As you are walking in Boston’s Back Bay make sure you skyward and you’ll see the impressive 176 foot tall bell tower of the First Baptist Church of Boston.
The frieze atop this tower was designed by Frederic Auguste Bartholdi in 1876. If the name sounds familiar, he is the same French sculptor that created the Statue of Liberty. Other famous works by Bartholdi include The Lion of Belfort in France and the Bartholdi Fountain in the US Botanical Gardens in Washington DC to name a few.
The work in Boston, called the Frieze of Angels, is stunning. At each corner there are trumpeting angels, the areas in between represent baptism, communion, marriage and death. Look closely and you just may see some familiar faces – Bartholdi patterned some of the them after Emerson, Lincoln, Longfellow, Sumner, and Hawthorne.
Because the angels on the corner look as though they are ready to sound off at any moment, the church has been affectionately dubbed the “The Church of the Holy Bean Blowers” by some. It is located on Commonwealth Avenue and Clarendon Street, one block off of Newbury.
Get Up, Get Out, and Look Up! Be forever Wandering But Not Lost.