With the Milan-Cortina Olympics about to start, we’re going to be seeing many shots of Milan’s iconic Gothic-style Duomo.
This reminds me that I visited Milan in 1985 with my friend Julie during our semester abroad in Italy. We climbed up to the rooftop terraces of the Duomo. Back then, you didn’t need reservations or special tickets to go up.
I love it when photographic evidence of my foggy memories actually exists!
Here’s a photo I took of Julie taking a photo through a doorway atop the Duomo in Milan 40+ years ago. Julie is a great photographer so I’m sure she got a wonderful, artistic shot. But I like my pic too. Her red coat looks cool. And you can see some of the over-the-top decorative elements of the roof. Those endless spires remind me of wet, drippy sandcastles.
Have you ever received a casual invitation that was likely not meant sincerely? You know, something like “you should come visit sometime”? Welp, I got one of those once and I decided to take the person up on it.
My husband’s cousin (an interior designer) and his husband (an investment firm VP) live in a very fancy Manhattan coop in Murray Hill. We saw them at a family gathering in Massachusetts in 2008 and they “encouraged” us to visit. Looking back now, I really don’t think they meant it. They were childless city folk and we had young kids.
Anyway, I reached out that summer because my friend and I wanted to go to NYC to see Legally Blonde on Broadway with our daughters and get this—they offered us their apartment for the weekend! They were going to be at their “country home” the weekend we were coming, but said we could stay in their city place by ourselves.
We couldn’t believe their place. First of all, it was HUGE. Second, it was decorated in the least kid-friendly way imaginable. There was glass everywhere, Nothing was left out on any surface, everything was completely smooth. There were sculptures (mostly of gorgeous male bodies) on pedestals that would have been deadly if knocked over.
It was actually comical. We were so afraid of breaking anything that we barely moved! At one point, I remember hunting for a coffee maker in their exquisite, smooth-surfaced kitchen (a note said it was in “the appliance garage”) but then just giving up and going out for coffee.
This interior hallway door gives you the vibe of the place—smooth, orderly and very adult.
The huge living room/dining room area
Sculptures on display
A bathroom
The girls sitting very carefully in the HUGE living room (remember this is in midtown Manhattan)
The smooth and baffling kitchen where I couldn’t figure out how to make coffee
Getting cast autographs after Legally Blonde
A fun weekend—and we left that apartment just as we found it. Nothing broken 😅
I realize I’m not using Dan’s Thursday’s Doors in the usual way. I search my photo file for “door” and some door pops up that prompts a memory.
Check out the other cool doors here or just search for posts tagged Thursday Doors.
There are many beautiful old doors in Boston’s historic North End (aka the Italian neighborhood), but 160 Endicott Street is not one of them.
It’s an old, unrenovated building……in a great location in Boston’s North End—just around the corner from the original Pizzeria Regina
It is, however, a meaningful door in terms of my life story. I lived there in the early 1990s with my roommate Bridget, a friend from work. It was the last place I lived as a single woman. After that, I moved in with a boyfriend who I later married.
160 Endicott was truly a dump. It was the first floor apartment over a convenience store that I think was some type of front for a low-level gambling operation. Their most popular item was lottery tickets. They had a few dusty cans of soup and literally nothing else you would ever want to buy. The irony was the hand-carved sign, “If we don’t have it, you don’t need it.” They never had anything I needed. Not a tampon, not an Advil, nothing.
The apartment itself was totally unrenovated and smelled liked cats. The kitchen was horrible. The bathroom had cockroaches. The downstairs neighbors (who lived in an unfinished basement beneath the store) were always asking to borrow my car so they could drive to the dog racing track up north. But it was in a great location in the heart of old Boston and we could afford it on our art museum salaries, with absolutely no help from parents, which was my main objective in moving there. I really didn’t want to be beholden to my parents for anything. I needed some space from them and my troubled sister.
I took my kids back to visit in 2009. It looked much the same from the outside, but the store inside looked cleaner and nicer. New owners had taken over.
