Globe Corner Blogs

Last week I had the opportunity to go to both my native hometown of Boise, Idaho and my adopted hometown of Seattle for a vacation. I had a lot of family to see, so I had to limit my time in Seattle to 36 hours, but there’s a lot one can do in 36 hours in Seattle! Recently, the NYT edited a book of the best of their feature “36 Hours” highlighting weekend jaunts across America. Of course, if you’ve never been to Seattle before, then Pike Place Market and the Space Needle are probably musts. But if you’ve lived in the Emerald City like me, and it’s been a while since you’ve been back, then your trip might look a little different.

So here ’tis, my 36 Hours in Seattle itinerary:

As soon as we landed, my husband and I were famished. Six hours on a plane with only crackers will do that. But we REFUSED to eat at the airport, and instead booked it for the nice new Link Light Rail, a high speed train that zips from Sea-Tac airport through South Seattle and deposits travelers downtown. They’re currently laying track to extend the rail to Capitol Hill and the University District, two hoppin’ neighborhoods with plenty to do. When that happens, the Link Light Rail will be a nascent T…one of the only ones out West. So, we hopped on the train for a mere $2.75, took the train downtown, hopped on the 43 bus that deposited us on Broadway Ave, the main street that runs through Capitol Hill, a funky neighborhood of awesome restaurants, lots of nightlife and a few great bookstores. It’s also where parts of Tom Robbins’ Jitterbug Perfume take place. From there it was but a mere block walk to Dick’s, the ultimate burger joint and a must for any Seattleite carnivore. Here there are basically four things on the menu and you can’t customize. So the line moves fast, you get your food immediately and it’s perfect every time. So magical.

In Madeleine L’Engle’s classic A Wrinkle in Time, characters time travel by way of “tesser.” The shortest distance between two points is a line, Mrs Whatsit explains,  but what if that line could wrinkle? Imagine a length of yarn, and if you folded it in half, the two ends would meet.

This is how I thought of the distance between Seattle and Boston when I chose to move to the East Coast after three years in the Northwest. Fold a map, and the cities kiss. I wouldn’t be that far from the stunning Cascade and Olympic mountain ranges that hemmed me in on either side, Allegro, my favorite hole-in-the-wall cafe, and my closest friends.

On one of my first evenings in Boston–already missing the ship canal that used to flow through my Seattle neighborhood–I took a walk to the Charles River. I approached around sunset, quickening my pace. The sky was turning a lovely pink and I could glimpse the John Hancock and Prudential buildings beginning to reflect the hue. Afraid all the benches along the river would be taken, I hurried on.

The NFT guide to Seattle highlights little known haunts where you can slip away from the fifth dimension.

I should not have worried. Every bench along the bank was free, as everyone within sight was in movement: walking, jogging, sprinting along a path. Even the sailboats in the river were racing in a regatta. I knew then that the pace was different here. I sank down onto a bench, already nostalgic for the cafe culture of Seattle, where one could sit for hours with a good book and cooling cup of coffee without wondering once where else they should be.

So when I noticed a recent slew of Booksmith booksellers taking time off to travel to the Northwest, I understood.  While I’ve come to appreciate the productivity and drive of America’s easternmost cities, sometimes it’s necessary to get away for awhile. If you’re planning a trip to the Pacific Northwest, we’ve got all the guidebooks and maps you need, plus a staff of travelers with recent experiences in Seattle, Portland, even Alaska. We’ll be sharing some of these adventures here at globecorner.com, so tesser back soon.

The story begins with a place. On the corner of Washington and School Streets in Boston, Anne Hutchinson, a woman who became known for her religious dissidence, first took up residence on the property that would become an important crossroads in American literary history. At this time there would have been around thirty booksellers in the immediate Boston area.

In October of 1711, however, a great fire broke out in Boston, consuming the Hutchinson home, the Town House, the Old Meeting House, and over one hundred shops and residences, including almost all of the bookstores. So immense was the extent of the devastation that only one bookstore was left standing.

The tale is not unlike the story we read today, of another bookstore closing, another publisher going under. Fewer and fewer of the bookstores that flourished in a city that was known as the publishing and bookselling center of America are still operating today. Sometimes it can feel that America’s book world is still under fire.

Happily, the story does not end there. In 1712 the building that still stands as the oldest brick structure in Boston was built on the site of Hutchinson’s home, and in 1829 a bookseller named Timothy Carter opened a bookshop there called the Old Corner Bookstore. From 1832-65 William Davis Ticknor and his younger partner, James T. Fields, ran a vibrant publishing house and bookstore on the corner, publishing the writers we now remember as the founders of American literature: Emerson. Thoreau. Hawthorne. Longfellow. Lowell. Boston booksellers were back in business.

A few more tenants, and many decades later, a new bookshop began operating on the site. The Globe Corner Bookstore was opened in 1982 under the guardianship of Pat and Harriet Carrier. While the Downtown Crossing branch closed in 1997, the Globe Corner thrived in other locations around the city, including its most recent home in Harvard Square. Just as the Carriers reached their 30th year of successful travel bookselling, however, they closed the store.

But the story continues. Over the past few months, the Carriers have been advising Booksmith as we expand our travel section and take over globecorner.com. Pat and Harriet have generously opened their inventory and years of experience in the travel industry to us, insuring that the expertise and knowledge cultivated at the Globe Corner can continue to thrive in Boston.

As one of the bookstores left standing, Booksmith is doing its best to meet the needs of our ever-burgeoning community of readers, to fill the void the others have left in a vital marketplace so essential to the growth of our intellectual culture. When Barnes and Noble down the street shut down, we expanded our magazine section. When Bob Slate stores closed, we implemented a Writer’s Corner, increasing our supply of journals and stationary and art supplies. Now as Boston loses its largest supplier of travel books and maps, Booksmith is proud to provide a new space for the literary tradition begun at the corner of Washington and School Streets to continue at the intersection of Beacon and Harvard.