Saturday, May 09, 2009

Boston.

5-9-09 BOSTON: We drove up yesterday for my 45th Boston University School of Medicine reunion and to re-visit all our hangouts when we lived here, a victory lap. After check-in at the Westin Copley Place, we walked around Back Bay, saw my first place on Marlborough St. saw Comm. Ave., Mass. Ave., the Eliot Hotel, and all the shops and boutiques on Newbury St. Then we walked east to the Public Gardens and the Commons and back to the hotel on Huntington Ave.

My med school class had about 70 graduates, classes are now twice that size, and ten of us showed for this reunion. The other alums had almost all stayed in eastern Massachusetts and had been in contact with each other over the years. We had not seen any of them since I got my diploma, but picked up where we left off at graduation. It was a very nice dinner. Almost all of us are fully retired, except for a few with part-time jobs. We each gave an impromptu talk about our lives, so far. There were a lot of good stories and interesting twists. Everybody was generally pleased with how things turned out for them.

Today we went to Huntington Ave. building where I lived for the second half of my first year. The Sherry-Biltmore on Mass. Ave. is gone. We looked at the Med School which is now mostly rebuilt, but a few of the primitive, 19th century buildings survive. The school and hospitals are a huge, contiguous complex. The local neighborhood, which was definitely low end then, is now gentrified, cleaned-up and up-scale. Owners have displaced the Southie renters and students. Every brick row house has a well-tended garden. Worcester Square has probably never looked better.

Moving along we went to Brookline where we lived after we married. Again, the street has been upgraded. Were we now looking to rent as we were then, we couldn't afford Garrison Rd. We drove down Beacon St., visited MIT, where Judy worked after graduation, and Harvard Square, drove along the Charles, through the BU campus, and around Beacon Hill. We had dinner at the Palm.


Boston has a great mix of the old and the new.

Worcester Square-thoroughly gentrified.

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