The music of a street. Waiting for the bus in front of a brilliantly lit mural on the street corner of Columbus and Massachusetts Avenue, several people gather at this northern gateway to the South End. I asked this man for his photograph. He smiled and nodded approvingly. As he stood near the painting of Duke Ellington, someone else appeared in the frame. The elder man still and regal, the other dancing freely in the foreground of a mural devoted to jazz.
Columbus Street still retains the designs of an earlier Parisian-inspired boulevard, yet it responds to the cacophony of urban form. Beyond the mural, long vistas are broken by a towering church spire, a view of the John Hancock building and a series of urban parks that cling to rod iron sculptures and wind around wooden park benches. Many of the early residences lie in between the streets of Columbus and Tremont, where one can view backyard gardens in the alleyways, gas lamposts, neighborhood cafes and cultivated courtyards. The continuity of streetscape and architectural styles along the grand promenades contrast with the eclectic development etched in the details of neighborhood buildings, murals and storefronts.