Pavement Coffee :: Part Two

I love when my work takes me close to my favorite coffee shops because coffee makes me happy.  The other week I had to go to a building right next to a coffee shop I used to go to regularly and I've also posted about.

It's been a while though.  The coffee wasn't as good as I remembered it, and they no longer honor the coffee buying card, but I did like the interior still with the wood and tiny tile floor.  So that was worth the trip. 

The next time I'm in that area I can try a new place and maybe I'll even find a new favorite shop!

Graphics

Recently, while running from one meeting to the next, I darted past this spray painted graphic for the basement.  I immediately turned around and came back for a closer look and a photo.  While the other floor markers were a bit 80s looking, this one still feels new in some ways.

It's also not going to be around much longer because this building is being converted to luxury condos shortly.  What do you think about it?  Too 80s or has it stood the test of time?

Boston

It's been a while since I've posted, things have been insanely busy, but I figured today was a good day to put up some photos I've taken around the city recently.

Central Wharf Co

T art

Snowy Day

Foo dog standing guard

Fenway Park

Best seat in the house at my first Sox game

Happy New Year!!

No matter how good last year was to you all, I hope this year is even better!

Last year was busy for me but I wasn't left with a great feeling of accomplishment at everything I had done, so I hope this year I can achieve that.  My cat is kind enough to allow me to illustrate, with a bow on her paw, not to forget to slow down and have more fun.  She reminds me of this regularly by eating my phone and iPod cords when I don't give her as much attention as she needs - when that happens neither of us have much fun.

As an aside: My pictures rarely illustrate that she has extra thumbs on all four paws leading to her achieving ninja status.  Somehow it makes her even sneakier and more deadly to electronics.

no cat was harmed during the taking of this photo

A while ago I found "The Rainbow Tunnel of Happiness". The entrance to it made me just as happy when I stumbled upon it in a snow storm last month.  I'll be passing it tomorrow so maybe I'll take a walk through the tunnel just for fun.

state street train station

We are gearing up for another snow storm here over the next couple of days and things get slower and more relaxed which is a great way to start the new year.

the freedom trail on a snowy day

I plan to blog more and make more time to visit all the blogs I have only been to sporadically at the last part of this year.  I hope to talk to you all soon!

What about all of you?  Any big plans or thoughts for the new year?  

Local Fun

Last Friday I decided to become a tourist in my own city and take a Duck Boat Tour.  Despite being in or near the city for most of my life I have never done this, I have only quacked at the boats from the sidewalk.

I got to see the city from places I don't normally go, like the Charles River.  These are pretty much all of Boston's tall buildings.  We have three.

 The Hatch Shell and the Back Bay.

The water view toward the Citgo sign {it is unofficially a sort of sign for Fenway Park}.

The Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge.  I like to call it by it's whole name because it's a pretty fancy bridge and deserves a long title.  It is lit with blue lights at night and used to have a giant flag flying from it until the flag landed on a car below....

Carvings on the Salt and Pepper Bridge, aka the Longfellow Bridge.  It's falling apart which makes me feel really good because my train goes right across it twice a day.

Do you enjoy doing touristy things in your own city?  I had so much fun, I've decided to do it more often.

Boston

In the true Boston spirit, this photo was taken while illegally double parked.

Out & About :: Secret Balconies

Have you ever spent a lot of time in an area and never actually looked up?  I worked a few blocks from Chinatown and on the way to pick up lunch one day I noticed all sorts of "secret" balconies hiding in plain sight!  I had to take a trip back because the people I was getting lunch with were in no mood for my revelation {with good reason, if you go to lunch too late, you wait in line}.  These were part of the city I had been walking by for years and never seen.

This one is only decorative, it looks like it wouldn't support a person, let alone one who dropped out one of those windows to the platform.

This one is on the border of Chinatown and downtown.  It's rare for the buildings downtown to have balconies.  If they have anything, they will usually have a roof deck.

Is there something you've been walking by for years and haven't noticed?

