Memory Parade
Boston donned its best face for America’s 250th birthday celebration. Some fifty tall ships sailed in after July 4th for a brief stay. My son, Eddie, landed an invitation, plus two, to view the parade from the penthouse level of an office tower near the Seaport District. My wife, Becky, and I were the lucky other two. Our perch was on par with ground-level VIP seating. Unfortunately, we arrived too late to witness the USS Constitution leading the flotilla. We relished in seeing the magnificent vessels proceed in, some assisted by Boston’s tugboat fleet.
Afterward, as we headed to view the ships up close, I couldn’t have known how gastronomically nostalgic the day would become. We passed through another lobby I swore had housed the Kangaroo Court restaurant, Armenian-owned back in the 1980s. Alas, my quick Google search yielded no such place existed. I haven’t lost it yet, so I must have simply mixed up facts. We joined a million of our closest friends, crowding sidewalks. To get to the ocean’s edge, we entered secured, TSA-like queues running perpendicularly to avenues.
Decades ago, before the Seaport District became an attraction, the area was a sea of parking lots, many owned by someone named Pappas. Now, there’s Pappas Way. The Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) was among the first to construct upon the underdeveloped land.
The ICA hosted a virtual display of Dad’s art years after its current museum opened at the former Fan Pier in 2006, the longtime home of Anthony’s Pier 4 restaurant, Albanian owner Anthony Athanas’ flagship. Photos of him with celebrities graced the lobby. Pier 4 was the place for special celebrations. In 2009, Eddie, Greg and I were spectators at the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series. From the roof of the quirky, cantilevered building, professionals dove into Boston’s cold, and perhaps not clean enough, water.
Continuing our walk along Northern Avenue, we passed what had been Jimmy’s Harborside Restaurant. Established by Demetrious Christodoulos in 1924, it closed in 2007 and had been runner-up to Pier 4. Table turnover was so great that, as the joke went, one was afraid to put down silverware and turn around, for when turning back, waiters would have picked it up. But that seafood was really good!
Across the street was Jimbo’s, which I recall was owned/operated by a relative of Jimmy’s owner. Becky and I would treat the boys to pasta with clams there. Yum. They always enjoyed the, what I believe were, G-gauge (about 12” long) model trains that circumnavigated the walls overhead in the eating areas. Great fried fish, fairly priced. Legal Sea Foods Harborside sits on/around the site now.
Not far away is the Fish Pier. Three of the largest tall ships were docked there: German Gorch Fock, Portuguese Sagres and Indian INS Sudarshini. Gone since 2019 is No Name restaurant, founded in 1917 by Greek restaurateur Nick Contos. It was a blue collar go-to, originally catering to fishermen. Tall ships came to Boston in 2009. We went as a family, but sailors aboard the ships docked at the Fish Pier packed machine guns, as had become standard procedure for years after 9/11.
I remember Dad taking me as a boy to the same pier, but not to eat. He handed me an empty bushel basket and instructed me to respectfully ask fishermen unloading their catches, “Mister, can you spare a fish?” One fish became a heavy basketful, which Mom refused to clean. (Remember the Bible story.) That was then.
With these memories sailing around my head I painted the accompanying Memory Parade. Dad’s artistic sailboats, one in brass and copper and the other in aluminum, participate in the parade. I’ve juxtaposed our penthouse view with my tribute to intrepid sailors (Dad served in the Navy) working the beautiful ships, and how nimbly they traversed yards, those horizontal cross-spars on masts. No offense, sailors, but I’ll never actually step foot on a yard.
