Category Archives: United States of America

Copp’s Hill Burying Ground (Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A.)

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Copp’s Hill Burying Ground

The historic, 12,000 sq. m. (3 acre) Copp’s Hill Burying Ground, the second (and largest) cemetery in Boston (second only to the King’s Chapel Burying Ground founded in 1630), was founded on February 20, 1659. Originally named “North Burying Ground,” it is situated on land (where a wind-powered grinding mill once stood) on Copp’s Hill (named after early settler and local cobbler William Copp whose children were buried here in the 1660s) bought by the town from John Baker and Daniel Turell.

Now named “Copp’s Hill Burying Ground” (although often referred to as “Copp’s Hill Burial Ground”), it is the final resting place of over 10,000 people (buried between 1660 and 1968) and contains more than 2,200 marked graves (60% of which date to before the American Revolution), including the remains of various notable Bostonians (29 Boston Tea Party participants and 43 Revolutionary War veterans) from the Colonial Era into the 1850s.

On January 7, 1708, the cemetery was extended when the town bought additional land from Judge Samuel Sewall and his wife Hannah (part of a  pasture which she inherited from her father, John Hull, master of the mint).  On June 17, 1775, because of its height and panoramic vista, the British used this vantage point on the southwest side to establish earthworks and train their North Battery cannons on Charlestown during the Battle of Bunker Hill. Legend has it that British troops used gravestones for target practice (many have interpreted the round scars of the Capt. Daniel Malcolm grave marker to be the result of musket balls being shot at close range).

On December 18, 1809, it was further extended when the town bought, for US$10,000, additional land from Benjamin Weld and his wife Nabby after they had bought it from Jonathan Merry, who had used it as pasture.  Ten years later, Charles Wells (later mayor of Boston) bought a small parcel of land from John Bishop of Medford which he used as a cemetery. Later, this was merged with the adjacent North Burying Ground. It is no longer possible to discern the original boundaries of the cemetery because of this complicated history.

Along the Snow Hill Street side, in a potter’s field, are many unmarked graves of more than 1,000 free  African Americans who lived in the questionably named “New Guinea” community at the foot of the hill. In addition, there are 227 tombs, most of which bear inscriptions that are still legible. In addition, the grave markers and their epitaphs of thousands of artisans and tradesmen buried here reflect the nature of the 17th and 18th century economy of the North End.

Prince Hall Memorial

Reputedly, the oldest grave stone is that of Grace Berry, wife of Thomas Berry, who according to the inscription, died May 17, 1625 (5 years before Boston was settled). The well preserved stone is of old Welsh slate with quite distinct carving; the edges are ornamented with curves and at the top are carved two cherubs and the angel of death.

Grace Berry Tomb

The tomb erected by Isaac Dupee, perhaps the most ornate monument in the ground, bears a beautifully carved coat-of-arms, together with a tribute in verse.

Isaac Dupee Tomb

The town continued to maintain the site intermittently but, by 1840, the cemetery had fallen into near disuse and, by 1878, it was badly neglected. When the Freedom Trail  created in 1951, the cemetery was not an official stop but it has since been added and is now much-frequented by tourists and photographers. In 1974, the site was added to the National Register of Historic Places. Now owned by the City of Boston Parks and Recreation Department, it is part of the Historic Burying Grounds Initiative.

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Michael Malcom Grave stone

Notable persons buried here include:

Copp’s Hill Burying Ground: 21 Hull St. cor. Snowhill St., Boston, 02113 Massachusetts, U.S.A. Tel: 617-635-4505.  Open daily. 10 AM  – 5 PM.

Paul Revere House (Boston, Massachusetts, USA)

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Paul Revere House

The Paul Revere House, the colonial home (for about 20 years) of famous legendary American patriot, famous “Midnight Rider,” silversmith, businessman and entrepreneur Paul Revere during the time of the American Revolution, is the oldest remaining structure in downtown Boston and also the only official Freedom Trail historic site that is a home.

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It occupies the former site of the Second Church of Boston’s parsonage, home to Increase Mather and Cotton Mather, which was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1676. The original three-story house, built about 1680, was first owned by Robert Howard, a wealthy a wealthy Boston slave merchant. Howard’s L-shaped townhouse contained spacious rooms and its exterior would have been enhanced by features such as a second-floor overhang and casement windows.

From 1770 to 1800, Paul Revere owned this house.  Although he and his family may have lived elsewhere for periods in the 1780s and 1790s, they lived there during the American Revolution – the most transformative and uncertain era of their generation. The rear chimney (c. 1790) including the kitchen (that visitors see in the first room they enter) were believed to have been added during the Revere occupancy.

After Revere sold the house in 1800, the home became a sailor’s boarding house for many years in the nineteenth century and, by the turn of the twentieth century, the old house had become a tenement with the ground floor remodeled for use as shops. At various times, it became a candy store, cigar factory, bank and vegetable and fruit business. In 1902, to prevent demolition, John P. Reynolds Jr. (Revere’s great-grandson) purchased the building and its restoration took place under the guidance of Joseph Everett Chandler, an architect and historic preservationist. In April 1908, the Paul Revere House opened its doors to the public as one of the earliest historic house museums in the United States.

Around the middle of the eighteenth century, the Paul Revere House went through two major and substantial renovation processes.  First, to bring the house in line with the Georgian architectural style  becoming prevalent at that time, the roofline facing the street was raised substantially.   Second, a two-story lean-to was added in the ell between the two 17th-century portions of the house. In 1907–1908, restorers returned the roofline to its original pitch, albeit without a gable (giving rise to a commonly held misconception that the attic had been removed), and the lean-to was removed.

On January 20, 1961, it was designated as a National Historic Landmark and, on October 15, 1966, added to the National Register of Historic Places. It is now operated as a nonprofit museum by the Paul Revere Memorial Association.

The main block of the three-storey house consists of four structural bays demarcated by heavy framing posts and overhead beams, all typical of early Massachusetts Bay timber construction. Within this main block, the larger ground floor room is dominated by its chimney bay and adjoining lobby entrance. As the Revere House was set quite close to neighbors, its double casement windows were installed in the rear elevation rather than the more common placement in a gable.  The two-storey extension, behind the Revere House, was unlike some contemporary Boston houses which had separate kitchen buildings. Its heavy beams, large fireplaces, and absence of interior hallways are typical of colonial living arrangements. Several pieces of furniture, believed to have belonged to the Revere family, are found at the two upstairs chambers.

Despite the renovation (which returned the house to its conjectured appearance around 1700), 90% of the structure (including two doors, three window frames, and portions of the flooring, foundation, inner wall material and raftering) is original to 1680.  However, none of the window glass is original.

In December 2016, the Paul Revere Memorial Association opened, after a purchase in 2007 and US$4 million in renovations, the new, 3,500 sq. ft. Visitor and Education Center, connected to the house by an elevated walkway.  For the first time, the renovations permitted wheelchair access to the second floor of the house. The education center provided additional exhibit space on Revere’s Midnight Ride, his work as a silversmith and his industrial work after the American Revolution.  Classrooms and a library also allowed for expanded research and educational outreach.

