Early experiences of living in Somerville: a walk around the neighbourhood.

I took a walk around my new neighbourhood this afternoon. This served the duo purpose of giving me some exercise, but also giving me the opportunity to take some photos. Further, the exercise was also a method of getting myself out of our apartment, and the photos might give those of my readers who don't live in Somerville (which I assume are most of you) an idea of where I now reside.

Garden's are very popular in Somerville. Lots of houses have flowers out front, and we've also seen some extensive vegetable gardens. I felt it would be a bit weird to photograph other peoples' residences, so I didn't, but I did stop in the small public space we pass on our way to the local grocery store. It's the Quincy Street Open Space, if you can't tell from the picture, which includes chairs and stones to lounge on while you enjoy the shade and flowers.

As I said in my last post, Union Square is the square closest to us. It takes less than ten minutes to walk there and it contains a number of restaurants, a few businesses, churches, and our local grocery store. There's a farmer's market on Saturdays (in the space shown in the third picture below), but it seems that all the produce is fancy-pants organic, for which I'm unwilling to pay. I also noticed while I was out this afternoon that there was an interesting mural painted on the exterior of one of the buildings (fourth picture below).

It seems that we've landed in an area with lots of history--perhaps not difficult since Boston itself was founded in 1630, and Somerville was established in 1842 when it separated from Charlestown. There are several monuments close by. The first is for men who died in the American Civil War, and the one below is for men who died in the war with Spain (which I'm assuming was the war over Texas). There was a memorial for the Second World War, but it isn't terrible attractive so I skipped the pictures.

The public library is also close by, and if I remember correctly, the building was erected in the 1880s ('84, maybe?). The top pictures show the exterior of the library. What you can't tell is to the left of the main column, there's a 'Fallout Shelter' sign. I tried to get a closer shot, but the picture wasn't all that attractive. After a quick survey of the initial foyer area, I determined I need to go upstairs to find the adult and non-fiction collection. The space is open and brightly light, and I headed straight up to the gallery area (so I didn't look like some weird lady taking pictures in the library) to get a couple of shots. Overall I was pleased to find that the interior was really rather nice.

The last set of pictures for today comes from the Somerville High School and City Hall, which happen to be located next to each other. I don't know anything about the High School, except that it's there. I'm really not going to try to poke around a school, especially when students are out for the summer, it just seems like a recipe for a trespassing charge. The second picture is of the HUB bikes I've talked about a couple of times. There are stations all over the city, one being right outside City Hall. The last image is the front entrance of City Hall, although again, I don't know much about it as at that point I wanted to head home.

So that's my neighbourhood. It was a beautiful day.

Ciao, Andrea