Roofscape is devoted to the enjoyment and
enhancement of the urban outdoors around the world. The magazine
explores all aspects of outdoor urban living - nature and the
environment, history and historic city walks, sports and recreation,
gardening and landscaping, alfresco cooking and dining, outdoor
living and work spaces, plus the sky and stars overhead.
Roofscape soft-launched
on June 1 and we're still doing buildout - scaffolding up, sawdust
flying, wood shavings strewn everywhere, sparks flying; a combustible
mix. Clearly we're a work in progress. The official launch will
be on August 1. Thanks for your patience. It will soon pay off.
Are you a writer, photographer or visual artist
with a passion for city life and the urban outdoors? We'd like
to work with you. Get in touch ... contact@roofscapemagazine.com.
If you enjoy Roofscape, why not make
it yours? Support us by making a contribution via Tipjoy.
Whenever moved, simply click the TJ button in the nav
bar to the left on every page in the magazine. We'll both feel
the joy.
Journal glimpses
the world of Roofscape - our garden, lives, studio, loves,
office and pets. Plus it's packed with photographs and images.
You'll also get to meet our 350 garden neighbors, contributors
and staff.
Get your rooftop, backyard or house party
started with Radio Roofscape. Our sole mission, should you accept
it, is simply to shake your thing. R&B, jazz, rock, house,
hip-hop, soul, reggae, blues and gospel are all in the mix. Whatever
it takes to rock your body and the party, power up your workout
or make love.
Radio Roofscape 2 grooves too, but more intimately,
down tempo. Chill with an eclectic mix of ambient, cool jazz,
slow dance, minimalist, trance, world, aleatory, new age, dub,
soundtrack, acoustic and folk.
Then, one time in the summer, when I was
working in my father's grocery store, this girl I liked came
in. She lived right around the corner. Her name was Frankie.
Charles Thiesen has a new story, Frankie,
of summertime tannning, awakening, longing and daydreaming.
"High over the city a pair of hawks is
circling, riding a thermal rising from the sun-baked buildings
and streets. Their cries are primal and unearthly, their flight
effortless and elegant."
Red-tailed Hawks have become regular urban
residents around the country. We're getting up close and personal
with these magnificent birds looking at everything from from
their dining habits and table manners to their sex lives and
parenting style.
In many places, bicycles have
the legal status of vehicles with the same rights, responsibilities
and governed by the same rules as all motorized vehicles on the
road. The bicycle as vehicle is legal fiction, of course. Bikes
have no parity - in terms of power, lethality, pollution and
demand on city services - with the motorized vehicles that rule
our streets. We're going to look how we really ride and safe
strategies for 'riding the rules'.
When I graduated from college in 1971,
I moved to Vermont to explore a simpler lifestyle. A few days
after I arrived, a friend told me I had to plant a garden. City
boy that I was, I thought he meant flowers. No, he meant vegetables
- organic vegetables. And so my gardening life began. A Jamaica Plain writer and attorney makes a compelling
case.
Prostitutes' Pasta
is cheap, fast and easy with a pungent perfume that you can smell
coming at you from blocks away. This spaghetti dish with a tarted-up
red sauce, sporting a scarlet name, escaped from the brothels
of Naples.
Paths to the Past presents walks back through
history.
Our first offering, On the Trail of Black
History, is a walking tour through time along Boston's Black
Heritage Trail which winds its way around Beacon Hill, formerly
the center of the city's African American community.
This is a fascinating, tragic and eventually
triumphant tale which has never been fully told until now.
Question ... Mount Whoredom was, or possibly
still is, located where in Boston?
Possible answers ... A - Beacon Hill. B - The Combat Zone.
C - Merrymount. D - Lansdowne Street.
Correct Answer ... Mount Whoredom, as it's
labeled on Colonial maps, was a small summit of the Tri-Mount
up above what is now Louisburg Square on Beacon Hill. It was
Boston's original red light district, an open air version, and
the ladies of the night were mounted by the Continental Army,
Redcoats camped on the Common and generations of the Puritan
city's fathers and sons. The Mount was leveled and a covent built
on the spot. The dirt was dumped in the Charles River and the
Charles Street Meetinghouse built on the new land.
Images ... Navbar: Muse of the Magazine, Old
South Church, Boston. Top to bottom: Bongo in Squaresville, Boston.
Red-tailed hawk and nestlings, by Thomas O'Neil. The African
Meetinghouse, Beacon Hill, Boston. Sign at the Lucy Parsons Center,
South End, Boston.