Immediately adjacent and across the entry courtyard (the original site of the John Barnard House) is the brick Pierce–Hichborn House.  Built about 1711 as an early Georgian house, it is also operated as a nonprofit museum by the Paul Revere Memorial Association.

Paul Revere House: 19 North Square, Boston, Massachusetts 0213.  Tel: 617-523-2338. Fax: 617-523-1775. E-mail: staff@paulreverehouse.org. Website: www.paulreverehouse.org. Admission: Adults (US$5.00), Seniors and College Students (US$4.50) and Children – ages 5-17 (US$1.00). Open Daily – Summer: April 15 – October 31 (9:30 AM to 5:15 PM), Winter: November 1 – April 14 (9:30 AM to 4:15 PM). It is closed on Mondays during January, February and March as well as Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day. The first floor of house is accessible via the courtyard ramps while the second floor is accessed by taking the elevator in the visitor center and then connecting to the house via the walkway.

King’s Chapel (Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A.)

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King’s Chapel

The King’s Chapel, proudly one of the 16 historic sites (the fifth stop) on Boston’s Freedom Trail, is housed in what was formerly called the “Stone Chapel,” an 18th-century structure. The chapel, an independent Christian unitarian congregation affiliated with the Unitarian Universalist Association and the first Anglican church in colonial New England and overwhelmingly Puritan Boston, was founded on June 15, 1686 by Royal Governor Sir Edmund Andros  during the reign of King James II. Notable members and attendees included George Washington, Paul Revere, Thomas Hutchinson, Charles Sumner, Charles Bulfinch, Oliver Wendell Holmes  and many more.

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The exterior columns of chapel colonnade

The chapel was originally a wooden church built in 1688. The present larger stone (made with Quincy granite) chapel building, started in 1749 (its cornerstone was laid on August 11) and completed in 1754, was built around the wooden church.

One of the finest designs of the noted colonial architect Peter Harrison (dubbed as “America’s first architect”) of Newport, when the stone church was completed, the wooden church was disassembled, removed through the windows of the new church and the  wood shipped to Lunenburg, Nova Scotia where it was used to construct St. John’s Anglican Church.

National Historic Landmark Plaque

During the American Revolution, the chapel sat vacant or a few short months as Loyalist families left for Nova Scotia and England, but reopened, following the loss of its minister (the Rev. Henry Caner), for the funeral of Gen. Joseph Warren who was killed at the Battle of Bunker Hill (June 17, 1775). In 1782, those who remained reopened the church. In 1960, the chapel was designated a National Historic Landmark  for its architectural significance. On Halloween night of 2001, the church was destroyed by fire but has since been rebuilt.

The chapel’s magnificent interior

The chapel bell, cast in England and hung in 1772, cracked in 1814 and was recast by Paul Revere (the largest bell cast by the Revere foundry and the last one cast by Paul Revere himself) and rehung. Ever since, it has been rung during Sunday morning services.

Plaque commemorating congregation members who died during the American Civil War

The exterior columns of the colonnade (completed after the American Revolution), which appear to be stone, are, in fact, wood painted in a cost-saving trompe-l’oeil.

Plaque commemorating congregation members who died during World War I and World War II

The magnificent interior, considered the finest example of Georgian church architecture in North America, features wooden columns which have Corinthian capitals hand-carved, in 1758, by William Burbeck and his apprentices.

The wooden columns with hand-carved Corinthian capitals

The current uniform appearance of the seating, in box pews, dates from the 1920s. The pews were mostly originally owned by the member families who paid pew rent and decorated the pews according to their personal tastes.

The box pews

The chapel first organ was acquired in 1723. The present organ, the chapel’s sixth, was built by C.B. Fisk in in 1964. Decorated with miters and carvings from the Bridge organ of 1756, it is slightly below average in size compared with most mid-1900s European chapel organs.

Within the King’s Chapel is a monument to London merchant Samuel Vassall, brother of the colonist William Vassall (who frequently clashed with John Winthrop, and eventually removed himself to Scituate, Massachusetts), a patentee of the Massachusetts Bay Company (also named a member of the company in its 1629 Royal Charter), an early deputy of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and a Member of Parliament (1640–1641) representing London.

Monument to London merchant Samuel Vassall

Kings Chapel: 58 Tremont Street cor. School Street, Boston, Massachusetts, MA 02108,  U.S.A. Open daily, 10 AM – 4:30 PM.  Tours: 10 AM to 5 PM, Mondays through Saturdays; and 1:30 PM to 5 PM on Sundays. Tel:+1 617-523-1749. Website: www.kings-chapel.org.

Granary Burying Ground (Boston, Massachussetts, U.S.A.)

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Granary Burying Ground

The Granary Burying Ground, the city’s third-oldest cemetery, dates to 1660. A major stop in our Freedom Trail Tour, it is steps away from Boston Common and is shadowed by the towering skyscrapers of the city’s Financial District (however, just a few moments here made me forget that I was in the center of a large city). It was Independence Day when Jandy and I visited and the graves of famous personalities buried there where marked with US flags and floral wreaths. Guides, in American Colonial attire, were busy touring visitors around the cemetery.

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The Egyptian Revival-style gate

This cemetery is the final resting place of many notable Revolutionary War-era patriots such as Paul Revere (pedestal-shaped gravestone behind the Franklin Memorial) , the five victims (including African-American Crispus Attucks) of the March 5, 1770 Boston Massacre (in a common grave near the Tremont Street entrance) and three signers of the Declaration of Independence – Samuel Adams, John Hancock and Robert Treat Paine (at the side of a brick wall).

Lady guide, in American Colonial attire, touring visitors around the cemetery

As such, because of its historical connections, this quiet but fascinating, tree-filled, shade-dappled ground has been sometimes called the “Westminster Abbey” of Boston. After 1856, most burials were prohibited here.

Tomb of John Hancock

The cemetery, adjacent to Park Street Church and immediately across from Suffolk University Law School, has 2,345 grave-markers and 204 tombs but historians estimate that as many as 5,000 people are buried in it.  The reason for this is that, to save money and space, many of the graves have multiple bodies buried, four deep, under one headstone, something that was common in most old burial grounds.

The pedestal-shaped tomb of Paul Revere

Formerly known as the New Burying Ground and South Burying Ground, in 1737 it took on the name of the Old Town Granary, the granary building which stood on the site of the present-day Park Street Church. An attempt was also made to change the name to “Franklin Cemetery,” to honor the family of Benjamin Franklin, but the effort failed.

The Franklin Memorial

The cemetery’s striking and imposing but decidedly uncolonial Egyptian Revival iron gate and fence along Tremont Street, designed in 1840 by Boston sculptor and architect Isaiah Rogers (the supervising architect of the Ohio State House, he also designed an identical gate for Newport’s Touro Cemetery and the Bunker Hill Monument), was built at a cost of US$5,000 (half paid by the city and half by public subscription).

Samuel Adams Tomb

A 21-ft. high obelisk, constructed with granite from the Bunker Hill Monument quarry and dedicated on June 15, 1827, was erected to replace the original gravestones (which had been in poor condition) of the parents and relatives of Benjamin Franklin (he was born in Boston but is buried in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania). Josiah Franklin, Franklin’s father, was originally from Ecton, Northamptonshire, England while his mother, Abiah (Josiah’s second wife), was born in Nantucket.

