‘The more barrels, the more Boston’

Boston Harbor and East Boston from State Street Block in mid-19th Century

— Photo by John P. Soule

"Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Charleston, New Orleans, and the rest, are the names of wharves projecting into the sea (surrounded by the shops and dwellings of the merchants), good places to take in and to discharge a cargo (to land the products of other climes and load the exports of our own). I see a great many barrels and fig-drums, piles of wood for umbrella-sticks, blocks of granite and ice, great heaps of goods, and the means of packing and conveying them, much wrapping-paper and twine, many crates and hogsheads and trucks, and that is Boston. The more barrels, the more Boston. The museums and scientific societies and libraries are accidental. They gather around the sands to save carting."

— Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

'Solace' in clippervillle

Promotional image from the show called “Solace’,’ featuring works by the East Boston artist-run cooperative Atlantic Works through April 24 at the neighboring Clippership Wharf’s ClipArt Gallery, East Boston. That’s the community where many of the most famous clipper ships were built in the mid-19th Century.

Painting by James E. Buttersworth done in 1859-60 of the clipper ship Flying Cloud, built in 1850-51 at famed naval architect Donald McKay’s shipyard in East Boston.

Gritty, cold and caffeinated

In East Boston

“I guess no true Bostonian would trust a place that was sunny and pleasant all the time. But a gritty, perpetually cold and gloomy neighborhood? Throw in a couple of Dunkin’ Donuts locations, and I’m right at home.”

― Rick Riordan, in The Sword of Summer

The original Dunkin' Donuts, in Quincy, Mass., after its renovation in the 2000s