I didn’t ask to see the old apartment, but the green exterior bay window looked exactly the same. And the sign was still there:
“If we don’t have it, you don’t need it.”That was the window of my “bedroom” which was actually the living room. I slept on a pullout sofa. A return trip to 160 Endicott Street in 2009In 2009, the humble exterior looked identical to how it looked in 1990.
The twenties are such a formative decade. So many forks in the road. Decisions made. Paths chosen. Roads not taken.
Memories of my time on Endicott Street include gaining a more visceral understanding of poverty (I thought our place was bad, until I saw how the people under the store were living); finally ending a longterm romantic relationship that had been going on and off for years; great authors—like Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou—introduced to me by my roommate Bridget (a reader and a feminist); and food smells—especially Bova’s bakery, open 24/7. Not much in Boston is open all night…but Bova’s is. There are better bakeries in Boston’s North End, but nothing smelled as good as Bova’s at 3am.
165 Congress Street in Portland is a John Calvin Stevens building. Stevens (1855-1940) was Portland’s most prolific architect. He was known for Shingle-style and Colonial Revival designs.
My son and I took a trip to Portland in July 2021, when he was a 20-year old college student. We rented an AirBnB in the historic Munjoy Hill neighborhood of Portland (which is where these cool indigo doors are located). We had a nice time walking around, eating, and shopping. We also went to the outlets in Freeport, Maine and got a bunch of clothes.
A lot of mothers say that it’s hard to stay close to adult sons once they get busy with their own families and careers. I hope that doesn’t happen to us. My son turns 25 next week. My baby. We’ve got a shopping trip planned for next Friday.
This is the pic that came up today when I searched the ginormous folder on my computer for a “door.”
There was no geographic info in the file name or photo data. All I know is that it was taken with my old Canon PowerShot camera in June 2011 and that the two kids on the balcony are mine.
I had no recollection of this moment, but Google Lens figured out the location (amazing). It’s downtown Winchester, Massachusetts (my husband’s hometown). My father-in-law was alive and still living there at the time, so it makes sense.
It’s an area now called “Winchester Terrace.” AI found this photo on Apartments.com that shows the exact spot:
At the top of the staircase on the right is the spot I posed my kids in 2011.
This discovery sparked a memory of my very dear father-in-law—“Nonno” to my kids.
He was most the wonderful man who enjoyed life’s small moments like no other. Martini time, a beautiful operatic aria, an excellent meal, a grandchild’s kiss (he called it a “buzz”), a friendly joke with a stranger (especially waitresses!), and random bits of foreign languages sprinkled into any conversation. He always made me feel like the most amazing, interesting, gorgeous woman who ever lived. A true charmer. He lived well into his 90s.
It’s fun for me to search the giant folder of pictures on my computer for “door” and see what comes up. It really jogs the old memory.
This pic came up today.
I knew it was from a slide I took in 1987 on a college trip to Helsinki, Budapest and the Soviet Union, but I didn’t know exactly where.
Guess what? ChatGPT identified it immediately as the Dormition (Assumption) Cathedral in the Kremlin, Moscow, Russia.
The distinctive arched doorway with ornate frescoes above it. The icon of the Virgin and Child surrounded by angels and saints. The Romanesque-style columns and arches framing the door.
This specific doorway is the main western portal of the Dormition Cathedral (built by Aristotele Fioravanti in the 1470s), one of the most important churches in Russia and the site of coronations of Russian tsars.
And I do believe ChatGPT is correct because I found this picture in my files as well:
That’s the Kremlin with the Dormition Cathedral—the second cluster of gold domes from the left. The Moscow River (in the foreground) was frozen solid.
I believe this is also inside the walls of the Kremlin. I think it’s Spasskaya Tower, which overlooks Red Square.
There are two possible reasons I do not have more pictures of the Kremlin. Either it was too darn cold and my camera battery froze or our “Intourist” (Communist Party) tour guide wouldn’t let us take photos.
I have a feeling my camera battery froze because I’m not a total rule follower. (I have been known to sneak a photo in forbidden areas.) However, we were warned so severely to not break any rules while in Russia, I may have been “scared straight” as they say.
