🎶 2022-08-25 17:10:20 – Paris/France.
A new face welcomes visitors to Boston. It belongs to a 3-year-old child in velcro sneakers, crouching near a boombox and wearing a gold halo. She is the daughter of artist Rob Gibbs, who gazes unflinchingly from a 70ft mural opposite South Station, the city's largest rail terminal.
Mr Gibbs – who paints under the name ProBlak – is Boston's first black artist to be commissioned for the revolving mural in Dewey Square. Mr. Gibbs grew up in Roxbury and has been painting the town's walls for years. This new mural, "Breathe Life Together," will be in place through May 2023. His art pays homage to Boston's hard-of-hearing people and reflects his neighborhood and his home. "If I have to host people in the city, the best thing I can do is offer them a home-cooked meal," he said. “It's a home-cooked meal. »
It's a welcome for returning visitors to New England's biggest city at near pre-pandemic levels. Hotel occupancy in June was 81,8% – lower than June 2019, when rates were 89,8%, but a big improvement from a pandemic low of 5%. And with nonstop flights from 127 domestic and international destinations, travelers are greeted with innovative art, new music venues, upscale dining options and reimagined hotels.
Exhibitions and installations
The role of art in promoting conversation has been a focus of the National Gallery in recent years. This conversation was propelled onto a national stage when, in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and amid an ongoing national reckoning with race, his retrospective of Philip Guston, a painter who often explored white supremacy , anti-Semitism and violence in its work, was delayed two years to redesign and reframe its presentation, which includes things like trigger warnings and resources to help viewers emotionally prepare for the show. The postponement outraged many in the art world, but in May the MFA opened the show, 'Philip Guston Now', which was hailed by many for its thoughtful approach, while others called it quits. question the need for such warnings.
The exhibit will close on September 11, a week after the MFA celebrates the opening of the "Obama Portraits Tour" (September 3-October 30), the final North American leg before the return of official presidential portraits of Barack and Michelle Obama. at the National Portrait Gallery. Alongside Obama's portraits will be more than 2 drawings, paintings and photos from as far away as South Korea. They are part of a community project that invited participants to submit a portrait of a leader in their life.
President Obama's remarks at the opening of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington celebrated King's vision of unity. In January, Boston will unveil its own monument to Martin Luther King and his wife, Coretta Scott King, who met while studying in Boston. Designed by Brooklyn-based artist Hank Willis Thomas, "The Embrace," a 20-foot-by-40-foot sculpture, will be installed on Boston Common, America's oldest public park and one of the most visible places in the city.
Other new art projects are decidedly more whimsical. In June, 10 miniature street scenes seemed to magically appear in Greater Boston. The mouse-sized installations, like the tiny 'Mouseum' in the seaport, are the brainchild of AnonyMouse, an art collective that has been creating pop-ups across Sweden since 2016. The storytelling scenes gave birth to treasure hunts for all ages.
Concert halls bring the game to the fore
After Boston's live music scene quieted down during the pandemic, concerts returned to the schedules in 2021, with masked audiences and requirements for proof of vaccinations. Now, spectators are back in force and Boston has two new halls to accommodate them.
A decade after Cambridge's Sinclair opened, where music lovers flocked for its exceptional acoustics and unobstructed sightlines, the Bowery Presents tapped the same team to design Roadrunner, a 3-person music hall in the Brighton neighborhood in Boston. Opened in March, the general admission venue features six bars and a modern industrial-chic design. The 500-square-foot venue with a multi-level view of the 50-foot stage has previously hosted Olivia Rodrigo, Leon Bridges and Lake Street Dive, and has more than 000 acts booked for the fall.
When MGM Music Hall at Fenway opens this month, subtle design choices, like stenciled section numbers on concrete poles, will remind visitors they're next door to baseball's oldest stadium. from America. The 5-person venue more than doubles the capacity of the neighboring House of Blues, but maintains its privacy, with the farthest seat just 000 feet from the stage. A Fenway Sports Group company in partnership with Live Nation, its developers say the site fills a void in the Boston market. The music hall debuts with a two-night adventure by James Taylor, followed by Chris Stapleton, Bruno Mars and Lil Nas X.
