A street has a daily rhythm—a commercial street particularly so. Some shopkeepers understand the rhythm because they watch the street. Others are oblivious, as are most pedestrians. Sidewalk cafes are places to find a street’s rhythm. Each Boston street is different, as is a street in Paris compared with a street in Boston. While you enjoy a cup of coffee watch and listen.
A commercial street is usually busy, at least the shopkeepers hope so. Pedestrians walk by. Some push strollers, and many are men—a change, I’m thinking, from the habits of their fathers. A woman comes along with a thin, white cane, tapping the sidewalk to find the difference in sound between the brick and the granite curb. Although she seems tentative, she finds the curb and steps back into the safe brick passage where other pedestrians are going. The others see her and keep out of her way. That cane is as much a signal to others as it is a pathfinder for her.
Runners walk by. They’re headed home. They are well turned out in fresh tights that come about half way down their shins, snug, zip-up jackets, well-cushioned shoes, and many of them have on Red Sox caps. No snags, dirt, spots or unravelings here. They are not following Thoreau’s advice to “beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.” Twenty-first century downtown Boston seems a long way from 19th-century Walden Pond.
A city employee with a boxy contraption makes noise. He pokes a key into a parking meter, shoves the box up against it, and coins clank into his box. All taxpayers can see how difficult it would be for an employee, if he were so inclined, to steal the take from the meters, so you’re feeling that box is money well spent. This meter-emptier looks more like a beardless Santa Claus than a thief. But after Bernie Madoff, we realize it’s hard to tell.
A young man with five dogs on leashes walks by with his charges. Owners have benefitted from dog walking services that have grown up in the last 20 years, but so has everyone else. The dog walkers are more scrupulous in picking up after the dogs than some dog owners. Remarkably, the dogs are docile. They seem to like having the company. It’s a nice day, and they must appreciate being outside as much as humans do.
Vehicles make the most noise. Cars speed, bikes whiz, trucks rumble and clank. A Savenor’s truck pulls up across the street. Many of us know that Savenor’s sells meat to Boston-area restaurants as well as directly to customers at its two stores. The driver must be delivering tonight’s dinners to one of the local restaurants.
Some trucks are too big for Boston’s narrow streets. Owens and Robbins is written in handsome lettering on the side of one. What is inside that truck and where is it from? The name on it gives no clue. It is about as big as a truck should be on these streets, but others, even bigger, pass by. The drivers must be skilled to thread their way through city traffic when the truck’s bulk could easily sideswipe any other vehicle or any person.
A schoolbus stops and picks up three children standing on a corner. Otherwise the bus is empty. I don’t remember seeing a full school bus —ever. In fact, I don’t remember ever seeing a school bus with more than two or three children on it at all, even if it could hold 50 kids. There is something wrong with that picture.
A few trash trucks rumble by, but they aren’t stopping. The trucks serving the businesses must get to the street early in the morning because the bags of trash are already gone from the sidewalks and restaurants’ barrels have been taken back into the storage areas.
Motor scooters are the most colorful vehicles on the street. Once I saw a green and pink motor scooter whose 20-something female owner was also dressed in green and pink. I was surprised that I never spied her again.
Sometimes big street sweepers swoosh along the curb. Today there are none of the big ones. Instead a small vehicle, about the size of a snowmobile, comes out from a side street. It takes awhile to realize it is a street sweeper. It can get into tight spots the bigger sweepers cannot. It’s cleans up after the big guys much as you might take a dust buster to a corner once your traditional vacuum has done its job.
The morning is no longer early. The next two or three hours will invite different people, different vehicles, fewer runners, no school buses and only a delivery truck or two. Perhaps a city truck will come by and men will hop out to empty the trash barrels. That’s always a hope.
The next time you sit alone at a sidewalk café you’ll have an opportunity to learn the street’s rhythm. It will be different from my street, but worth the attention.