Official Sail Boston Web site, brought to you by Boston.com
Tour the ships
 Where, when to
visit
Photo galleries
Parade of Sail
Globe photos
Spectators
Sailors
Download
Desktop
wallpaper
Stories
Coverage
Schedule
All events
The Ships
Ship info
Tall ships
tutorial
For spectators
Viewing spots
Where to park
Traffic report
Weather report
Contest
Win tickets
|
 | | | |
|
With coolers, cameras and umbrellas, they gathered at Fan Pier for the Parade
By Amy Berlin, Boston.com Staff, 07/11/00
BOSTON -- What do you bring when you're planning on a day of Tall Ship watching?
From the looks of those who crowded through the gates at Fan Pier
this morning, the accessories of choice were coolers, cameras and umbrellas.
The South Boston viewing site, located on Old Northern Avenue behind the new federal courthouse, gave hundreds of visitors a premiere spot from which to watch the Tall Ships pass by.
With a beaming sun overhead, those with tickets jostled to find their reserved seats as those without tickets plopped down lawn chairs wherever they could.
Well before the Parade even began, the crowd had spread
out along the sidewalk to watch. They could look out over the water -- or catch the ships on a big-screen TV, which broadcast live coverage of the show.
Some, like Hanover residents Rich Mahoney's relatives, flew in from far-flung places like California and Malta.
Others opted for mass transit, heeding the warnings of local officials who had predicted highways would be jammed today. (Traffic was heavy, but not the nightmare that had been expected.)
Karen Landry, who arrived in town last night, stayed in Walden
with her father to get an early start and avoid the traffic. In Boston only for
the day, she took the T to South Station.
"It was a big mistake!" she said, recounting the packed trains that were crowded this morning with people heading for the waterfront.
Others braved the roads. George Haworth and his
daughter Tory, and Helene and Frank Moskal, who saw the Tall Ships in 1992,
drove up from Rhodes Island to enjoy the nautical
festivities.
Kevin and Mary Deveau from East Boston came well equipped with lawn chairs,
a cooler and plenty of provisions for the day-long event. Mary remembers
the first Sail Boston. "I was in high school," she said, "and my sister and
I would go down to the North End looking for sailors."
She said she has seen the
Tall Ships every chance she could since then. Kevin Deveau, who also remembers
previous years watching the Tall Ships, was hoping to glimpse the ship from
Denmark. "It has a little more history than the rest," he said.
Which other Tall Ships did people come to see?
Sallie Kennedy from Roxbury bubbled with excitement while talking about the
USS John F. Kennedy. "I'm fascinated by it, absolutely fascinated," she
said. "I just want a chance to go on it."
What's the fascination with that particular ship? Mary Casino from South Boston, who
last saw the Tall Ships during the bicentennial celebration in 1976, said "it's the
size."
Eileen Sullivan from Quincy who had never seen the Tall Ships before today,
said that she too wants to see the USS John F. Kennedy up close.
But her
friend, Rosalie Barry, also from Quincy, said that it didn't matter which
ships she saw. "It's a once-in-a-lifetime event. We're lucky just to see
them."
|
|
|
|
