[TheForge] Re: Boston ironwork?

[Mike Spencer]

> I'm visiting Boston right now. Any good ironwork I should look for?

On Boylston St., across from the Common there's an archway made by
Dimitri Gerakaris.  Nice forged animals and architectural detail
elements in iron and bronze.

Al Paley made a gate for the Milk St. station on the Boston subway.
But Milk St. station longer exists and I've been unablle to determine
just where the gate is if it is, in fact, still publically installed
at all. You might call the MBTA PR department (or get your hotel
people to do so) and ask.  They've made quite big deal about art in
the subway over the last 20 years.  (If you manage to find Al's Milk
St. gate somewhere, I'd be pleased ot have a photo of it.)

The Public Library at Copley Square -- walking distance from the Common
-- has some spectacular lamps on the front.  Across Boylston Street on
the corner, Old South Church has some interesting if less flamboyalnt
ironwork.

Dimitri also made a fountain for Kendall Sq.  I find it much less
interesting than the Boylston arch because it's mostly fabrication but
a nice piece nevertheless. Take the Red Line to MIT/Kendall, leave the
subway and walk a block or two back toward Boston.  Or walk/bus/cab to
the Mass. Av. entrance to MIT, enter the main doors and follow the
Infinite Corridor out the back, then continue, insofar as possible, in
the same line as the Corridor and thru an atrium in another building
till you see signs for the T (subway).

While you're in the vicinity of MIT (and if you're into that sort of
thing) MIT has a Henry Moore bronze on the lawn facing the river and a
towering Alexander Calder "Big Sail" more or less on the shortest path
from the subway to the main building that faces on Mass. Ave.

Should you get as far as the Infinite Corridor at MIT, take the
stairs down to the basement level of the corridor.   From somewhere
along it (remember, it's infinite... :-) you'll be able to look into
Prof. Sam Allen's blacksmith shop where Toby Bashaw (who manages it)
may be in evidence.


FWIW,
- Mike