My Visit
As I ascended from the subway at Park Station into the bright mid-afternoon sunlight, I felt I had left the Harvard Bubble for a bowl. Skyscrapers rose around the two parks on all sides, creating the impression of standing at the bottom of a physical depression. To get to the Public Garden from the subway stop, I had to walk through the Boston Common. My assignment was to observe the George Washington statue in the Public Garden, but the walk towards that destination was the perfect juxtaposition for what I was to see. I had read on the volunteer organization The Friends of the Public Garden and Common’s website that “Boston’s Public Garden is the groomed and formal younger cousin to the more casual and boisterous Boston Common.” Indeed. The day I walked through the Common, I was to discover, was Hempfest--a festival celebrating marijuana, which the police department had apparently given up trying to crack down on. Customers breezily shopped for counter-culture paraphernalia, while punk rap music blasted from a colonial white gazebo which looked sorely out of place.
After traveling through the Common and crossing busy Charles Street, I finally reached the George Washington statue in the Public Garden. Peering with dignity into the distance, surrounded by meticulous arrangements of shrubs and flowering plants, the famous equestrian statue of George Washington makes for an imposing entrance. It would certainly be imposing for those truly observing it. It appeared, however, that few people truly paid attention to the landmark. Joggers ran around it on the peripheral brick circle, watching their steps on the ground. A few tourists took photos of the statue and then left, as if they had taken photos because others had too. For one of the most famous locations in Boston, there was a surprising lack of interest. I wondered if the allure of shopping on Beacon and Bolyston Streets, which run parallel and form the outside edges of the Garden, draw people away from the centraly-located statue. I was here to find the intersections of the park’s history with its modern-day state, and all I had found was a few moments as ephemeral as a Boston geo-filtered snapchat story. I wondered if there was more to see elsewhere in the Garden, and I left the General to wander.