A lot has happened since I wrote my post about the Boston Marathon bombings. It’s time for an update.
The bombing site reopened to the public on Wednesday, April 22 24, a week ago today. I’ve walked the Back Bay twice since then and found it so very comforting to see people out on the streets. People are the lifeblood of any city, and their absence in and around Copley Square the week of the bombings was even more jarring to me than the sight of soldiers and armored jeeps in front of the Boston Public Library. On both Thursday the 25th and Tuesday the 30th Copley was bursting with people of all stripes—office workers, buskers, skate punks, dandies, tourists, runners, campaign volunteers, dog walkers, moms with strollers. Bostonians are trying hard to get back to normal, sometimes succeeding and sometimes not. On both walks I let myself get lost in the crowd; that’s what normal means to me.
I have paid four visits to the makeshift bombing memorial: April 20, 22, 25, and 30. Each time I have taken photos to document both the objects left there and the ways people are interacting with the memorial. Each time it has changed significantly since my last visit. It keeps getting bigger, of course. Twice it has changed location. Location 1 was in the middle of the intersection of Boylston and Berkeley, up against the police barricade that blocked Boylston to all traffic:
In anticipation of reopening the crime scene, it moved about 50 feet to Location 2, against the side of a building at that same intersection:
Then, perhaps when it became clear this public ritual needed a space befitting its importance to the city, Location 3 was organized at the north side of Copley Square itself:
Locations 1 and 2 felt cold and hard—nothing but concrete and police barriers against a backdrop devoid of people. By contrast Location 3 feels much more human. It’s a large, U-shaped enclosure on the edge of the Copley lawn, an outdoor room of sorts. Ten of the Copley trees are inside the enclosure, and many of the signs and mementos people have left are propped against their trunks or hanging from their branches, with pathways in between. People are out and about again, and they circulate through the memorial, moving from tree to tree, like visitors at an exhibition. Memorial 3 feels like the right place, a place at the heart of the city.
At Location 1 people left their objects themselves, with no particular logic other than where they could find available space. But when volunteers moved everything to Location 2, they organized the memorial. Three white crosses, one each for Lu Lingzi, Martin Richard, and Krystle Campbell, became more clearly the centerpiece of the memorial. Around them, flowers were placed with flowers, stuffed animals with stuffed animals, and shoes with shoes. When the memorial moved a second time, this order was maintained and expanded. As someone who studies cities, I find the most striking addition at Location 3 to be the symbols of Boston’s membership in the global sisterhood of cities—”Istanbul Stands with Boston,” “Stay Strong –Miami,” “Nashville Believes in Boston”—but there is much more. There are several large comment boards people can sign. There are many, many shoes. There is a hat section and a flag section.
Which leads me to one of the most important parts of the memorial: its unofficial caretaker, Kevin Brown. He is not the only or the first person to tend the memorial but he has been its most enduring volunteer.
A carpenter from Brockton, he has been there during three of my four visits. At Location 1, he and another volunteer were handing out single roses for the children in the crowd to add to the memorial, to give them a way of actively participating in the ritual. At Location 2, which blocked public access to the memorial much more formally than Location 1, mourners had to pass their mementos across the police barrier for Brown to place, and he obliged repeatedly and good-naturedly, honoring requests for him to pose for photographs, answering questions, and following instructions like “please place this around the neck of the black stuffed dog.” He told me volunteers were organizing that night, in advance of the storms predicted for Tuesday the 23rd, to bag anything that would get damaged by water. He told me some of the marathon medals had been stolen so they had started setting all the medals aside for safekeeping. He told me he watched a female runner walk up to the memorial, take off her shoes, add them to the pile, and walk away barefoot. He told me he was going to make a fourth cross for Sean Collier. Not only was he the citizen curator of Location 2, he was also its docent; guiding people through the mourning ritual. Kevin Brown’s role at Location 3 on Copley Square is different. Because the memorial has grown so big that you can walk around in it, you could miss Brown if you didn’t know to look for him. He has a chair now. I watched him make a round to water all the potted plants, and then another round to light all the candles (it was 6 pm). I was glad to see him.
I want to pay particular attention to Kevin Brown because in so many ways he is my counterpart and colleague, even if we don’t really know each other. He quickly and spontaneously took up a role at this memorial that I have trained for and practiced for more than 15 years. While he has been out there in the sun and rain every day, those of us in Boston’s museum and archive community—the professionals—have been moving more slowly. Granted, there are reasons we are moving slowly. The stakes are high when you’re talking about caring for things in perpetuity and we want to do this right (or as close to right as we can). We have indeed made some progress. We have been systematically checking in with each institution in the area, and our list of whether and what each one plans to collect is nearly complete (most notably, at Mayor Menino’s direction, the Boston City Archives will preserve items from the memorial). Historic New England has offered its fumigation bubble to ensure that bombing-related artifacts are pest-free before they are introduced into existing collections. We have made contact with folks at the 9/11 Memorial who have offered valuable advice and ongoing support. We are trying to organize pro bono legal counsel to advise on all manner of issues, from how Massachusetts abandoned property laws will affect collecting to release forms for oral histories.
