Story Archives of 'Boston'

The City of Boston has spawned its fair share of big-name bands, from The Cars, to J. Geils, to the Pixies. But it's also been home to all sorts of extraordinary musicians that never became household names. Tonight on the Front Porch, we'll look back at fifty years of the Boston music scene with music critic Brett Milano. He's the author of the new book, The Sound of Our Town: A History of Boston Rock & Roll

Tonight on the Front Porch we're going to ask the question: Just how much can we control how we'll be remembered after we die? We'll look at the life of art collector Isabella Stuart Gardner, who tried very hard to control her legacy. She burned many of her letters before she died, and she made sure that the museum she left behind could never be changed or rearranged. We'll also hear the story of a writer who thought his father left him no legacy – until he realized it was right in front of his eyes the whole time.

Isabella Stewart Gardner was well known at the turn of the 20th century as a wealthy, cultured, and flamboyant Boston art collector. She constructed an Italian villa known as The Gardner Museum that contains works by some of the greatest painters in the world. The theft of 300 million dollars worth of art work, including Rembrandts and a Vermeer in 1990 remains the biggest and unsolved art theft in history.

Author Patricia Vigderman made dozens of trips to the Gardner Museum; her goal was to understand exactly what kind of person Isabella Stewart Gardner was. The museum gives few clues. We're going to talk with Patricia Vigderman about her new book, The Memory Palace of Isabella Stewart Gardner.

We'll also hear from writer Joseph Dougherty about his father's legacy. The story comes from The Public Radio Exchange.

The roots of the American Revolution lie in part around the waterfront areas of Boston where the efforts of many maritime workers helped spark the first moments of independence. Russell Bourne, the author of Cradle of Violence asserts that without the maritime mobs' violent demonstrations against authority, politicians of the day would not have been gotten behind the American War of Independence.

And we talk about American independence with inventor and businessman Sam Asano who's giving the keynote address at the Naturalization ceremony at Strawberry Banke on July 4th in Portsmouth. More than 200 people will be naturalized; Asano went through the naturalization process himself in 1967 and credits the freedoms of the United States with his success.

Delivery services and truckers both large and small are scrambling to figure out how to make their deliveries. New Hampshire Public Radio's Raquel Maria Dillon reports.

It could be the most expensive, complicated highway project in our nation's history, and if you've driven to Boston in recent years, you've probably cursed it. We'll talk about how the Central Artery/Tunnel Project should make Boston driving easier, and how Massachusetts plans to foot the bill. Laura Knoy talks with Raphael Lewis, Big Dig reporter for the Boston Globe www.globe.com and Sean O'Neill, public information officer for the project www.bigdig.com