Robert Treat Paine Tomb

The second oldest memorial, for John Wakefield (who died on June 18, 1667, aged 52), lies near the Franklin monument. Many of the 17th century grave stones are carved with elaborate letters, death’s heads, and fruits of paradise.  The oldest grave stone, that of the children of Andrew Neal, was carved by the ‘Charlestown Carver’ and dates to 1666.

Children of Andrew Neal Tomb

Other prominent people buried here include:

Common grave of the 5 victims of the Boston Massacre

Granary Burying Ground: Tremont Street an Bloomfield Street, Boston MA 02108, Massachusetts. Open daily, 9 AM – 5PM. Tel: 617-635-4505.  Admission is free. To keep the burial ground protected, please make sure you stay on the designated paths.

How to Get There: If you are arriving by public transportation, take the Red and Green Lines/Park Street, the closest T station, to Boston Common and walk northeast on Tremont Street towards the Park St Church. Past the church you’ll find the Granary Burial Ground.

Boston Common (Massachusetts, USA)

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Boston Common

The 20-hectare (50-acre) Boston Common (also known as the Common), a central public park in downtown Boston, is bounded by Tremont Street (139 Tremont St.), Park Street, Beacon Street, Charles Street, and Boylston Street.  The Common is part of the Emerald Necklace of parks and parkways that extend from the Common south to Franklin Park in Jamaica Plain, Roxbury and Dorchester.

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The southern end of Boston’s Freedom Trail, a visitors’ center for all of Boston is located on the Tremont Street side of the park. This public park, forming the southern foot of Beacon Hill, is managed by the Boston Park Department and cared for by Friends of the Public Garden, a private advocacy group which also provides additional funding for maintenance and special events.

Here are some interesting trivia regarding this park:

Boston Common originally included the entire block northeast of where Park Street is now, bounded by Beacon Street and Tremont Street. In 1660, the Granary Burying Ground was established on this land as part of the Common but, in 1662, the land was separated from the Common.  The southwest portion of the block, including the Granary and a house of correction, was taken for public buildings and the north portion of the block was used for housing.

The Site of Fox Hill Plaque – erected in 1925 to the southern pillar of the Charles Street gate to mark the site of one of the most prominent features of the early Common.

Here is a historical timeline of the park:

  • In 1634, the Puritan founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony bought the land from William Blaxton (often given the modernized spelling “Blackstone”), the first European settler of Boston.
  • During the 1630s, it was used by many families as a cow pasture.
  • Before the American Revolutionary War, the Common was used as a camp by the British.  From here they left for the Battle of Lexington and Concord.
  • Up until 1817, it was used for public hangings(most of which were from a large oak which was replaced with a gallows in 1769).
  • On June 1, 1660, for repeatedly defying a law that banned Quakers from the Colony, Quaker Mary Dyer (one of the four Quakers, known as the Boston martyrs, executed on the Common) was hanged there by the Puritans.
  • On May 19, 1713, in reaction to a food shortage in the city, 200 citizens rioted on the Common, later attacking ships and warehouses of wealthy merchant Andrew Belcher, who was exporting grain to the Caribbean for higher profits. During the riot, the lieutenant governor was shot.
  • Since 1728, Tremont Mall, the first recreational promenade (an imitation of  James’s Park in London), had been in place.
  • In 1804, the bordering Sentry Street was renamed Park Place (later to be called Park Street), acknowledging the reality of its becoming a park (renaming the Common as Washington Park was also proposed).
  • In 1830, Mayor Harrison Gray Otis formally banned cows from grazing on it. True park status seems to have emerged during that time.
  • By 1836, an ornamental iron fence fully enclosed the Common and its five perimeter malls or recreational promenades.
  • In 1913 and 1986, prehistoric sites were discovered on the Common indicating Native American presence in the area as far back as 8,500 years ago
  • In 1977, the Common was designated as a Boston Landmark by the Boston Landmarks Commission.
  • On February 27, 1987, it was declared a U.S. National Historic Landmark.
  • On August 27, 2007, two teenagers were shot on the Common (one of the bullets fired during the shooting struck the Massachusetts State House). A strict curfew has since been enforced, which has been protested by the homeless population of Boston.

Blackstone Memorial Tablet, near the corner of Park Street and Tremont Street, was designed and erected in 1913 by R. Clipston Sturgis. It recalls the founding of Boston Common in 1634.

Today, the Common serves as a public park for all to use for formal or informal gatherings. Events such as concerts, protests, softball games, and ice skating (on Frog Pond) often take place in the park. Notable formal or informal gatherings that took place here include:

  • In early 1965, a hundred people gathered on the Common to protest the Vietnam War.
  • On April 23, 1965, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a speech here to protest racial imbalance in schools and housing.
  • On October 15, 1969, a second Vietnam War protest happened here, this time with 100,000 people protesting.
  • On August 31, 1967, Judy Garland gave her largest concert ever (100,000+) on the Common.
  • On October 1, 1979, Pope John Paul II said mass to an estimated 400,000 people.
  • On May 31, 1990, on his way to Washington D.C. to sign agreements with U.S. President George H.W. Bush, Mikhail Gorbachev gave a speech in the Common.
  • On October 21, 2006, 30,128 Jack-o’-lanterns were lit simultaneously around the park at the Life is good Pumpkin Festival, setting a new world record. The previous record, held by Keene, New Hampshire since 2003, was 28,952.
  • On January 21, 2017, approximately 175,000 people marched from the Common to the Back Bay vicinity to profess resistance to the perceived anti-women viewpoints held by president Donald Trump.
  • On August 19, 2017, in the wake of events in Charlottesville, VA the week before, approximately 40,000 people marched from Roxbury Crossing to Boston Common to protest hate speech and white supremacy. A right-wing “Free Speech” rally had been planned on Boston Common, which some feared would draw members of the KKK, Neo Nazis and other hate groups. Boston Mayor Marty Walsh deemed the “Fight Supremacy” counter protest a great success.

Boston Common Frog Pond, renowned for its winter skating program and skating activities, features public skating, skating lessons, and skating programs for students.

The Boston Common Frog Pond, sitting at the heart of Boston Common, is managed by The Skating Club of Boston in partnership with the City of Boston.  It is home to a winter ice skating rink and learn-to-skate school, a reflecting pool in the spring and fall, and a summer spray pool and children’s carousel. At the southwest corner of the Common lie softball fields.

John Paul II Plaque

A grassy area, forming the western part of the park, is most commonly used for the park’s largest events. Under this part of the Common lies a parking garage.  A granite slab there commemorates Pope John Paul II‘s October 1, 1979 visit to Boston.

Robert Gould Shaw Memorial

The Robert Gould Shaw Memorial, a bronze relief sculpture unveiled on May 31, 1897 by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, stands at 24 Beacon cor. Park Street, the northeast corner of the Common, opposite the State House It depicts Col.  Robert Gould Shaw leading the Afro-American 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry as it marched down Beacon Street on May 28, 1863.

