And so we went down, she and I, while sunlight flooded the winter sky

(Or maybe it was more like a trickle, pale and fickle) as Groundhog Day drew nigh

To the heart of our city, where art and history awaited, as it was so fated

After the wettest January in anybody’s memory around here, a month damp with rain and only the barest smattering of snowflakes, the Saturday in question was heavenly, with a wan but well-meaning sun doing its mid-winter best and temps in the 40s.  A good day to pedal downtown!   We might’ve taken the Orange Line, but once again that was shut down beyond the Ruggles Street stop, something about the ongoing and endless demolition of the downtown parking garage that is now becoming past history.  Parking garages have been dropping like flies in the downtown area for a few years now (good riddance to ugly obsolete rubbish!) and the one in question happens to sit directly over the station at Haymarket, necessitating a shuttle bus ride and who needs that?  Better than getting crushed by falling debris, chunks of concrete and abandoned Hyundais as one waits for a train, I suppose.  

Actually we would’ve ridden anyway, mostly because such is our way, as one sees and hears and smells so much more, the sights and sounds and odors of the streets, the life of the city expressing itself in the most direct and assertive way.  It’s also somewhat likely you don’t live here and might not savor this immersive sensuous experience like we did.  Downtown Boston is also probably the last place you would ever dare to ride a bike, if you ride at all, and even this fanatical biker respects your reasons for that.  At one time he didn’t, but he has matured somewhat.  And who knows?  We might’ve met somebody wonderful or had some other life-changing experience on that eschewed shuttle bus;  we shall never know.

The lure was twofold: it would be our first experience of the brand spankin’ new Martin Luther King sculpture on Boston Common, recently dedicated with great fanfare as well as much controversy, as well as a collection of outdoor “art” sculptures on display in the Charlestown Navy Yard.  Chaztown happens to be one of those lovely and wicked-historic neighborhoods that is a ways off our usual beaten path, at the northern end of downtown, across a bridge and the northern terminus of Boston’s most well known tourist draw, The Freedom Trail.  The Navy Yard is home to the USS Constitution, “Old Ironsides”, possibly the most famous, if not the only boat that gets mention in American history textbooks (all right one might quibble over this, as there’s the Monitor and the Merrimack and the unforgettable Maine, not to mention the Titanic, but the Constitution came first, and it’s in Charlestown).  But we were going for the sculptures, as freedom loving as we are, as there’s more to life than freedom and American history.  Like art, for instance.

The city does a great job supporting outdoor art, sculptures and murals and such, not to mention all the historic monuments and memorials.  The Freedom Trail is well represented here, leading the tourist mobs past  statues for such notables as Paul Revere, Samuel Adams, Mayor Kevin White, and George Washington.  There’s also Robert Gould Shaw’s monument to the all-Black 54th Civil War regiment, and the very special Make Way for Ducklings “monument”, which may not be exactly that but if it’s not that, what then?  Please do not ask “What is it?” but for now simply note the very eclectic nature of this list and have respect for those hardcore patriot-types who trek along the Trail focusing strictly on all the bits connected to the glorious American Revolution, and good for them.   Any connection of Mayor Kevin to the spirit of the Freedom Trail story seems tenuous at best, though it must be said the statue itself is terrific and the man did bail Mick Jagger and Keith Richards out of jail so they could perform at Boston Garden in 1972, a story about a kind of freedom, surely.  On the other hand one should not trivialize the motivation behind that mallard mother’s bold action too readily.  And of course the heroics of the 54th were all about freedom;  much the same could be said about Dr. King and his life’s work, and one would hope that most see the new public remembrance of him as a worthy addition to all of this.

We shall return to Boston Common at some point, but the story at hand starts in Charlestown, a short way from the heavy frigate USS Constitution and the Freedom Trail.  The bright red line which makes the Trail easy to follow leads one across the new “temporary” North Washington Street bridge, pretty much the only access point from downtown.  This was a feature of the day, as we’d last been this way when the old bridge was still in place.  The new span is spiffy and totally without character, in sharp contrast to the old span, which epitomized “character”, as would any bridge that had been around since 1900.  By the late 20th century, words like “ugly” or even “hideous” might come to mind, as they did for me when I traversed it endlessly while toiling as a bike courier in the mid’ 80s.  It could be a bit dangerous when the all-steel roadway was wet, at least for two-wheelers, but one could always walk carefully on the steel pedestrian Freedom Trail “sidewalk”.  But of course when word came out they were going to demolish it, all such dark memories were forgotten and nostalgia took over  –  from a steampunk post-apocalyptic perspective, the old bridge was totally cool, no doubt about it.  Rest in peace, or pieces!

