Ritz-Carlton Magazine - Summer 2012 - (Page 36)

Fa l l i n g i n l o v e w i t h … cour tyard to which meditative Bostonians are drawn on sunny days. It’s hidden away behind the walls of the McKim Building of the Boston Public Librar y. The cour tyard is modeled on an Italianate palazzo and has an arcaded galler y along three of its four walls. I get there when the librar y opens, grab a cof fee and a muf fin at the MapRoom café and settle into one of the chairs scattered underneath the galler y. When you hear the water trickling from the cast bronze statue fountain in the reflecting pool in the center of the cour tyard, it’s hard to believe there’s an entire bustling city on the other side of the lovely walls. Frederick Law Olmsted, the 19th-centur y landscape architect, understood well the Bostonian need for tranquility. Between 1878 and 1896, he designed and oversaw construction of the Emerald Necklace, a seamless ribbon of parks encircling the city, as a quiet refuge for city residents. The Public Garden, Back Bay Fens and Franklin Park are the Necklace’s prize gems and usually a beehive of camera-wielding visitors. But just down an easy-to-miss sidewalk of f Park Drive is the River way, a lightly used por tion of the Necklace. The River way of fers a rare patch of city forest along a slow-moving section of the Muddy River as it heads to Jamaica Pond. It could almost convince you that you’re in the countr y, if it weren’t for the Green Line trollies chugging past on the tracks on the hill above you. The Canada geese here generally outnumber the visitors. It’s a narrow slice of heaven. The desire to car ve out one’s own place in this city has yielded one of our most passionate pursuits: the private garden. These mini-arboretums can be found tucked away in cour tyards and alleyways behind Boston’s famous brownstones and are a testament not only to the Bostonian green thumb, especially impressive in our all-too-shor t growing season, but also to our ingenuity — some of these gardens are no bigger than a parking spot. Most are private and will never be seen by anyone but their owners and friends. But ever y ThE sEaRCh FOR a sPECIaL, PERsONaL ExPERIENCE IN BOsTON LEaDs, INEvITaBLy, TO ThE WaTER. MA SS APPE AL From top: The Reading Room in the McKim Building of the Boston Public Library; a sunny scene in Boston Common, which dates back to 1634; Jamaica Pond, the first to be included in Boston’s “Emerald Necklace” of parks. 36 w w w. r i t z c a r lt o n . c o m from top: Carl tremblay; tim Klein/Gallery StoCK; Carl tremblay http://WWW.RITZCARLTON.COM

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Ritz-Carlton Magazine - Summer 2012

Ritz-Carlton Magazine - Summer 2012
Table of Contents
Contributors
Editor’s Letter
President’s Letter
Falling in Love With ... Boston
Technology
Design
On the Boulevards
Shopping
Jewelry
Watches
Family Travel
Wellness
Outdoors
Barcelona
Istanbul
Fashion
Culinary
Let Us Stay With You
Heritage

Ritz-Carlton Magazine - Summer 2012