The 126-ft. high, Neo-Classical Soldiers and Sailors Monument, a victory column on Flag Staff Hill in the Common, was designed by Martin Milmore.  Erected in memory of Massachusetts soldiers and sailors who died in the American Civil War, its construction began in 1874 and the monument was dedicated on September 17, 1877.

Soldiers & Sailors Monument

The Boston Massacre Memorial, dedicated November 14, 1888, was designed by Robert Kraus.  The bas relief depicts the events before the Old State House on March 5, 1770, featuring Crispus Attucks, the first to fall. The bronze figure represents Revolution breaking the chains of tyranny.

One of four 8 foot high carved granite figures, at the Soldiers and Sailors Monument, representing the northern, southern, eastern and western sections of the reunited nation

The Oneida Football Monument memorializes the Common as the site of the first organized football games in the United States, played by the Oneida Football Club in 1862.  Plaque to the Great Elm tree celebrates the legacy and importance of the Great Elm Tree to the Boston Common.  A major storm that included heavy winds toppled it on February 15, 1876.

Brewer Fountain

The 6.7-m. (22-ft.) tall, 6,800-kg. (15,000-pound) Brewer Fountain, standing near the corner of Park and Tremont Streets, by Park Street Station, is a bronze fountain cast in Paris and gifted to the city by Gardner Brewer. It began to function for the first time on June 3, 1868.

Memorial to the Nurses of the Armed Services

The Boylston and Park Street stations, the first two subway stations in the Western Hemisphere, lie underneath the southern and eastern corners of the park, respectively.  Both stations have been in near-continuous operation since the opening of the first portion of the Tremont Street Subway (now part of the MBTA‘s Green Line) on September 1, 1897.

Royal Navy Plaque, installed on the western entrance to Boston Common, bordering the Public Garden, is a token of gratitude from the Royal Navy to the people of Boston, for their hospitality during World War II.

The Parkman Bandstand, in the eastern part of the park, is used in musical and theatrical productions, concerts, rallies, and speeches. Recent notable gatherings include the Boston Freedom Rally and a 2007 Presidential Primary rally in which both Barack Obama and Deval Patrick gave speeches from the bandstand. It was built in 1912 from a design by Derby, Robinson & Shephard at a cost of $1 million on the site of the Cow Pond (also known as the Horse Pond).  It was restored in 1996. 

Parkman Bandstand

Boston Common: 139 Tremont St, Boston, Massachusetts 02111. 

Boston Public Garden (Massachusetts, USA)

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Boston Public Garden

The large Boston Public Garden (also known as Public Garden), adjacent to Boston Common, is the first public botanical garden in America. A part of the Emerald Necklace system of parks (a long string of parks designed by Frederick Law Olmsted), it is bounded by Charles Street (which divides the Public Garden from Boston Common) to the east, Beacon Street (where it faces Beacon Hill) to the north, Arlington Street and Back Bay to the west, and Boylston Street to the south.  Connecting the Public Garden with the rest of the Emerald Necklace is the greenway, a strip of park that runs west down the center of Commonwealth Avenue towards the Back Bay Fens and the Muddy River.

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The Public Garden was established in 1837, when philanthropist Horace Gray petitioned for the use of land as the first public botanical garden in the United States. In October 1859, after submitting the detailed plan for the Garden to the Committee on the Common and Public Squares, Alderman Crane received approval and construction began quickly on the property.  The pond was finished that year and, in 1862, the wrought iron fence surrounding the perimeter was erected. George F. Meacham designed the 97,000 m2 (24-acre) landscape while city engineer, James Slade, and the forester, John Galvin laid out the paths and flower beds. Many of fountains and statues for the garden were erected in the late 1860s.

On January 6, 1913, the garden, along with the Boston Common, were placed by the City Council  under the direct management of the Public Grounds Department of the city. the Mayor’s Office, The Parks Department of the City of Boston and the non-profit Friends of the Public Garden jointly manages the Public Garden. In 1977, it was designated a Boston Landmark by the Boston Landmarks Commission  and, on February 27, 1987, was declared a National Historic Landmark.

The Public Garden, rectangular in shape, designed in the style of an English landscape garden, mostly flat and varying in elevation by less than five feet, contains a pond, a bridge crossing over the pond, winding and asymmetrical pathways and a large series of formal plantings that vary from season to season and are maintained by the city and others.

The garden is planted with a wide assortment of native and introduced trees.  Weeping willows are found around the shore of the lagoon while European and American elms  line the garden’s pathways, along with horse chestnuts, dawn redwoods, European beeches, ginkgo trees and one California redwood. Permanent flower planted in the garden include numerous varieties of roses, bulbs, and flowering shrubs. Throughout the year, the beds flanking the central pathway are replanted on a rotating schedule, with different flowers for each season from mid-spring through early autumn. The city operates 14 greenhouses at Franklin Park for the purpose of supplying plants.

Arlington Street Gate

During the warmer seasons, the 16,000 m2 (4-acre) pond is the home of a great many ducks, as well as of one or more swans (the current pair are female mute swans named Romeo and Juliet after the Shakespearian couple). The Swan Boats, which began operating in 1877, is a popular tourist attraction where, for a small fee, tourists can sit on a boat ornamented with a white swan at the rear.

Jandy at the pond

A tour guide, sitting within the swan, pedals the boat around the pond. As the pond is no more than 3 feet deep at its deepest point, it easily freezes during the colder months. The north side of the pond has a small island, originally was a peninsula connected to the land but severed by John Galvin, the city forester, as the site became so popular with lovers.

Boston Public Garden Foot Bridge

The signature suspension bridge, over the middle of the pond, was designed by William G. Preston and opened in 1869. Before its conversion to a girder bridge in 1921, it was the world’s shortest functioning suspension bridge (the original suspension system is now merely decorative).

The author by the foot bridge

A flagpole, standing on the eastern side of the garden, close to Charles Street and just south of the main entrance there, has a circular granite bench was installed around it, with the work being done by the Friends of the Public Garden.

Equestrian Statue of George Washington

Maintained by the City of Boston, the city’s efforts are supplemented by the Friends of the Public Garden (also known as the Rose Brigade), a charitable organization that helped finance the repair of the Ether Monument in 2006.  They also hire specialists to help care for the trees and bushes. Regularly, volunteers meet to prune and maintain bushes. Private sources (such as the Beacon Hill Garden Club) also provide financial support.

