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A downtown hub is missed by the Times
By Cynic on Sat, 09/11/2010 - 9:37pm
The Grey Lady takes note of the giant hole at One Franklin Street. But it would be nice if at some point in her three years as the Boston Bureau Chief, the Times' Abby Goodnough had figured out that the shorthand for Filene's Basement is The Basement. Instead, the Times promises its readers that soon we will have "a new Filene’s for the bargain hungry." That would be something.
But that pales in comparison to this memorable passage:
For nearly a century, Filene's Basement was as renowned a monument as Fenway Park and Faneuil Hall - a plaque out front commemorated Filene's as the "Hub of the Universe."
Where to begin? The plaque was for Filene's, not for The Basement, a distinction that utterly eludes the Times. It was put there by the store's owner, not by its adoring public. And it was a riff on the Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. quote from which this blog takes its name. The implicit point was that if a century before, Bostonians had centered their universe on the State House, by the mid-twentieth century, commerce had supplanted politics and they looked toward Downtown Crossing.
It'd be nice if the features that purport to offer local color managed to offer a scene that locals might recognize as their own.
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Comments
THE REAL PROBLEMO IS
That The New Yawk Globe don't do much bettah
Filene's
Wow. Wow!
And, never forget, they're pronounced differently, too.
Pronounced differently?
Not in my memory, but can you say more?
Nor in mine
Nor in my memory - do tell.
I assume what John is
I assume what John is referring to is the fact the people of a certain generation, such as my 75 year old father, still pronounce it fuh-LEENS.
My grandfather pronounced it that way too and some part of me always feels like my father pronounces it that way as a way to remember his father.
Yes, that's the prounciation
Yes, that's the prounciation I use and, yeah, it's because my Mom pronounced it that way (as did her mom, too ...).
Huh
Huh. Well there you go. I don't recall any fine distinction in pronunciation in my family.
fuh-LEENS
Yup, Nanna was a fuh-LEENS person -- I've always used the FIE-leens pronunciation myself. Oddly, my mother will use fuh-LEENS but only when she follows it up with "that's how your grandmother used to pronounce it."
I suppose most of you know that Wilhelm Katz, the Jewish immigrant founder of the Filene's stores changed his name when he arrived in the U.S. He was going for "Feline" but the spelling got screwed up resulting in Filene's. Can you imagine going shopping in the Feline's Basement? Bet that would smell like the Haymarket T stop.
More on Katz/Filene
Here.
I think...
at least among the Southie folks I work with, it's "Fi-LEENS" and "FIE-luns BASEmnt." I've noticed this too.
Don't remember the plaque,
shamefully, I know (we were Raymond's people, not Filene's, I guess). But I've wondered this for some time: I (and Bartlett's) remember Holmes as saying the State House is the "hub of the solar system." When did we universalize?
And when did we make it a term of our superiority
Rather than the insult that Holmes meant it as.
Isn't that ``Hub of the
Isn't that ``Hub of the Universe'' thing in front of the old Jordan Marsh and not Filene's?
It used to be in front of Filene's
If you were standing at Washington and Summer/Winter, with your back to the Common, it would have been on the left.