March 28th: Walking Tour

Introduction

Today you’re going to be doing a walking tour of a selection of stops along the Black Heritage Trail. You’ll be listening to an audio tour of the trail, with a different track for each stop giving more information about the history of the building in question. The purpose of today’s exercise is to think about urban space. In particular, I want you to explore how you can experience a sense of place, both contemporary and historical, by both walking through a neighborhood and using your mobile phone to learn about its history.

Instructions

Load the following map on your phone. The map includes a walking path and each of the landmarks that you should stop at. Listen to the accompanying audio files distributed over Slack for each of the stops. Although I’ve kept the sequence of the stops the same as the official Black Heritage Trail, feel free to take detours or explore the tour in any order you choose.

Stops:

1. George Middleton House
2. Phillips School
3. Charles Street Meeting House
   • Note: Once you’ve finished listening to the Charles Street Meeting House track, I’d like you to stand on the corner of Charles and Mt. Vernon streets and set a timer on your phone for four full minutes. During those four minutes, take in your surroundings and write down observations and impressions about what you see, hear, smell, etc.
4. Lewis and Harriet Hayden House
5. John Coburn House

As you walk along the trail, consider some of the following questions and jot down any thoughts you have:

• What is your impression of the Beacon Hill neighborhood? What is your “sense of place” of this neighborhood?
• How does the audio guide shape your experience of the place? Does it augment it? Does it detract from it?
• What does the audio tour tell you about the historical sense of place of Beacon Hill in the nineteenth century?
• What would you modify if you were going to change this audio tour?
• How does your experience fit with Michel de Certeau’s chapter that you read for today? What about other readings you’ve done for this course?