Arrive safely in Boston, to a cool but beautiful afternoon. Traffic here not as alarming as LA, but roadworks made Sondra really work for it. We are staying a basement apartment Massachuessets Avenue, which is on the south side. There whole areas is dominated by apartment blocks that are in rows that seem to go on forever. They look really cool actually, love the slate looking roofs and interesting window seats and stuff.
We went for a drive out to Salem this morning in search of 17th century witch hunting history. Sensibly the first stop always seem to be a town’s Visitors Centre, where you can normally pick up on all the info that will help you get around and see as much stuff as you can. Fortunately Salem appears to be largely open for business (unlike a lot of New Haven and Plymouth that was ‘closed for the season… yeah, I wouldn’t want to work in that sort of weather either – but what do they do for money over the winter?)
The Visitors Centre pointed us in the direction of the Salem Witch Museum which seems to be the biggest/most visited witchy attraction in Salem, so off we went. Outside we saw a statue of Roger Conant, the first person to settle in Salem in 1620 – can’t figure out whether he did anything else remarkable but there is a statue to the guy outside the Witch Museum nonetheless.
Now, where to start with the Salem Witch Museum? It is built in an old gothic style church and I have to say, it is tackier than a black velvet Elvis painting! We got ushered into a large room, (no doubt previously the main room of the church) and were ‘spoonfed’ the history of the Salem witch trials through the use of a spooky voiced over dialogue and sequentially lit dioramas! No shit, we were sitting in the middle of a room, and there was the devil lit up red in the corner talking about how the pilgrims were obsessed with pleasing God and avoiding the devil, then that light went out and another lit up a black slave woman, named Tituba, filling the bored young girls of Salem’s heads full of voodoo, black magic and devils and nonsense. The girls became hysterical, the local quack diagnosed witchcraft and the rest became weird and tragic history. Over 200 people were prosecuted with witchcraft in the couple of years this nonsense was going on, 19 people were hung, a couple were tortured, all Medieval-like, and plenty ended up languishing in goal. After the ‘presentation’ we went through an exhibit that discussed the history of witches and perceptions thereof, starting with pagans through to Halloween and Wizard of Oz style witches to modern day Wiccans. There was a huge timeline on one wall of the exhibit which was intended to display the history of ‘outbreaks’ of witchcraft and witch persecution, but they included Joan of Arc who was charged with ‘heresy’ (this is not even remotely related to witchcraft) and left off Anne Boleyn was definitely WAS accused of witchcraft at one point due to her possession of an extra finger. So the accuracy of the museum exhibits was a bit of the light side? Meh, there’s plenty of well written books on this – it obviously continues to fascinate people. Aside from these obvious failings, I found the $9 admission fee was money well spent – you can’t find this sort of tacky just anywhere, you know! 🙂
After that we went for a wander around Boston Common and went to find the Salem Witch Village – which I had high hopes would have very little to do with historical witchcraft/witches. On the way, we saw the Church of the Immaculate Conception, (beautiful building) and I noticed in the front yard of the church, a monument of sorts containing the Ten Commandments… which tickled my fancy enormously as I thought the peoples around there way back when, needed to pay a little more attention to the 8th Commandment, in my humble opinion!
We found the Witch Village, right around the corner from the local WitchCraft Beer Brewing Company, and the Salem Pirate Museum (alas, closed for the ‘season’). The Village contained a memorial park, another museum AND (wait for it!) a wax museum… so not going in there!! So instead we wandered around the memorial park and had a good look through the old cemetery, which contained many headstones from the original residents of Salem. I’ve always found old cemeteries rather sad, but fascinating.
After the cemetery, we went down the Salem’s waterfront area which was nigh on deserted – I can imagine it’s extremely busy in summer, as there are heaps of little shops and restaurants, many of which were open, but looking very closed still in this weather.
In the bay is The Friendship of Salem which is a 171-foot replica of a 1797 East Indiaman, built in New York, in 2000. The boat/ship thingy functions as a stationary museum during most of the year, however the ship is a fully functioning United States Coast Guard vessel capable of proper passenger and crew voyages, and occasionally sets sail. The name is a little twee, but the ship is pretty cool.