I remain concerned that we still have not identified homes for all of the material that should be collected from this event. Boston deserves a thoughtful, compelling, and flawlessly executed exhibition of this material on the one-year anniversary of the bombings—to help Bostonians process their emotions and memories and transform them into some sort of positive civic engagement for the city. But there is so much work to be done in order to tell this story—and tell it well—I remain concerned about that too. One thing I am not concerned about is Kevin Brown. This week Kevin Brown is my curatorial hero. This week Kevin Brown is the heart at the heart of Boston.
Kevin Brown has been and will remain the heart at the heart of his family, friends, friends, and all who know him. We are not surprised at the role he has fallen into at this memorial. It’s a role he was born to portray. Thank you for this beautiful article. This memorial couldn’t be in better hands; the hands of a man who truly loves this great city, and the people who live in it. We are all Boston Strong 🙂
Thanks for the lovely comment, Leann. It’s nice to hear I’m not the only one in the Kevin Brown Fan Club.
No thanks needed here. He is a great guy, great dad, a wonderful grandfather (Bobo to an army of little ones!) and as far as ex husbands go, a great friend to me. We’d all be lost without him. It’s so wonderful to see him finally get noticed for some of the beautiful things that he does. The best part is that he doesn’t even do things to be noticed. He does them from his heart, because he is just a true blue guy. A rarity these days. I’m so happy that others are getting the chance to sample some of his goodness. He is a very talented man. You are all doing a great job on the memorial. Keep up the good work! Cataloging is a very daunting task, one I find difficult, especially one as emotional as this, and at times the job itself can be tedious but it is so important. BRAVO to all involved!
I just want to thank you for the kind words. Kevin
My pleasure, Kevin–you earned it.
Kevin, I am hoping to get in touch with you. Northeastern University is doing a Marathon bombing oral history project and I would like to make sure that your story is included, if you are willing. You have witnessed so much at the Copley Memorial and it is important that your story be remembered. I’m not sure how else to get your contact information–please email me at raineytisdale@gmail.com if you see this so I can put Northeastern in touch with you. Thanks so much. -Rainey
I followed the link off your comment on my piece on History@Work (thanks for that) and read your posts here with great interest. As may be clear from my article, I’ve been struggling with what this all means and how we remember atrocity, especially when it’s this close to home. Like most in Boston, I’ve never been this close to atrocity before, and I am occasionally still shocked by the fact that bombs exploded in my city.
I was struck by your suggestion of “a thoughtful, compelling, and flawlessly executed exhibition of this material on the one-year anniversary of the bombings—to help Bostonians process their emotions and memories and transform them into some sort of positive civic engagement for the city.” I’m not sure this is what is needed, though I speak for myself only. It seems to me that this entire Boston Strong meme has taken over pop culture in the city, and the Bruins, especially, made use of and capitalised on that (for the team’s own interest as much as civic engagement) in its run to the Stanley Cup Final (http://spatialitism.wordpress.com/2013/06/25/boston-strong/). But perhaps more importantly, the Marathon will have its 118th running next 15 April, and there will be thousands of people there attempting to reclaim Boylston St., the finish line, and the city itself. The Marathon is a major event in the city, as you know, and, when combined with the Red Sox traditional game that morning, you’ve got these two ready-made traditions which, I’m sure, Bostonians will take hold of and make use of for processing their now year-old emotions.
I realise that not all Bostonians are sports -men and -women, but I do really think the Marathon itself will do the job of the sort of exhibition you propose. Anyway. Just my two cents.
I certainly understand where you are coming from, Matthew, and you’re right, participating next April in the marathon itself and the Red Sox game will be extremely important ways that people remember and make meaning from the bombing, collectively. But I have a concern that it will be very easy around the time of the one-year anniversary, through social media and news coverage, for everyone’s emotion about this event to get whipped into a frenzy and then be left hanging there in the air with nowhere to go. In the face of an event that touched so many so deeply, I think it’s likely people will need additional civic rituals besides these two alone, additional ways to connect, commemorate, and participate that produce catharsis and a sense of larger purpose. I believe that civic institutions like museums and libraries can provide a public service by offering places for reflection, by digging deeper into the story and what it means, by bringing people together for thoughtful public dialogue, and by channeling all that emotion into some lasting sense of civic engagement. In terms of the public dialogue, by the way, we’re hoping to hold a series of town hall meetings to discuss big issues the bombing raises, among them immigration and religious tolerance, do we want secure cities or open cities, and in this moment of great tragedy, what’s the best version of Boston we could create together, to serve as our silver lining?
I guess the question comes down to what commemoration is and what it looks like. My initial point was that the insta-commemoration, like that on Boyolston/Copley Sq shouldn’t be dismissed lightly, as it seemed to me people and academics were. But I do think there should be space for something, but what that is, I don’t know. You noted that those running shoes are forever altered, even if they’re in a box in an archive somewhere. I agree, to a point, but I fundamentally believe that the shoes, the caps, the what-have-yous at the memorial are shorn of their meaning and import in those boxes. I think the Boston Public Library should be the location for a commemorative exhibition, the library, the museums, etc., yes, they do provide that public service. My hometown, Montréal, is particularly good at that. The public fora sound interesting.
Such a complicated set of issues, with questions reaching out in all directions. Thanks for the thoughtful back-and-forth. And by the way, Montreal is one of my favorite cities–I was just there last month.