The Athens of America

Boston is known to some as the Athens of America, due to the presence of several world-renowned universities, not to mention over 100 other colleges and a student population of over 250,000 (that’s more people than actually live in Boise!). The crown jewels of this establishment are without a doubt Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), both in Cambridge just north of the Charles River. We visited these two campuses several days apart, but decided to crush both visits into a single post. We didn’t take many pictures, so this won’t be anything like a full sense of these places. For that, you’ll have to come here and visit

As you approach Harvard, you will be met with a wall that runs around most of the campus, interspersed with gates that brandish something reminiscent of the school seal. “Veritas” is Latin for “truth.”

Our first stop anywhere like this is always the Philosophy building:

I wish they’d had a building like that at BSU!

Somewhere on campus they have a statue of the school’s founder, John Harvard. Our guidebook had some distasteful information to the effect that one of the local student rituals is to urinate on this statue. Eh.

Moving on…

To all of Harvard’s ancient heritage and venerable buildings, MIT offers a striking contrast – daring modern architecture and technology. They have a bulding by Frank Gehry, who is noted for his bizarre and outlandish designs.

We were too close to the building to get a good photo that captures its whole style – but from this you can get a glimpse of its unusual aesthetic. We aren’t exactly sure what this building is used for.

The front of the MIT Architectural School features Ionic columns that simply dwarf the human form:

If you like, as you walk past the public museum on campus, you can be treated to a video exhibit with an outdoor controller. We saw parts of a video on genetic analysis:

That’s it for these campuses. Next up is New York City!