We found ourselves at The Capts Seafood Grill for lunch right by The Friendship overlooking the harbour which was really pleasant. I had to try the lobster risotto – so much lobster and so cheap! – and after kicking aside all the overpower capers, found it to be absolutely delicious. First meal I have had that was in a regular sized portion for one to enjoy an elegant sufficiency and not leave half your meal on your plate!
It was delicious, except for the whole drowning in bloody capers bit! Capers indeed!
After lunch we headed up Hawthorne Street towards the Hawthorne Hotel (there’s lots of Hawthorne around here, especially in the cemetery!), and saw a statue dedicated to Nathaniel Hawthorne himself.
The only other thing that really stood out in Salem, other than the overwhelming number of new age shops selling incense, crystals, and all things Wicca and pagan, was the sheer number of tarot readers, psychic readers, palm readers and divination type people. There were sooo many shops full of people offering to read your future. I don’t know if Salem breeds them like this, or if the nutters are attracted to Salem to make a living, but they were everywhere! Weird. Made me wonder if it was a particularly ‘when in Rome’ thing to do – go to Salem, have your fortunes told?! Who knows.
Oh, and I am totally sick of seeing this everywhere – massive piles of unmelted snow left over from two weeks ago… it’s so cold, the snow doesn’t want to melt. 🙁
After the tacky tacky delights of Salem, the most Touristy Historical Place Ever, we made our way to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.
The tour of the museum started with a film presentation of JFK’s early life and his love of the sea, life growing up in Cape Cod, and his intention to be a writer and a teacher, through to his naval career and early political career. There was plenty of casual footage of JFK and his family – himself and his 8 brothers and sisters – as well as his marriage to Jackie and their own two children. His early political career seemed to run smoothly, though it sounds like he never had any intentions of entering politics, and his father had originally earmarked his older brother Joe for a public life, but with Joe’s death, JFK ran for the House of Reps and won, and then the Senate and won that too, before eventually running for the Presidency in 1960. They have lots of memorabilia surrounding his election campaign on display in the museum there –
This is a reconstruction of the tally room where Walter Cronkite narrated the votes coming in across the country for the 1960 presidential elections, and a map showing the final counts-
JFK was enormously popular with his young bride beside him, I don’t think we have ever seen anything quite like it before or since… and certainly never seen anything like it in Australia. It is mind boggling to think how different history might have been if he wasn’t assassinated and if he had served two terms as President. I wonder what that would have looked like?
I found this amusing, JFK was presented with a replica of the desk set used to sign the Declaration of Independence in 1776, by the White House News Correspondents and Photographers – a replica of the same desk set we had seen in Philadelphia only a couple of days ago.
This thing was incredibly beautiful, so I had to take a photograph of it. It is a solid gold purse with diamonds, rubies and emeralds, that was presented to Jackie Kennedy by King Hussan of Morocco in 1963. So many of the gifts that the Kennedys received while in office were either commissioned by various statesmen, or beguilingly were actual treasures from the donating country – for example they were given a 3rd century BC statue from a representative of Afghanistan… who goes around giving away pieces of their nation’s own history? That makes no sense to me.
Also in the library/museum is a large portion of the Berlin Wall, to commemorate JFK’s extensive involvement in Berlin during his short tenure as President… very cool.
The Presidential Library and Museum itself is really quite impressive. Built in 1977 with Jackie Kennedy having approved the site and the plans, it is a very imposing structure well placed on Columbia Point and well worth a visit. The museum section itself is designed to look like you are walking through White House corridors and artefacts and information line the walls and various rooms off the corridors. They also have an awesome gift shop.
One thing I did notice was the way the museum completely glosses over JFK’s assassination… no mention of it at all. No newspaper clippings, no news reel footage, no magazine covers. Nothing. For such an important moment in American history – everyone remembers where they were when they heard, apparently – it seems an odd omission. The only reference at all to his death was a newsreel running footage of his funeral and burial at Arlington Cemetery. I guess it seems a sensitive way to deal with this very painful chapter of America’s recent history, but I feel that younger foreigners who may not be aware of what happened to JFK could potentially miss something very important by their choosing to leave it out.