Throughout the Public Garden are several statues:

  • The 16 ft. tall, bronze Equestrian Statue of George Washington, located at the Arlington Street gate and dominating the western entrance to the park facing Commonwealth Avenue, was designed and cast by Thomas Ball and unveiled on July 3, 1869. The statue stands upon a granite pedestal of 16 ft., for a total height of 38 ft.. Constructed entirely by Massachusetts artists and artisans, the statue was funded mostly by donations from local citizens.
  • The William Ellery Channing Statue, at 28 Arlington Street at the southwest corner of the garden, stands across from the Arlington Street Church where Channing, the leading Unitarian minister of his day, ministered from 1803 until his death in 1842. Sculpted by Herbert Adams and given to the city by John Foster, a member of that church, the  marble and granite statue went up in June 1903, the 100th anniversary of Channing’s birth.
  • The Charles Sumner Statue, a bronze and granite statue of the fiery abolitionist senator from Massachusetts during the Civil War era, was designed by Thomas Ball (the same sculptor behind the Public Garden’s far more famous George Washington statue) and set up in 1878.
  • The Tadeusz Kościuszko Statue, a bronze and granite statue of the Polish hero sculpted by artist Theo Alice Ruggles Kitson, went up in 1927 to commemorate the 150th anniversary Kosciuszko’s enlistment in the Continental Army as a colonel.
  • The Thomas Cass Statue, a bronze and granite statue cast by Richard Edwin Brooks in 1899, depicts this Irish immigrant who rose to the rank of colonel in the U.S. Army and commander of the 9th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry during the Civil War and would die in Boston of wounds sustained in Virginia in 1862.
  • The Edward Everett Hale Statue of Bela Pratt, a bronze and granite statue of the clergyman and journalist sculpted by Bela Lyon Pratt (whose uncle was Edward Everett, namesake of the Boston suburb, and whose granduncle was Nathan Hale) at the east gate on Charles Street, was erected and presented to the city on May 22, 1913.
  • The Wendell Phillips Statue, a granite and stone depiction of abolitionist orator and lawyer along the south walk in the park, was sculpted by Daniel Chester French (best-known for sculpting the statue of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial in D.C.) and erected in 1915. Mayor John F. Fitzgerald appropriated funds of $20,000 for the statue.
  • Learning, Religion, and Industry, three bronze and granite sculptures right between the Boston Common Visitors Center and Tremont Street, were erected in 1961 to honor Boston philanthropist George Francis Parkman Jr.. The trio was sculpted by Arcangelo Cascieri and Adio diBiccari.
  • Triton Babies Fountain, created by Anna Coleman Ladd on the east side of the garden, is the first statue in the Garden that was made by a woman. Acquired by the garden in 1927, some people think the children are a boy and girl.  However, they are, in fact, her two daughters.
  • Make Way for Ducklings, located between the pond and the Charles and Beacon streets entrance, are a set of bronze statues by Nancy Schön, dating from 1987 and based on the main characters from the children’s story .

Edward Everett Hale Statue

The Marquis de Lafayette Plaque, at 5 Temple Place just back from where Tremont Street meets Temple Place, honors the famed aide de camp to General Washington during the Revolution who tried to spur similar idealism in his native France. This bas-relief, designed by John Francis Paramino, went up in 1924 on the 100th anniversary of Lafayette’s 1824 visit.  The plaque also commemorates the grand Lafayette Mall that used to run along that side of the Common. Opened in 1824 in honor of Lafayette’s visit to the city, it disappeared into present-day Tremont in the late 1890s to make way for the T.

Statue of William Ellery Channing

The 30 ft. tall, granite and red marble Ether Monument, located towards the corner of Arlington and Beacon streets in the northwest corner of the garden, is the oldest monument in the garden.  Commemorating the first use of ether as an anesthetic, it was designed by John Quincy Adams Ward and gifted to the city on June 27, 1868, by Thomas Lee.  The statue’s carved figures tell the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

Statue of Tadeusz Kosiuszko

Daniel Chester French and Henry Bacon’s granite and bronze memorial fountain to the Boston philanthropist George Robert White entitled “The Angel of the Waters,” created in 1924, is located just north of the Ether Monument.  The fountain, disabled in the 1980s, was repaired and restored 2016 by the Friends of the Public Garden at a cost of US$700,000.

Statue of Thomas Cass

“Boy and Bird,” a fountain on the west side of the garden, was made by Bashka Paeff, a Russian immigrant who did the model of it while she was working as a ticket taker at the Park Street Station of the MBTA.  A Japanese garden lantern, dating from 1587 (one of the oldest lanterns of its kind in existence) and installed at the edge of the pond in 1906, was gifted to Boston by Bunkio Matsuki. Made of cast iron, it was originally in the garden of the Momoya Palace at Kyoto.

Statue of Charles Sumner

The memorial to the 206 people from Massachusetts who died in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, designed by Victor Walker and dedicated in July 2004, is located just inside the Public Garden, at the corner of Arlington and Newbury streets. A plaque honoring United States Marine Lt. Michael P. Quinn, of Charlestown, killed in action in Vietnam on August 29, 1969, is located at the beginning of the bridge by the steps leading to the Swan Boats. It was dedicated in 1986 by the committee members of the Michael P. Quinn Scholarship Fund on Patriots Day.

Statue of Wendell Philips

Boston Public Garden: 4 Charles St., Boston 02116 Massachusetts.

Gallery at the Historical Museum of Natural History (Boston, Massachusetts)

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RH Boston – The Gallery at the Historical Museum of Natural History

This stately Neo-Classical, red brick and-brownstone building, commanding a park-like block of Berkeley St., between Newbury and Boylston in Boston’s Back Bay, was designed by architect William Gibbons Preston in 1863.  Originally the Museum of Natural History, it was known, over the years to Bostonians, as the Bonwit Teller building and later the  home to the clothier Louis Boston.

The Neo-Classical, red brick and brownstone facade

Now Restoration Hardware’s (a California-based home-furnishings company) Boston flagship store, it was redesigned by AD 100 firm Backen, Gillam & Kroeger Architects, the designers of numerous other RH stores. To approximate the original interior, the designers consulted old photographs and architectural drawings.

In a renovation work that was, more or less, a complete gut requiring 15 months, they took out mezzanines inserted by previous tenants, removed an elevator bank that blocked the central axis through the building and painstakingly restored and recreated original millwork, plaster and steel details.

The Central Atrium

Wall, ceiling and decorative surfaces were coated in neutral gray. Most significant, to recapture views from the ground floor all the way to the gilded, coffered ceiling, they opened up the 70 ft. high, 3-storey central atrium.

The glass and steel traction elevator

Unveiled spring of 2103, the 40,000 sq. ft. RH Design Gallery is the largest outpost for this expanding retailer whose product categories includes tabletop goods (Chinese porcelain dinnerware, Belgian linens, etc.) and “objects of curiosity” (architectural fragments, faux antlers, iPod-compatible reproduction Victrolas, etc.).

When I entered glass and steel entry pavilion of this Civil War–era structure, I was enthralled by its graceful Corinthian pilasters, Romanesque arches, and monumental interior atrium. Gliding up and down the atrium is the store’s pièce de résistance – a new, custom glass and steel traction elevator modeled after the one in Los Angeles’s 1893 Bradbury Building.

The store’s four floors (including a basement level) offer a florist and a dedicated area for RH’s Baby & Child collections (featuring pint-size leather chesterfields and armchairs). In addition, there’s masculine spaces such as wine bar run by Ma(i)sonry Napa Valley (of Yountville, California).

There’s also a quartet of club rooms – a billiard lounge with a rehabbed Brunswick pool table, a cinema room where TVs play classic movies, an inviting library packed with vintage novels and design books, and a pub serving craft beers at a century-old bar surrounded by Motown and rock-and-roll memorabilia.

