'Vast aspiration of man'

The spectacular main, Renaissance Revival facility of the Boston Public Library, on Copley Square, Boston. Designed by the famed architect Charles McKim, the building was opened in 1895. It faces another masterpiece: Henry Hobson Richardson’s Romanesque Trinity Church (see photo below), which was opened in 1877. The two help make Copley Square one of America’s most beautiful public places.

“For no matter how they might want to ignore it, there was an excellence about this city {Boston}, an air of reason, a feeling for beauty, a memory of something very good, and perhaps a reminiscence of the vast aspiration of man which could never entirely vanish.’’

— Arona McHugh (1924-1996), author of two novels set in Boston — The Seacoast of Bohemia and A Banner with a Strange Device.

Chants in Copley Square

Copley Square fountain, with the Old South Church’s tower in distance, in a recent, pre-pandemic summer.

— Photo by Caroline Culler

“There’s a poem in Boston’s Copley Square

where protest chants

tear through the air

like sheets of rain,

where love of the many

swallows hatred of the few.’’

— From “In This Place (An American Lyric)’’, by Amanda Gorman

Before they fixed Copley Square

Copley Square, Boston, in the ‘50s. It’s much more beautiful, exciting and crowded (except maybe the past couple of weeks!) these days.

Copley Square fountain, with Old South Church tower in distance

— Photo by Caroline Culler