Which gets us finally to those sculptures that were neither memorials nor monuments dedicated to anyone or anything but merely artworks, by Michael Alfano.  What you see and what it makes you think about is anybody’s guess, without expectations or preconceived notions of any kind.  Of course one might do some research about Mr. Alfano, might discover a few things about his aesthetic vision or intentions, just as one might in a gallery or museum take a look at the usual written commentary on the wall next to the object in question.  One might have discovered by now the joys and perils of reading such things, which are often as not full of abstract and obscure aesthetic notions and philosophies ascribed to by the artist or the museum curator with their PhD in art history.  This viewer is particularly troubled when we are informed that “here the artist is telling us” or “this piece reflects the artist’s concept of” and such.  If a work is particularly inscrutable or confusing, at best these commentaries offer a few helpful hints;  at worst they add to the bewilderment and make one ponder once again the value of a PhD in art history, at least in some cases.

So behold these images of Michael Alfano’s varied pieces of sculpture, scattered about the Charlestown Navy Yard!  Wadda they do for ya?  Wadda ya thinkin’?  Whimsical?  Fun?  Inspiring and thought provoking?  Inventive and original?  Well crafted?  Or juvenile, banal, and derivative?  We were enchanted for the most part;  they were a great addition to the Navy Yard scene, and it’s too bad they’ll get yanked out at the end of the year, unless perhaps the Navy Yard civic association comes up with a whole lotta bucks, and maybe not even then, for such is not the plan.  You, of course are free to contact the artist and make proper arrangements to put one or more of his output in your backyard, for if Mike’s like most artists he’s gotta make a living somehow.  Or if you are bold and brazen and larcenous, choose from what you see here and come back with a pickup and a Sawzall some dark evening, but you better work fast.  You  might also need a welding torch, and for God sakes don’t damage the thing in the extrication, unless you’ve a few creative skills of your own.

But getting back to your reactions to the pieces, one should note that all of these sculptures had a small plaque affixed somewhere, with a title for the piece plus a quote the artist felt was germane or interpretive in some way.  A few are included here to give you the idea, and this viewer looked at several before deciding they did not enhance his experience all that much, might even have been detrimental in some cases, which led to ignoring most of them altogether, same as with those found on the walls of museums and galleries.  This viewer preferred to leave his reactions unencumbered by another’s opinion or attempt to lay on another level of meaning, which might add insight but just as likely might introduce confusion or worse start some silly argument in this viewer’s mind that could mar the spontaneity and joy of the experience.  This viewer is already well aware that he tends to think too much in general, about everything (and then he writes about it, as you should well know by now).

But hey, take a look yourself and see what happens!  Here we’ve got a person spreading their arms in what looks like a “Hallelujah!” gesture and the sculptor defines it with the title “Stroke of Genius” and on top of that quotes his poetic self with “Where things yet to be are seen”, adding much food for thought.  Thanks, Mike.  This viewer offers no comment here.  But then there’s the other one:  a somewhat tattered face and a title of “Blown” which this viewer admits is pretty apt or at least not confusing, then a quote from civil rights icon Jesse Jackson “We must be pulled by our dreams rather than our memories” which seems insightful and maybe even inspirational.  Whether it adds an unnecessary level of meaning to a piece that at first glance might just seem whimsical is for you, dear viewer, to decide.  For now, just keep in mind that here in the Charlestown Navy Yard is an artwork to which the artist has added a layer of meaning that involves a Black American civil rights icon talking about dreams.  If you’ve already a sense of where this is headed, good for you, Sherlock!  (hint: it’s headed to the Boston Common, among other places)

So if you’re curious about all the other plaques and interpretive/inspirational titles and quotes, you can always get to the Charlestown Navy Yard before the end of the year.  You might pick a day with pleasant weather, but be forewarned there’s not much shade out there, little in the way of trees, though of course many buildings provide ample amounts of this.  The place is especially delightful insofar as it is no longer a center for shipbuilding and maintenance, but has evolved into a site of many expensive harborside condominiums and such, which is not necessarily  delightful at all.  What matters here is that it is a living and walking neighborhood and not much more, with auto traffic kept on the periphery for the most part.  The day we were there it was very quiet, compared to the crowds and cacophony of downtown.  This is in stunning contrast to that other new waterside Boston high-roller neighborhood rising out of nothing in what is known as the Seaport District.  There might be a bit of serenity to be had right along the water’s edge in that place, down there amongst the glittering towers of south Boston, but the many broad boulevards and bars and restaurants and hordes of people make such things a rare commodity, especially when there are big doings at the nearby gargantuan Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, which is often.

