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MEET BOSTON
by Jacob Marmor (pseudonym)

Friday, March 7, 1941

in What's New In Town

W. J. Sidis


Click to enlarge.

 

        The first of the new-style movie houses, with ornate and over-complicated lobbies, was the Metropolitan Theatre in Boston, which is soon temporarily to shift over from moving pictures to opera. It was built in 1925, and set a new style in motion picture houses. A year later the Paramount Theatre opened in New York, modelled very closely after Boston's "Met." The Metropolitan came into prominence nationally once as the scene of the so-called "Boston Grapefruit Party" in 1931. It was also the place where a new city song for Boston was presented in 1933.

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        The small and obscure hobby of peridromophily―the collection of local transit transfers―has been organizing, and its national headquarters is in Boston. It is a very interesting and educational hobby for its fans, and the variety of "forms" is greater than anyone familiar with the stamp or coin hobbies could even imagine. Over 100 forms are regularly issued in Greater Boston, and thousands of varieties are used every day all over America. In June, 1939, a Boston Metropolitan Transfer Group was organized, issuing its own organ, The New Peridromophile, the hobby's only news bulletin. It also has been running a "Transfer Deposit Account" system, whereby collectors can conduct their activities by depositing their duplicates in a central "bank" in Boston, and withdrawing transfers which represent the deposits of others. On [Saturday] November 23, 1940, this group became the nucleus of a national organization, the Peridromophile Federation. This hobby has proved a very interesting one for metropolitan residents in all walks of life. Try it some time.

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        Among those buried on the Old Granary Burying Ground on Tremont Street, is an Elizabeth Goose―surely not a very conspicuous name to most of us. One of the earliest Puritan settlers of Boston, Mrs. Goose was known for her ability in telling stories to children. She managed to attract all the children in town to her doorstep, or on walks with her, while she told fairy stories and recited all sorts of old jingles. Ever since then, the name of "Mother Goose" has been associated with fairy stories and nursery rhymes the world over.

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        There are 1198 streets in Chicago. There are 2589 streets in Philadelphia. Manhattan and Brooklyn together have 2510 streets. And Boston (not counting suburbs) has 4342 streets.

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        The largest territory on earth covered by one continuous mass of human settlement is Greater Boston, where over 300 square miles are so covered, by a continuous settlement without any break cutting through it.

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        The largest tidal power project ever completed was the "Mill Dam" in Boston, that stretched across the mouth of the former Back Bay (when it was really a bay) for nearly half of the 19th century. Possibly the only larger tidal power plan ever projected was that at Passamaquoddy Bay, which never materialized. In the old days, the Back Bay was a large bulge in the Charles River behind Boston's peninsula (hence the name "Back Bay," much of which was tidal flats, covered with water mainly at high tide. As for bock as 1826, a mill dam was built across the mouth of the bay, about a mile and a half in length, from Beacon Hill to Sewall's Point (Kenmore Square). Behind this dam water was stored at high tide level, and spilled over the dam when the tide went out, making an immense

(Continued on page 14) [missing]

 

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