Trains and Art
Sep. 11th, 2005 07:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dmazePunted the world yesterday to go visit Providence with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fuzzygrumpball. This turns out to be pretty doable even if you don't want to drive and it's a weekend so the commuter rail doesn't go there; Amtrak has a (Saturday) $14 fare each way, the trains run about as often as the commuter rail would, and you can just go to the station and buy a ticket.
We got to Providence around 10:30, oriented ourselves, and then headed up to Pawtucket for the sole purpose of visiting the abandoned Pawtucket-Central Falls station. It apparently is, or recently was, a church of some sort. We spent some time trying to figure out where the platforms were supposed to go, and if the third track was being replaced or was just gone. Then we hopped the bus back to Providence again.
After lunch, we headed over to the RISD Museum. (In Providence North Main Street is numbered south-to-north, but Benefit Street a block over is numbered north-to-south. Very confusing.) This turned out to be a straight-up art museum. One building was entirely 19th-century furniture, which is very much not my thing. But there was also a door frame with guys carrying spheres and cylinders (and, in one case, dropping their sphere) that looks like it should be adapted into a board game, which was pretty spiffy. Also worth hunting out are piles of post cards, note cards, and photographs next to some other exhibits, and especially the one next to the particularly gaudy fireplace. The museum had quite a wide variety of things, but this largely made me realize that paintings are more interesting than a room full of porcelain dolls.
And then we had spent the entire afternoon walking around, most of it in the museum, and it was time to head back to Boston if we didn't want to take the twice-as-expensive-and-not-faster Acela or wait two hours in Providence. The conductor was very good about telling people that if you wanted to transfer to the Downeaster you should get off at Back Bay and take the Orange Line to North Station. Of course, when we got to South Station, he also mentioned that the Orange Line went there, so you can't win them all.
fuzzygrumpball. This turns out to be pretty doable even if you don't want to drive and it's a weekend so the commuter rail doesn't go there; Amtrak has a (Saturday) $14 fare each way, the trains run about as often as the commuter rail would, and you can just go to the station and buy a ticket.We got to Providence around 10:30, oriented ourselves, and then headed up to Pawtucket for the sole purpose of visiting the abandoned Pawtucket-Central Falls station. It apparently is, or recently was, a church of some sort. We spent some time trying to figure out where the platforms were supposed to go, and if the third track was being replaced or was just gone. Then we hopped the bus back to Providence again.
After lunch, we headed over to the RISD Museum. (In Providence North Main Street is numbered south-to-north, but Benefit Street a block over is numbered north-to-south. Very confusing.) This turned out to be a straight-up art museum. One building was entirely 19th-century furniture, which is very much not my thing. But there was also a door frame with guys carrying spheres and cylinders (and, in one case, dropping their sphere) that looks like it should be adapted into a board game, which was pretty spiffy. Also worth hunting out are piles of post cards, note cards, and photographs next to some other exhibits, and especially the one next to the particularly gaudy fireplace. The museum had quite a wide variety of things, but this largely made me realize that paintings are more interesting than a room full of porcelain dolls.
And then we had spent the entire afternoon walking around, most of it in the museum, and it was time to head back to Boston if we didn't want to take the twice-as-expensive-and-not-faster Acela or wait two hours in Providence. The conductor was very good about telling people that if you wanted to transfer to the Downeaster you should get off at Back Bay and take the Orange Line to North Station. Of course, when we got to South Station, he also mentioned that the Orange Line went there, so you can't win them all.
