Outpost

Leave it to an intrepid gull to find (and perch upon) the outermost edge between building and blue.

Last Saturday was sunny and brisk–a spot of blue before the rain set in. On our way to our last regular-season Bruins’ game, J and I took a short detour to snap photos of the buildings between Government Center and North Station. Although we typically walk from North Station to Government Center on the way home from a Bruins game, we took a different route on Saturday, and it’s easy to get lost among these maze-like streets and brick-paved plazas. At one point, approaching the back–or is it the front?–of the mammoth (and, some would say, monumentally ugly) Hurley Building, we paused, confused by its notorious stairs:

The strange monumental stairs at the north corner of the Hurley Building were designed as a gateway to a plan for that block that never materialized, and so now lead nowhere…

The plaza we’d hoped would allow us a cut-through did indeed cut through, and the stairs we descended ended up in a fenced parking lot where we were able to escape to our destination. But for more than a moment I envied a gull overhead, who from his outermost perch on a nearby building, could watch our maze-like wanderings with a truly bird’s-eye view.