Here’s a photo of our Intourist Guide Elena receiving some parting gifts from our Russian History professor on the tour bus. Too bad I only got the back of her head.
See, this is why you take pictures people. I had forgotten all of this. I have been to the Kremlin!
Good GOD I’ve taken a lot of photos of church doors over the years—especially for a Unitarian.
Here’s another one in the Protestant realm:
This is the entrance door of St. Ann’s Chapel in Kennebunkport, Maine, which has to be one of the most beautiful—perhaps THE most beautiful— seaside chapel in all of New England.
Built in the late 19th century (The Gilded Age), this church operates in summer only, when the well-heeled WASPy residents of Kennebunkport are in town (including the Bush Family).
What really got me was the OUTDOOR chapel with the sweeping views.
The rocky coast of Maine near the chapel
Nice view
Seriously, this chapel has the best New England location I’ve ever seen
As descendants of “peasants” from Italy, our ancestors were more likely to have hauled the rocks to build this church than to have ever visited it.
Multiple Bush family weddings have taken place here. They are longtime, generous supporters of the church and their compound—Walker’s Point—is close by. Not to get political, but I can’t believe I’ve lived to an age where I think of the Bush family with some fondness. Thirty-year old me would not have believed it! I’ll take Walker’s Point over Mar-a-Lago (and all it represents) any day of the week.
I’ve already posted many Irish doors from my trip in June, but not this one:
This is the Dublin Unitarian Church, which I walked by many times before realizing what it was. The church was right near our hotel, but so “tucked in,” I didn’t notice it until the very end of my time there.
It’s clearly in the gothic style, similar to last week’s doors. I guess I like “recessed arches.” (Thanks to Suzette for naming them for me.) And look at those cool hinges.
Seriously, this church has NO breathing room on either side. By the time I noticed it was a Unitarian Church, it was time to go home. I never got to see the inside. The doors were locked both times I tried. ☹️
Similar to Unitarian Universalist churches in the USA, it uses the flaming chalice symbol.
What’s the difference between Unitarian Universalist and just Unitarian?
PerChatGPT:
American Unitarian Universalism (UU) emerged in 1961 from the merger of Unitarian and Universalist traditions, forming a non-creedal, pluralistic movement embracing humanists, theists, atheists, pagans, and others. It emphasizes individual freedom, social justice, and spiritual diversity without doctrinal boundaries.
European Unitarian churches, including Dublin’s, remain rooted in liberal Christian heritage, emphasizing reason, conscience, and the moral teachings of Jesus while rejecting the Trinity. They are typically more theistic and biblically grounded, though open and inclusive. In short: American UUism is multi-faith and post-Christian, while European Unitarianism is liberal Christian with freedom of belief.
For more Thursday Doors, see Dan’s blog No Facilities.
If someone asked me yesterday if I’d ever been to Sacramento, the capital of California, I would’ve said no.
But I was wrong. My high school friend Susan and I took our 11-year old sons on an epic Northern California road trip in the summer of 2012 and stopped at the famous Squeeze Burger (formerly Squeeze Inn) in Sacramento. We were on our way to her house in Lake Tahoe from Oakland.
Upon further research, I found pictures of the famous cheese-skirted burgers online, which look familiar.
We were in the second Sacramento location (now closed), which featured the original tiny Sacramento storefront as a booth in the restaurant. Perfect for two boys traveling with their moms.
This is why pictures matter people. By the time you hit 60, you will not remember half the stuff you did in your life.
My college in Hartford, Connecticut had a spectacular gothic chapel on the quad. So Hogwarts! We were not an Ivy League school, but with that chapel on the quad—and scores of rich classmates from the snootiest boarding schools on the Eastern Seaboard—we could pretend we were. A couple of my more diligent classmates were able to transfer to Ivy League schools after freshmen year, but most of us just stayed and partied in Hartford.
My daughter had absolutely no interest in attending a small, private liberal arts college, but we did stop by one day when we were passing through the area. And the chapel still looked gorgeous.
My daughter in front of my college’s chapel doors in 2013.
The same doors as seen through an arch on the day of my graduation in 1987.
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