After sixty years of puzzlement, I finally got it. The cartwheel logo of the Boston Bruins, with
a capital B at the center, refers to Boston’s traditional nickname, the
Hub. I talked to five Bostonians and to
my surprise, none of them knew this. This
gives me the courage to analyze Boston for them.
I’ve been trying to understand this place since my first visit
in 1952, when I was ten. My father
brought me up from the New York suburbs to see a Red Sox game at Fenway Park. I was excited to see Kenmore Square, which I
envisioned as something like Times Square. Nothing prepared me or my father for its sepulchral drabness. After two days in Boston he concluded, “This
is a small town.”
It still is, but not like any other small town. As the Hub, it is the biggest small town of ten
thousand small towns that make up New England civilization. The wheel is not geographical but conceptual
– showing the place Boston occupies not on the map of New England, but in its
mind.
