Miss Piggy Lunchbox

One of the things I always wanted to do when we lived in Boston was to go out and photograph all the Squares I could find.  Which would have been a lot of them.  You see, in the Boston area virtually every intersection, no matter how small, is a Square named after somebody.

A recent article in the Globe tells the story behind a few of them.

Cambridge seems to have more squares than nearby towns, with some intersections accommodating two squares and one corner.

And sometimes that intersection is the corner of Tremont and Tremont.

Me: Go Red Sox! Woooo!
Red Sox: Ummm, didn’t you break up with me?
Me: Wooo–uh, hey baby, isn’t this fun?
Red Sox: I thought you said you were moving on to the Twins (who finished under .500) and the Mariners (who had a historic collapse at the end of the year to miss the playoffs).
Me: Hey we had some good times right? And doesn’t this just feel right? I missed you.
Red Sox: ….
Me: C’mon, didn’t you miss me, too?
Red Sox: You think you can just walk right back into my life, as if nothing happened? You dumped me mid-season. Do you know what that did to me?
Me: No no no, it wasn’t like that at all. I was just…I mean, it was July, we were both going through kind of a grind, you had a really comfortable lead in the standings, we both talked about wanting to get some space….but that’s over now. It’s chilly out, you’re still playing…c’mon…remember 2004?
Red Sox: Mmmm, okay…but this doesn’t mean anything!
Me: *smiles*
Red Sox: Could you…could you sing…”Sweet Caroline?” You know, like you used to?
Me: “Sweeeeeeeeeeet Caroline/BUH BUH BUH!/Good times never felt so good”

GO SOX!

[I thought I posted this several weeks ago. Sorry for the delay. - Ed.]

Okay, so the first time I wrote about this intersection was in this 2005 post. Then there was some comments about it in this post from last week. Now, MPL reader Dr. K has sent in the following wonderful map that helps explain things quite well.

So, the blue and red arrows are the routes you take “west” and “east” through Harvard Square in Cambridge. Note that these are the routes you take if you simply want to stay on Massachusetts Avenue. Westbound, not a big deal, but look at that freaky eastbound route.

The view in that 2005 post is the view you have if you’re facing west at that spot above the “M” where the two lines nearly meet. And trust me, it’s even crazier with a wide-angle view.

The craziest route to me, though, is if I’m coming westbound on Mass Ave and I want to turn left at JFK to go across the river. First, you have to go way out of your way up to that spot above the “M” where the lines nearly meet. Then you have to go around Brattle and Eliot to meet up with JFK where you can finally turn right to get across the bridge. It’s nuts.