So there we were, savoring the whimsy and the serenity and whatever was thought provoking on a beautiful and sunny but still chilly and windy day, and after awhile it came time to traverse the city to view that other public installation about which we’d already heard so much.  It should be said that we’d only happened upon the Navy Yard art by way of some casual mention in the Boston Globe that was essentially serendipitous.  In contrast, that newspaper had been reporting on the King sculpture from its inception right through the involved planning process, which had even included a public vote on the five finalists from a competition of 126 submissions.  It was all a very big deal, and of course the winner would be installed permanently, or as permanently as might be expected in these troubled times.  

Take a quick look at the Alfano sculptures again.  At first glance they’re clever and kind of fun and might inspire reflection of some kind, which could shift to a sobering train of thought if one reads the titles and quotes on the plaques.  The artist might’ve dispensed with those titles and quotes but he didn’t, and perhaps this viewer is guilty of not keeping some kind of bargain by not reading them, and if so he is not apologizing.  But the tribute to Martin Luther King totes a heavy load of meaningful baggage, indeed, before one even sets eyes on it, as it commemorates a man and history and some very serious aspects of American culture and “what should be remembered,” and it could not arrive at a more auspicious moment.  The George Floyd murder and rise in awareness of the Black Lives Matter movement led to a new rise in American consciousness regarding racial injustice and the cruel legacy of slavery, as well as the unfinished struggle for equality and civil rights.  One consequence was the removal of 170 public monuments honoring heroes of the southern Confederacy.  This remarkable turn of events provided some of the inspiration for a book by Erin Thompson:  Smashing Statues, the Rise and Fall of America’s Public Monuments, which takes a fresh look at what had just happened.  She points out the long history of cultures and societies surrounding us with statues and sculptures and other prominent public objects placed before us to remind us of certain things, especially what the dominant powers at the time want us to remember.

The removal of the monuments became a major news story, as was the history of their origin, unknown to many, about how a single group, the Daughters of the Confederacy, had erected almost all of them decades after the Civil War.  Reconstruction first had to fail and white supremacy had to regain its former power before times were ripe to remember the glories of the Lost Cause and not that a tragic war had been lost by those fighting to preserve chattel slavery.  The fact that these were still in place in the present time says a lot in itself, and of course there are still many left.  Thompson points out that the current American experience is in no way unique;  many will never forget the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s statue in Baghdad that was a major media event, and it is not difficult to imagine public monuments to Lenin and Stalin coming down after the breakup of the Soviet Union.  From there one can only start to wonder  what must’ve come down when the Visigoths sacked Rome back in 410 AD.  Look out below, Otto!  She tells a particularly amusing story of how a statue of George III came down in New York City in 1776, which was melted down and remade into 42088 musket balls that were later fired at the British.  Dominant cultures and their monuments come and go with the times; one need only wait a few years, or a few hundred.  

The official dedication of the King sculpture was still fresh in everyone’s minds when we arrived on the Common to witness a good-sized crowd milling about, taking many pictures and walking around and through the massive complex bronze shape known as The Embrace.  The simplest and most literal interpretation is that it recalls Dr.King’s days in Boston back in the ‘50s, when he was a theology student at Boston University and his future wife Coretta Scott was studying at the New England Conservatory.  It’s about a romance!  They met and fell in love and were married in 1953 and it’s a lovely story.  So is that all?

Of course not, as any public remembrance of the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. evokes any number of thoughts of the fight for justice and civil rights and an end to racism and poverty through non-violent means and how the man was a martyr to those causes, and that’s just for starters.  His name and story and reputation has led to the creation of at least 25 memorials the world over, not just in his home country but in such disparate places as Jerusalem and Bosnia and New Delhi and Mexico City and Uppsala, Sweden.  These include gardens and chapels and libraries and schools and even a few forests, and of course many many statues of all kinds, of which the interpretation on Boston Common is only the latest.

