-- By Tom Phillips
After sixty years of puzzlement, I finally get it. The cartwheel logo of the Boston Bruins, with a capital B at the center, refers to Boston’s traditional nickname, the Hub. I talked to five Bostonians and to my surprise, none of them knew this. This gives me the courage to analyze Boston for them.
I’ve been trying to understand this place since my first visit in 1952, when I was ten. My father brought me up from the New York suburbs to see a Red Sox game at Fenway Park. I was excited to see Kenmore Square, which I envisioned as something like Times Square. Nothing prepared us for its sepulchral drabness. After two days in Boston my father concluded -- "This is a small town."
It still is, but not like any other small town. As the Hub, it is the biggest small town of ten thousand small towns that make up New England civilization. The wheel is not geographical but conceptual – showing the place Boston occupies not on the map of New England, but in its mind.