Sharing the floor with the club rooms is a Paris-themed “conservatory and park.” Here, outdoor furniture is displayed among artificial olive trees and a 24 ft. tall steel replica of the Eiffel Tower (a flea-market find and a fitting totem of RH’s Francophile design impulses).

Check out “Eiffel Tower“

Gallery at the Historical Museum of Natural History: 34 Berkeley St., Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A. Website: www.restorationhardware.com.

Park Street Church (Boston, Massachusetts)

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Park Street Church

The Park Street Church, an active, thriving missionary-centered Conservative Congregational church with 2,000 in Sunday attendance and around 1,000 members, is a historical stop on the Freedom Trail located next to the historic Granary Burying Ground.

Check out “Freedom Trail“

Its cornerstone was laid on May 1, 1809 and its construction, under the guidance of architect Peter Banner (his design is reminiscent of St. Bride’s Church in London by famous British architect Christopher Wren), chief mason Benajah Young  and woodcarver Solomon Willard, was completed by the end of the year. On January 10, 1810, it had its first worship service.

The church became known as “Brimstone Corner,” in part because of the fervent missionary character of its preaching and, in part, because of the gunpowder stored in its crypt (which gave off a ferocious smell of sulfur) during the War of 1812.

The church’s beautiful white steeple, a landmark visible from several Boston neighborhoods, rises to 66 m. (217 ft.), making the church the tallest building in the United States from 1810 to 1828. The red brick façade has white accents.  There is a little museum on the first floor.

The church is the site of a number of historical events:

Park Street Church: 1 Park St. cor. Tremont St., Boston, Massachusetts 02108. Tel: (617) 523-3383.  Website: www.parkstreet.org. Open Wednesdays – Fridays, 9:30 AM -3 PM. Worship services: Sundays 8:30 AM, 11 AM and 4 PM. Admission is free.

How to Get There: The church located right across from the Park Street subway stop (Red Line) at the edge of Boston Common.

Freedom Trail (Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A.)

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Bunker Hill Monument

The iconic Freedom Trail, a unique collection of explanatory ground markers, museums, notable churches, meeting houses, burying grounds, parks, a historic naval frigate, and historic markers that tell the story of the American Revolution and beyond, is a 2.5-mile (4-km.) long path through downtown Boston, Massachusetts, that passes by 16 locations significant to the history of the United States. Marked largely with brick, it winds between Boston Common to the Bunker Hill Monument in Charlestown.

Old State House

Old North Church

Park Street Church

Check out “Park Street Church“

Overseen by the City of Boston’s Freedom Trail Commission, the Freedom Trail is supported, in part, by grants from various nonprofits and foundations, private philanthropy, and Boston National Historical Park.

Copp’s Hill Burying Ground

Granary Burying Ground

Check out “Copp’s Hill Burying Ground” and “Granary Burying Ground” 

While most of the sites are free or suggest donations, the Old South Meeting House, the Old State House, and the Paul Revere House charge an admission fee.

Boston Common

Author and son Jandy at Boston Massacre Site

In 1951, local journalist William Schofield suggested building a pedestrian trail to link important local landmarks and Boston mayor John Hynes decided to put Schofield’s idea into action.

Faneuil Hall

Massachusetts State House

Check out “Massachusetts State House“

The official trail sites are (generally from south-to-north):

  1. Boston Common (139 Tremont St.) – dating from 1634, it is the oldest city park in the city.
  2. Massachusetts State House – designed by noted architect Charles Bulfinch and completed in 1798, it the state capitol and seat of government for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
  3. Park Street Church – built in 1809, it is an active Conservative Congregational church in Downtown Boston
  4. Granary Burying Ground – Boston’s third-oldest cemetery, founded in 1660,it is the final resting place for many notable Revolutionary War-era patriots, including Paul Revere, the five victims of the Boston Massacre, and three signers of the Declaration of Independence: Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and Robert Treat Paine.
  5. King’s Chapel and Burying Ground – completed in 1754, the chapel is one of the finest designs of the noted colonial architect Peter Harrison.  The Burying Ground is the oldest cemetery in the city.
  6. Benjamin Franklin statue and former site of Boston Latin School
  7. Old Corner Bookstore
  8. Old South Meeting House (where the Boston Tea Party began in 1773) – 310 Washington St, Boston, MA 02108, USA. Open 9:30 AM – 5 PM. Admission: adults (US$5), children under 5 years are free.
  9. Old State House (the original seat of colonial government & later state capitol, today housing historical exhibits) – 206 Washington St, Boston, MA 02109, USA. Open 9 AM – 5 PM. Admission: adults (US$10), children 6-18 years are free.
  10. Site of the Boston Massacre – site of a confrontation, on March 5, 1770, in which British soldiers shot and killed several people while being harassed by a mob
  11. Faneuil Hall – a marketplace (open 11AM -7PM) and a meeting hall since 1743, it was the site of several speeches by Samuel Adams, James Otis, and others encouraging independence from Great Britain.
  12. Paul Revere House – the colonial home (for about 20 years) of famous legendary American patriot, famous “Midnight Rider,” silversmith, businessman and entrepreneur Paul Revere during the time of the American Revolution
  13. Old North Church – built in December 1723, itis the location from which the famous “One if by land, and two if by sea” signal is said to have been sent.
  14. Copp’s Hill Burying Ground – established in 1659, it is the city’s second cemetery.
  15. USS Constitution (interactive museum near the 1797 wooden frigate made famous as “Old Ironsides” in the War of 1812) – Building 22, Charlestown Navy Yard, Charlestown, MA 02129, USA. Open 9 AM – 6 PM. Admission: suggested donation of US$5-$10 for adults, US$3-$5 for children.
  16. Bunker Hill Monument – erected between 1825 and 1843,commemorate the Battle of Bunker Hill, which was among the first major battles between British and Patriot forces in the American Revolutionary War, fought there June 17, 1775.

The Black Heritage Trail crosses the Freedom Trail between the Massachusetts State House and Park Street Church. The Boston Irish Famine Memorial is also located along the Freedom Trail.

King’s Chapel

Paul Revere House

Check out “Paul Revere House“

The National Park Service, via a visitor’s center, offer tours, provide free maps of the Freedom Trail and other historic sites, and sell books about Boston and United States history.

USS Constitution

Check out “The USS Constitution – Old Ironsides“

Boston Common Visitor’s Center: 139 Tremont St., Boston, Massachusetts 02111.  Website: www.thefreedomtrail.org. Open Mondays –Fridays, 8:30 AM – 5PM, and Saturdays & Sundays,
9AM – 5PM.

The Copley Place Visitor Information Center: Copley Place Mall (center court), 100 Huntington Ave., Boston, Massachusetts  02116.  Open Mondays – Saturdays, 9AM – 8PM, and Sundays, 9AM – 6PM.

Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture – National Portrait Gallery (Washington D.C., U.S.A.)

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National Portrait Gallery

The National Portrait Gallery, a historic art museum housed in the historic Old Patent Office Building (as is the Smithsonian American Art Museum), now the Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture, is part of the Smithsonian Institution.