Os Gemeos

Recently, this mural sprung up in Boston by Brazilian artists Os Gemeos in partnership with the ICA.  I think it's supposed to be a small child with a sweatshirt wrapped around his head.

People seem to have mixed feelings about it but I actually am happy it's there.  It's a nice backdrop for the food trucks and farmers market that live right about where I was standing to take the photo {the plants in front are a teaching garden}.  I spend time in neighboring buildings and find it nice how bright it is peeking though the windows of the buildings.  It's definitely not a very typical "Boston" thing but perhaps that's why I like to see it.

What do you think?

Out And About In Boston

I love the old buildings around downtown Boston.  It's a place I generally avoided before I had to work there but, since I'm never sure what to do with the whole hour I have for lunch, I started wandering around.  When I go with a coworker I try to restrain myself from photographing everything but days I head out alone I don't hold back.

There are so many great details on the older buildings and I'm always curious what is inside, especially what is on the other side of those crazy gothic stairs.  Fortunately, one of the perks of working as an interior designer is that I am able to go into buildings if I am working on a project that requires it.  I was actually able to go into one of the buildings I had photographed though I'll keep which one under wraps.

At one point this week, the phrase "If the dog-sized rats don't charge at us, I'd love to see the dungeon" came out of my mouth.  The dungeon was a huge cavernous space at least 20 feet high that was actually a sub-basement, and I managed to not see a rat.  I did see the dog-sized traps down there.  These rats are apparently a secret legend around the downtown area and I'm pretty sure they were the reason the Starbucks glass food display mysteriously shattered one night though they deny it.  My undergraduate degrees {yes, two} were in animal science and wildlife and fisheries conservation so critters don't generally bother me, just insects.  I'm still glad I didn't see those rats though.

Pavement Coffee

I've made no secret about my love for coffee and since it's my birthday week I figure I should post about something I really, really love. One of my favorite Boston coffee shops is Pavement Coffee in the Back Bay, designed by Brookline-based Lana Kirby. I found it a couple of months after it opened {last fall} when I was taking a class in the area and looked forward to visiting weekly before class.  Unlike some of my other favorite coffee shops, I also like the design of this space.

 Pavement

Man Seeking Coffee

What I like most is the lighting and the upholstered furniture which looks very comfortable.

Pavement

I'll admit I've never actually stayed and had my coffee in the shop.  Being in Boston, it's right around the corner from about 65 colleges so it's always packed, usually by Berkeley College students.

Thrillist

City Rover Media

No Sign Is The New Black

Earlier this spring, I went on what I thought was going to be a lecture and a tour of the Ames Hotel.  They had apparently rented out all the rooms so there was really no tour {disappointing} but I saw a bit of the common areas.

One thing I was thankfully warned of was the the fact that they have no obvious sign on the building, you have to know where it is or know exactly where on the building the word Ames is carved.  This is becoming increasingly common in Boston - places you have to know exactly where they are to enter - I'm assuming it is common in other places too.

The Exterior.  Now if you go, you can find it.

Reception.

Rockwell Group via Arch Daily

The lobby.

The lobby sculpture with mosaic tiles original to the building.

The original stairwell. Love the stairwell.

The restaurant.

via Fast Company

via Fast Company

 The guestrooms.  The bathrooms are separated from the guestrooms by a wall of glass.  There is a curtain but it's on the guestroom side, I don't have a photo of this but perhaps on the website you can see.

via Contemporan

via Inferno10

In the guestroom corridor elevator lobbies there is a surprise in the mirror that you might miss if you aren't looking.

{photos: if no source listed, click photo to be taken directly to source}

Kravet Continues To Torture Me

Years ago at the Kravet showroom in Boston, there was a chair I was totally in love with.  I was at the Design Center a few days a week and I would always visit "my chair".  They sold it as a floor model eventually and I was sad but happy I didn't have to obsess over how I would buy it {I was fresh out of grad school so purchasing it wasn't really an option}.  I had finally gotten over the chair and now they've gone and done this to me.

Same chair, different fabric, no nailhead trim but I love it.  It's like they're taunting me.

{photo: jeanine}