So would you believe that besides all the fanfare there has been a fair amount of criticism of The Embrace, not for what it represents, of course, but mostly about the way it looks?  No it’s not at all your standard bust or standing figure or figures, or guy-on-a-horse kind of conventional presentation that for many seems to be the only acceptable kind that is appropriate and respectful in a sculptural public remembrance of someone.  Too ambiguous, too abstract, “an atrocity” according to one of Coretta Scott King’s cousins.  Not too unexpectedly, that venue of enlightened public discourse, Twitter, has inspired many to make comments about how they see phalluses and suggestions of certain sex acts.  The Embrace has not been subject to vandalism or bombings yet, but such are the risks of creating public art about revered historical figures that dares to attempt an interpretation that is not strictly straightforward and literal or is in the least bit creative or different, or so it seems.   

Maybe Hank Willis Thomas, creator of The Embrace, could have a useful and meaningful conversation with Michael Albano about the trials and tribulations of being a sculptor in the current day.  About the perils of taking on themes and subjects about which their viewing public might have some serious and inflexible notions.  Mike might point out that the dangers increase as one goes more public with monumental art with large budgets in very public places, which are intended to be more or less permanent.  Hank might point to Mike’s comparatively humble piece now at the Navy Yard embellished with a quote from Jesse Jackson and lament about how if one keeps the message a bit vague and on a small scale and with a bit of humor, nobody’s going to make a stink, though they might take a look at “Blown” and then nudge their friend and comment about how the sculptor has totally misinterpreted the civil rights freedom fighter, and leave it at that.

On our way home to JP from the Common, we went our usual route down Shawmut Ave through Roxbury.  Most bikers would use the SW Corridor bike path as it’s off the street and “safer” in their minds, but to us that route leads one across too many busy intersections we consider perilous, not to mention the tricky mix of pedestrian and scooter and baby stroller traffic, as well as the prevalence of rude and aggressive riding of cyclists on a roadway that is pathetically narrow for the traffic it carries.  Motorized traffic, for all its dangers, is much more predictable.  Shawmut also runs past the Lenox Street project that has been the site of a few shootings over the years, not to mention the drug trafficking known to happen on its sidewalks all hours of the day, and this might also be an incentive for some  to stick to the bike path a half a mile away.

At the corner of Shawmut and Melnea Cass Blvd, on the side of a recently built hotel, there happens to be a mural entitled Roxbury Love Story that is an accurate and clever depiction of MLK and Coretta on a phone call together.  There’s added meaning, as that hotel sits on the site of the one-time 12th Baptist Church where Dr. King was a minister in his early days of creating what he called a “beloved community” in the world that he knew, back in the beginning of his years of effort to achieve that.   The sighting of this piece is especially meaningful insofar as the neighborhood itself loosely indicates some of the progress that has and has not been made in terms of poverty and racial equality.  

The aforementioned Lenox Street project a few blocks away suggests we’ve a long way to go, and Ramsay Park, clearly visible behind Dr. King, remains a place of occasional violent crime and a spot where a short walk might reveal any number of needles littering the ground, even on the ball field where kids come to play in the summer, so sad.  On the other hand, a few blocks north is the former Dudley Square, whose name was recently officially changed to Nubian Square, and after the Floyd murder two blocks of a street there was emblazoned in bright colors and “Black Lives Matter” in enormous letters.  Dudley was a long blighted “center” of Roxbury and Black culture, and is currently seeing a renaissance of sorts, with multiple new giant buildings with subsidized apartments and the new location of the Boston Public Schools central offices.  One hopes MLK would approve of all this, while probably also warning us of the dangers of gentrification that come with such developments, because that is part of the reality here, as well.  Roxbury has become one of the hottest real estate markets in Boston, and it is a fact we’ve observed the presence of White people on residential streets where for years it was not a thing.

So one wonders whether any of those objecting so vehemently to the abstraction of MLK’s memory in The Embrace are aware of this other very literal remembrance of his and Coretta’s story as it played out in Boston.  Clearly they’d find it much more to their liking.  Have they seen it?  Would its location deter them from coming down and taking a look?  We first came upon Roxbury Love Story totally by surprise, as whatever fanfare might’ve come with its completion was nowhere on the scale of the piece on Boston Common.  Perhaps what is more important is that Dr. King’s life and his mission is well-remembered the world over, by many who will never see a statue or visit a library or walk by a fountain or through a forest with his name on it.  Whether they’re inspired to contribute to the mission is what really matters, don’t you think?  Wouldn’t the man want that above all else?

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