Today, the National Portrait Gallery continues to narrate the multi-faceted and ever-changing story of America through the individuals who have shaped its culture and, through the visual arts, performing arts and new media, it presents poets and presidents, visionaries and villains, actors and activists whose lives form our national identity.

Check out “Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture” and  “Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture – Smithsonian American Art Museum”

Abraham Lincoln (Charles Wesley Jarvis, 1861)

Initially restricted to paintings, prints, drawings, and engravings, the collections, over the years, have grown from more than 2,000 items  1981 and, in 1990, the number of images in the museum’s photography collection reached 8,500 objects. As of 2011, the National Portrait Gallery was the only museum in the United States dedicated solely to portraiture.

In 2013, the museum had 65 employees and an annual budget of $9 million.  February 2013, it housed 21,200 works of art, which had been seen 1,069,932 visitors in 2012.  Today, the NPG collection of over 23,000 items, in all media, from daguerreotypes to digital, had grown so large that the exhibit drew its images almost entirely from the museum’s own collection.

Douglas MacArthur (Howard Chandler Christy, c. 1952)

The Hall of Presidents, a hallmark of the NPG’s permanent collection, is the largest and most complete collection in the world, except for the White House collection itself. Containing portraits of nearly all American presidents, the centerpiece of the Hall of Presidents is the famous Lansdowne portrait of George Washington. How the museum obtains presidential images has changed over the years.

From 1962 to 1987, presidential portraits were usually obtained through purchase or donation but, beginning in 1998, NPG began commissioning portraits of presidents, starting with George H. W. Bush, for its “America’s Presidents” exhibition (Gilbert Stuart’s Lansdowne portrait of George Washington is the grand introductory image to this exhibition). In 2000, NPG began commissioning portraits of First Ladies as well, beginning with Hillary Clinton.

Dwight D. Eisenhower (Thomas Edgar Stephens)

Funds for these commissions are privately raised, and each portrait costs about $150,000 to $200,000. It still continues to acquire portraits (including paintings, sculpture, photographs, caricatures, video, and time-based media) of each succeeding president.

The NPG hosts the prestigious Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition, a triennial, juried contemporary portrait exhibition widely regarded as the most prestigious portrait competition in the United States.  It also brings commissioned works into the collection. Artists working in the fields of painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, and other media are allowed to enter.

William T. Sherman (George Peter Alexander Healy, 1866)

Works must be created through a face-to-face encounter with the subject. The winner of this inaugural competition was David Lenz of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  He was commissioned to paint a portrait of Eunice Kennedy Shriver (the founder of the Special Olympics), the first portrait commissioned of an individual who has not served as a President or First Lady.

On the left is a portrait of Stephen Van Rensselaer III (John Wesley Jarvis, 1825-35) while on the right is a portrait of Antonia Pantoja (Manny Vega, marble, glass and stone, 2014)

Dave Woody of Fort Collins, Colorado, the 2009 winner, was commissioned to photograph food pioneer Alice Waters, founder of the Chez Panisse Restaurant and Cafe, the Edible Schoolyard and champion of the Slow Food movement.

Samuel Francis Du Pont (Daniel Huntington, 1867-68)

During the 2013 competition, the total prize money of $42,000 was awarded to the top eight commended artists, and the winner received $25,000 and a commission to make a portrait for the museum’s permanent collection. The artist and the NPG curators jointly decided the subject of the commission. The 2013 winner was Bo Gehring of Beacon, New York, who was commissioned to direct a close-up video and sound portrait of jazz musician Esperanza Spalding which drew delight and praise from visitors.

Here is the historical timeline of the gallery:

