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Myles Standish Hall no more: Boston University dorm no longer honors colonial military man who went around massacring native Americans
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Old hotel
This was originally the Myles Standish Hotel. As the Daily Free Press article noted, BU bought the hotel in 1945 and converted it to a residence hall, but kept the hotel name.
Until about a year ago, there was still an elaborate marquee over the Beacon Street entrance, bearing the Myles Standish name, probably left over from the hotel days.
Kenmore Square used to be a big hotel center, including the Kenmore and the Buckminster. BU also bought up the original Sheraton Hotel on Bay State Road -- the very first one of the chain -- but it got renamed to Shelton Hall at some point.
Banishment
Fun task!
Names or terms to be erased from the lexicon in the near future
I’ll start with a few master slave plantation that are on the way out .
What’s next
Another much more recent conversion from hotel to BU dorm
is the former Howard Johnson's hotel (motel?) on Commonwealth Avenue, a block west of Kenmore Square.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/575_Commonwealth_Avenue
Good.
Took them long enough though...
Good, now do the state park.
Good, now do the state park.
As I recall ….
… there is a statue atop a tall, substantial column there.
Is the State Park next?
n/t
BU doesn’t control the state
BU doesn’t control the state park but you concern is noted.
That not a historically accurate
Description of what happened. But you do you.
Enlighten us
Please.
Not the worst change
When I lived there in the early 90s, it was either Myles or 610 Beacon. Don’t name it after anyone. It will end badly.
Miles Standish had nothing to do with Massachusetts
He belonged to the Plymouth Colony, a separate (and not very successful) entity from the Massachusetts Bay Colony that eventually annexed it.
That's why Boston today is a large and prosperous city while Plymouth is a small town remembered only for a mythical rock.
Nothing about the Plymouth Colony went well, and it repeatedly had to beg for more money in London. Even its foundation was a mistake; they were supposed to go to Virginia.
Read Mayflower
Nathaniel Philbrick's book on Plymouth Colony.
Great book.
The Pilgrims were bad businessmen, terrible farmers, and a bunch of loony native killers. By the second generation, most of them were into real estate speculation or some had moved on like Mary Chilton, who was the only one to move from Plymouth to Boston.. She lived on Spring Lane. There is a plaque there about it.
Even today Pautuxet Plantation (Formerly Plimoth) can't even fly the correct period English flag on their flagpole. They fly (or were flying) the current British flag which didn't come about until 1801.
Massachusetts absorbing Plymouth Colony from a governing standpoint in the 1690's must have been a bit like West Germany absorbing East Germany in 1991.
That
is nothing at all like the portrait Philbrick paints of them and I question whether you’ve read the book.
Well, I've read it...
...and I more or less agree that the Plymouth colonists were poor businessmen and poor farmers. The different trajectories of Plymouth and Boston over the subsequent centuries say it all.
I agree with that too
but their Indian relations were a lot more complex than people think. Endecott and some of the Mass Bay colonizers were actually that bloodthirsty, but Plymouth were pretty circumspect in their dealings with their neighbors. Standish and Masasoit were military allies and Plymouth had a partnership with the surrounding tribes until the outbreak of King Philip’s War.
Well Dan
You reading the comic book version doesn't count as reading the actual book.
Sorry if the book didn't have enough MCU people for you to cheer on.
I’ve read
the Bradford book as well as Winslow’s books, Winthrop’s diary and some other stuff besides. I wouldn’t go that far, but you’re a clown so what should I expect?
In matters of religion...
...the "Pilgrims" were separatists, that is, saw themselves as something separate from the Church of England. The Puritans, on the other hand, saw themselves as part of the Church of England and tried to reshape it in their image: no bishops, no king, and each congregation left to govern its own affairs (hence "Congregationalists").
In practical matters the two were both Calvinist and agreed on most practical matters, including the rejection of Christmas and Easter festivals. The "Pilgrims" invented Thanksgiving as a substitute for the rejected Christmas.
It's important to add, though that only some of the Plymouth settlers were "Pilgrims" (or "saints", as they styled themselves); the rest were "strangers", random people recruited in England to fill out their number.
Doing my part.
Please send me all of your $20 bills featuring the loathsome Andrew Jackson, so I can dispose of them properly.