh starts and individual freedom. In 1623, William Blackstone, the twenty-seven-year-old pastor of a colonial expedition, moved to the wild yet secure Shawmut Peninsula. Linked to the mainland by a thin neck, the peninsula possessed an advantageous high point, Beacon Hill. On its sunny south slope, the good reverend could drop Old World constraints and surround himself with his beloved books. But Blackstone lost his paradise by dint of his own good nature. In 1630, he let a beleaguered but well-heeled band of Puritans stay with him. By 1635, they had invited hundreds more “guests” and were setting rules, erecting fences, and subdividing land. Ultimately, they granted Blackstone fifty acres of the property he’d thought was all his. In 1636, he sold his land back to the community and left. The Puritans renamed the town Boston and began to lay the foundations for a system of self-governance, community service, and profitable commerce. Their aim: To build a city on a hill, for all to admire and emulate. After the Revolutionary War, a group of educated Bostonians, many of whom had earned fortunes from factories or clipper ships, found a new myth to fulfill: Town as metropolis. On July 4, 1795, Sam Adams and Paul Revere laid the cornerstone for a copper-domed Georgian-style state house designed by Charles Bulfinch (the dome wasn’t covered with gold leaf until 1874). The architect, along with enterprising friends, formed the Mt. Vernon Proprietors, to develop the hill’s south slope. By 1803, the group had cut off the crest of neighboring West Hill, where they constructed houses, and used the landfill to create Charles Street. A fifty-year real estate boom ensued. The prominent south slope families evolved into Beacon Hill’s Brahmins: businessmen, educators, humanitarians, and literary lights. The author describes them as “a caste of untitled aristocracy with houses by Bulfinch, who acquired a monopoly of Beacon Street, possessed ancestral portraits and Chinese porcelains, and espoused humanitarianism, Unitarian faith in the march of the mind, Yankee shrewdness, and New England exclusiveness.” But even in the nineteenth century, real estate was a cyclical phenomenon, and neighborhood life ebbed and flowed. By the late 1800s, the Brahmins were flocking to luxurious new townhouses developed in the Back Bay and the South End. By 1905, the hill was becoming a low-rent district of tenements and bars. Meanwhile, on the hill’s north slope, another myth emerged: one of a more diverse, idealistic, and artistic community, with a commitment to equality, creativity, and social experimentation. From the colonial era through the late nineteenth century, Boston’s first African-American neighborhood flourished on the north slope, producing lawyers, doctors, and slave emancipators such as Lewis Hayden, a founder of the Underground Railroad. The “dark” side of the hill also nourished waves of poor immigrants, rebellious youth, and artists such as novelists Louisa May Alcott and Henry James. But the exodus of elites was sapping the hill’s resources. Fortunately, a new generation of “proprietors” emerged. In the early 1900s, William Codman and Frank Bourne—whose guiding myth was the hill as living historic treasure—formed the Beacon Hill Associates to save the neighborhood from the wrecking ball. The group renovated squalid north slope tenements, built new structures carefully designed to fit in with the old, and refashioned the neighborhood to allow it to cope with the congestion of modern commerce. Of course, some still saw the area as an archaic nuisance. Ultimately, however, another group, the Beacon Hill Civic Association, would use public education, debate, mobilization, and lobbying to get the neighborhood permanently protected as a designated historic district. Here, Li-Marcus is more chronicler than political analyst. She recounts the association’s failed drive to have the state legislature pass a Beacon Hill preservation bill. Then, she notes, events took a “surprisingly reverse course.” On May 22, 1963, the U.S. National Park Service heightened the neighborhood’s visibility and stature by declaring the south slope a national historic landmark. Three months later, the state legislature passed the hill’s preservation bill. This development may be less surprising when one remembers who occupied the White House: John F. Kennedy, a savvy local boy who had launched his national political career from a Bowdoin Street office across from the State House. Li-Marcus’s crisp style and detailed research offer the reader a fascinating walk through almost four centuries of a neighborhood’s evolution, which often mirrored the growth of our nation. For instance, she highlights the hill’s fragility by recounting real estate booms and busts that nearly eviscerated the neighborhood (as occurred in the adjacent West End during the 1950s and 1960s). And she recounts the beginnings of many issues with which Bostonians still grapple. As early as the 1920s, traffic was suffocating, parking a nightmare, and developers overeager; ideas for a garage under the Boston Common, residents-only parking, and a T stop on Charles Street were already under discussion. Li-Marcus’s book is fast-paced and entertaining, albeit a bit too breezy on some complex issues. But her arguments and exposition hit the mark, supporting her assertion that Beacon Hill’s “heritage reinforces pride and commitment, as it sets the stage for each reinvention of the neighborhood’s colorful life.” Susan Diesenhouse is a writer based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. "The Beanpot: Fifty Years of Thrills, Spills, and Chills," by Bernard M. Corbett; Northeastern University Press; 2002 The Beanpot chronicles a Boston institution: the annual hockey tournament among local Division I rivals Boston College, Boston University, Harvard University, and Northeastern. Bernard Corbett traces the tradition from its origins as “filler” for the Boston Arena’s schedule to its current status as our “parochial hockey festival.” Along with highlights from fifty years of contests on ice, the volume offers a fine compilation of photos, personal reminiscences, annual box scores, and a listing of all players from the four teams. Corbett’s comprehensive history on the Beanpot tourney is sure to appeal to local ice followers. The chapter on the year the Huskies finally seized the Grail (after a twenty-eight-year quest) may in itself be worth the price of admission. "Dog Culture: Writers on the Character of Canines," edited by Ken Foster; The Lyons Press; 2002 What self-respecting Husky wouldn’t want to read about dogs? Especially as this essay collection, edited by Ken Foster, GB’89, offers nearly as much variety as there are breeds. Critically acclaimed author of the short-story collection The Kind I’m Likely to Get, Foster envisioned these essays as studies on the canine life. Fortunately, the twelve writers go beyond reminiscences of their own pets, and the topic serves as a prism through which to reflect on human experience. The narratives range from rollickingly funny to poignant—with room for even one dog-hating voice of dissent. Be sure to sniff out Foster’s essay, among the strongest in the pack.