  • In 1962, the National Portrait Gallery was authorized and founded Congress with the mission to acquire and display portraits of individuals who have made significant contributions to the history, development, and culture of the people of the United States.
  • In 1965 (the bicentennial of James Smithson‘s birth), “Nucleus for a National Collection,” the first NPG exhibit, went on display in the Arts and Industries Building.
  • In 1966, the NPG completed the Catalog of American Portraits, the first inventory of portraiture held the Smithsonian. The catalog also documented the physical characteristics of each artwork, and its provenance (author, date, ownership, etc.). That same year, the museum moved into the Old Patent Office Building with the National Fine Arts Collection.
  • In 1968, Gilbert Stuart’s 2.4 5 m. (8  5 ft.) Lansdowne portrait (commissioned in April 1796  Senator William Bingham of Pennsylvania—one of the wealthiest men in America at the time) of George Washington was exhibited  the National Portrait Gallery, and it remained there on indefinite loan.
  • In 1969, the Old Patent Office Building was renovated the architectural firm of Faulkner, Fryer and Vanderpool.
  • In 1971, the NPG began the National Portrait Survey, an attempt to catalog and photograph all portraits in all formats held every public and private collection and museum in the country.
  • On July 4, 1973, “The Black Presence in the Era of the American Revolution, 1770–1800,” the first exhibit at the museum dedicated solely to African Americans, was opened the NPG.
  • In 1974, Philanthropist Paul Mellon donated 761 portraits  French-American engraver B.J.F. de Saint-Mémin to the museum.
  • In January 1976, Congress passed legislation allowing the NPG to collect portraits in media other than graphic arts, permitting the NPG to begin collecting photographs.
  • In October 1976, the NPG established a Department of Photographs.
  • 1977, the NPG had three curatorial divisions (Painting and sculpture, prints and drawings, and photography).
  • In September 1978, Facing the Light: Historic American Portrait Daguerreotypes,” the gallery’s first photography exhibit, was opened.
  • In February 1977, the museum acquired an 1880 self-portrait  Mary Cassatt, one of only two painted
  • In December 1977, the museum acquired a self-portrait  celebrated early American artist John Singleton Copley. The roundel (a circular canvas), one of only four self-portraits, was donated to the NPG the Cafritz Foundation.
  • In May 1978, Time magazine donated 850 original portraits which had graced its cover between 1928 and 1978.
  • In May 1979, a major exhibit of these Time magazine pieces debuted.
  • In April 1979, the Coolidge family of Boston donated five portraits of presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, John Adams, and James Madison Gilbert Stuart, known as the Gibbs-Coolidge set, to the NPG.
  • In December 1979, the Henry Cabot Lodge family in Massachusetts donated a bust of Alexander Hamilton  John Trumbull (which may have been sculpted from the portrait which was later used for the $10 bill) and a Gilbert Stuart portrait of Representative Fisher Ames to the museum.
  • In April 1980, Varina Webb Stewart and Joel A.H. Webb, Jefferson Davis‘ great-grandchildren, presented important portraits of Jefferson Davis and his wife, Varina Howell Davis, to the NPG.
  • In 1980, the museum obtained, through purchase and loan, a number of works of graphic artist Howard Chandler Christy for exhibit. Works displayed ranged from his “Christy girl” recruiting posters to history-based works such as Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States.
  • On February 7, 1980, the Museum of Fine Arts and NPG agreed to jointly purchase the two famous, unfinished Gilbert Stuart portraits of George and Martha Washington  owned  the Boston Athenaeum, which loaned them to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 1876. Under the agreement, the paintings would spend three years at the National Portrait Gallery (beginning in July 1980), and then three years in Boston at the Museum of Fine Arts.
  • In 1981, two major 19th-century photography collections were added the museum. They acquired the Frederick Hill Meserve Collection of 5,419 glass negatives produced  the studio of famed Civil War photograph Mathew Brady and his assistants and, using historically accurate chemicals, paper, and techniques, prints were made of the negatives and the prints placed on rotating display.  Later, they purchased, from the Meserve family, 5,400 Civil War-era glass negatives produced  photographer Alexander Gardner including the famous “cracked-plate” portrait of Abraham Lincoln (taken in February 1865), the last photographic portrait of Lincoln taken before his death in April 1865.
  • In 1982, the museum purchased, for $1 million, a Gilbert Stuart portrait of Thomas Jefferson, to a private collector. A portion of the purchase price came from the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which owns and operates Jefferson’s historic plantation home of Monticello. The two parties agreed have the portrait spend time at both locations.
  • In 1984, museum purchased an Edgar Degas portrait of his friend, Mary Cassatt, for $1.3 million.
  • On December 31, 1984, a thief pried open a display case and stole four handwritten documents accompanying several portraits of Civil War generals. One of the documents was written and signed President Abraham Lincoln. The remaining three were written and signed  Civil War generals Ulysses S. Grant, George Meade, and George Armstrong Custer.
  • On February 8, 1985, all four documents were recovered when police arrested Norman James Chandler, a part-time mechanic’s assistant from Maryland, for the theft. Chandler quickly pleaded guilty. He was sentenced in April 1985 to two years in jail (with all but six months suspended) and two years of probation, and required to pay a $2,000 fine.
  • In 1985, the the NPG acquired their first nude work – a self-portrait painting Alice Neel painted when was 80 years old.
  • In 1987, noted photographer Irving Penn donated 120 platinum prints of fashion and celebrity portraits he produced over the past 50 years.
  • In 1990, the first daguerreotype (an early photographic process) of African American abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass (one of only four daguerreotypes of Douglass known to exist) was acquired.
  • In 1996, the NPG obtained, for $115,000, the earliest known daguerreotype portrait of abolitionist John Brown (created  African-American photographer Augustus Washington), whose 1859 raid on Harpers Ferry helped to spark the Civil War.
  • In January 2000, the NPG closed for a renovation of the Old Patent Office Building. Intended to take two years and cost $42 million, the renovation took seven years and cost $283 million.
  • In the fall of 2000, Neil Primrose, 7th Earl of Rosebery, offered to sell The Lansdowne portrait given as a gift to British Prime Minister William Petty FitzMaurice (the 2nd Earl of Shelburne, and later became the first Marquess of Lansdowne, hence the name of the portrait). Lansdowne died in 1805, and in 1890 the painting was purchased  the 5th Earl of Rosebery.
  • On March 13, 2001, the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation donated $30 million to buy the Lansdowne portrait. The $30 million donation included $6 million to put the portrait on a national tour for three years (the NPG was closed for renovations until 2006), and $4 million to construct a new display area (named for media baron Donald W. Reynolds, who created the foundation) in the Old Patent Office Building to display it.
  • In 2006, the NPG hosted the first Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition (named after long time docent and volunteer Virginia Outwin Boochever),. It drew more than 4000 entries, from which 51 finalists were chosen.
  • After the 2008 presidential election, Obama supporter Tony Podesta and his wife, Heather, donated graphic artist Shepard Fairey‘s ubiquitous “Hope” poster of Barack Obama to the National Portrait Gallery.
  • In November 2010, the NPG hosted “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture,” a major new exhibit, from October 30, 2010, to February 13, 2011, of 105 pieces curated  David C. Ward and Jonathan Katz. The exhibit focused on depictions of homosexual love through history, and was the first exhibit hosted a museum of national stature to address the topic and was also the largest and most expensive exhibit in the NPG’s history. Included in the in the exhibit was a four-minute, edited version of “A Fire in My Belly,” a short silent film  artist David Wojnarowicz. Eleven seconds of the video depicted a crucifix covered in ants.
  • In 2012, the NPG sponsored “Poetic Likeness: Modern American Poets,” a new temporary exhibit which focused on images of great American poets.

The museum’s more notable art pieces include:

Among the museum’s more prominent collections are:

  • Alexander Gardner (photography)
  • Howard Chandler Christy (graphic arts)
  • Irving Penn (photography)
  • Mathew Brady (photography)
  • Time magazine covers (graphic arts)

The Great Hall

Although most of the interior has been altered for use as a museum, parts of the Old Patent Office interior are still visible.   From Robert Mills’ graceful double curved cantilevered stone staircases, one then enters the Model Hall on the building’s third floor and, turning right, leads one down the Great Hall and into more of the Patent Office’s galleries.

The painting Grant and His Generals” (Ole Peter Hansen Balling) above the graceful double curved cantilevered stone staircases

After a fire in 1877 destroyed the third floor of the building, the Great Hall, the reception area where President Lincoln and Mrs. Lincoln greeted guests attending the second inaugural ball, was remodeled by Adolf Cluss and his partner, architect Paul Schulze. The resulting interior space, a dramatic riot of color, was originally called the Model Hall. It is accentuated with late-nineteenth-century architectural highlights and has a hand-laid encaustice tille floor, curving double staircase, soaring vaulted ceilings and lit by stained glass windows.

The hall celebrates great American scientists and four of them (Benjamin Franklin, Robert Fulton, Thomas Jefferson, and Eli Whitney) are represented on large medallions in the corners of the Hall.   It seats 300 (seated dinner) and  366 (Reception) people, respectively.

The enclosed, 28,000-sq. ft. Robert and Arlene Kogod Courtyard, one of the largest and most magnificent event spaces in Washington, DC., was opened to the public on November 18, 2007 and was named after Washington philanthropists and art collectors Robert and Arlene Kogod.  With an elegant glass canopy, the courtyard, designed  world-renowned architects at Foster + Partners in London, provides a distinctive, contemporary accent to the museums’ Greek Revival building.

Robert and Arlene Kogod Courtyard

The wavy glass-and-steel roof, appearing to float over the courtyard, lets in natural light but protects visitors from the elements. So that the weight of the roof does not affect the historic building, the double-glazed glass panels, set in a grid, are completely supported  eight anodized aluminum-clad columns located around the perimeter of the courtyard.

Michael Jackson (Andy Warhol, 1984)

The courtyard’s interior design, created  internationally acclaimed landscape designer Kathryn Gustafson of Seattle-based Gustafson Guthrie Nichol Ltd., features four water scrims (each one-quarter inch deep and allowed to traverse the entire length of the courtyard); ficus and black olive trees; a variety of shrubs and ferns as well as plantings in white marble containers on a black granite floor.

Today, the Kogod Courtyard is a popular meeting place in DC. There is plenty of seating, free wifi, and a cafe with snacks for museum visitors open from 11:30 AM until 6:30 PM. It was named one of the “new seven wonders of the architecture world”  Condé Nast Traveler magazine.

National Portrait Gallery: Victor Bldg., 750 Ninth Street NW Suite 41, Washington, D.C. 20001.  Tel: (202) 633-8300. Open Wednesday–Sunday, 11:30 AM – 7 PM.