New restaurants and craft beer
New dining options abound and perhaps the most sought after is Contessa, which sits atop the newly reopened Newbury Hotel, offering Northern Italian cuisine and panoramic views. This first Boston adventure from New York chef Mario Carbone is both sophisticated and cozy, with starters like squash carpaccio ($22) and mains including scallops aglio olio pepperoncino ($46).
When Maria Rondeau and JuanMa Calderón opened La Royal in February, they did so out of love for their neighborhood. The 48-seat restaurant sits a block from their home in the Huron village of Cambridge, with a menu that draws on Mr. Calderón's Peruvian roots and Salvadoran influences that pay homage to the restaurant staff. The causa de pulpo (potato terrine with octopus, $18) and the lomo soltado (sautéed beef, $28) pair wonderfully with the pisco cocktails on the menu (from $14).
Docked on the East Boston waterfront, the Tall Ship is part floating oyster bar and part adult playground. With stunning views of the skyline and harbor, it feels both quintessentially Boston and unlike anything the city has seen before. Aboard the 245-foot ship, a raw bar serves lobster tails ($40) and sushi rolls (from $14). But the pier alongside the ship is where the action is, with lawn games galore, adult frozen drinks and shipping containers turned food stalls, offering tacos ($17) , sandwiches ($14) and dishes for children.
For mixing and matching dishes from 20 of Boston's top chefs, High Street Place on the edge of the Financial District is a good bet. During the opening in March, Mayor Michelle Wu – the first woman and person of color to be elected as a top city official – celebrated that many food hall vendors are women and people of color. , and applauded the effort to bring Boston's diverse cultures downtown. Kutzu marries Korean and Southeast Asian flavors with rice bowls ($14), banh mi sandwiches ($14) and “pho-men” — a cross between pho and ramen ($14 $). The Dive Bar, from Tiffani Faison named after James Beard, serves up New England seafood with a touch of New Orleans spice (dish from $15). And northeast of the border is the premier brick-and-mortar location for a popular Mexican food truck (tacos from $5). For drinking, there's champagne at the Bubble Bath and pints at the Alewives Taproom.
Bostonians love their craft beer, and local breweries are responding with new locations. Nantucket's Cisco Brewers was one of the first to arrive in the booming Seaport neighborhood, with an outdoor dining area flanked by food trucks. Massachusetts brewer Lord Hobo joined the neighborhood in March with his own tavern and restaurant. Across the river, Lamplighter Brewing has opened a second location in the Cambridge Crossing residential and commercial development. And for those who want a variety of beers from all over New England, Brighton's Broken Records Beer Hall has over 20 makers.
A resolutely renovated and stylish newcomer
With new properties and revamps of classic hotels, there is no shortage of places to check in.
In the Seaport, where the speed of development is dizzying, the Omni Hotel offers a facility almost unheard of in the city: a swimming pool heated all year round on the roof. Opened in September 2021, the 22-story property has four full-service restaurants, a lobby bar, a bakery, and a spa (doubles from $413).
Nestled between downtown and Boston's North End, a bastion of Italian restaurants, is the Canopy by Hilton, a 212-room hotel that opened in March. Designed to have a local neighborhood feel, The Canopy houses a brasserie-style cafe and also has bikes available for guests to explore the city (doubles from $244).
After a $200 million renovation, the Langham Boston reopened its 312-room hotel in June 2021, with classic American-style rooms, marble-floored bathrooms, and a 268-piece art collection. Its craft cocktail bar, The Fed, nods to the property's original occupant, the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. In the Financial District, it's a short walk to Faneuil Hall, the Aquarium, and Boston Common (doubles from $436).
Across the Charles River, Cambridge and Somerville are also ready to welcome visitors. At the edge of Central Square — near the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and restaurants — is 907 Main, a boutique hotel whose classic brownstone exterior gives way to a modern interior (doubles from $175) . Regular visitors to Boston who want to explore a new neighborhood can check in at Cambria Somerville. The 163-room hotel is walkable to Union Square, home to the newest MTBA stop. The long-awaited and much-delayed subway expansion sets the neighborhood up for massive transformation (double $212).
SOURCE: Reviews News
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