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State's list of great places a bit short
By adamg on Mon, 07/19/2010 - 10:33am
The Herald reports the state's list of 1,000 Great Places really only has 996 places listed - and some of those are closed.
But who cares? The Kowloon Restaurant and Sullivan's at Castle Island are on the list (although so is Cheers. Really? Cheers?).
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Comments
Every time someone comes in
Every time someone comes in from out of town they want to go to Cheers. I normally discourage it but sometimes I have to bite my tongue and go. They get confused when you ask them if they want to go to the real Cheers that looks fake or the fake Cheers that looks real. I have a friend coming in for Labor Day weekend, guess where he wants to go...
Kowloon. Really? Kowloon?
I can understand the Phantom Gourmet's love for it: the Andelmans went there regularly as kids, and of course the restaurant regularly buys ads on the show: they would claim to love prison food if MCI-Cedar Junction were a sponsor. But highlighting this Vegas-cheesy purveyor of gloppy, 50s-vintage American-Chinese food as a "great place"? These lists are always controversial, but that entry doesn't make me feel proud to be from MA.
Fun place, just don't eat there
I think the building itself is a hilarious place, quite entertaining to me. The cheesy fountain, decorations, furniture, are all classic kitsch stuff. That makes the place worth visiting. For about 10 minutes to look around. The fun stops if you actually order something to eat.
Them's fightin words
Long live the 'Loon!
Were it not for the trendy, national collectability of tiki lounge-related bric-a-brac I'm sure it wouldn't make the list (and maybe it shouldn't if we're talking a list of higher brow sites to visit, museums, historic and natural beauty sites) -- but any institution that lasts as many years and goes as strong as Kowloon has, is going to have a lot of resonance for the people who remember picking up $300 worth of take out on 31st December, wedding proposals, graduation parties, special events etc, that begin to span over generations within a family.
I'm not so sure that people visiting from out-of-state or country will be quite so impressed with the place, but this list has much more to do with locals who already know the places than with visitors looking for the unique and salient sites of Massachusetts.
(I'm still trying to figure out how Wakefield annexed Breakheart Reservation from Saugus...)
If you're going to put a Saugus restaurant on the list,
wouldn't the Hilltop Steak House be a better choice?
Agree, luckily...
.....they have at least four blank spots to fill in, put the HIlltop as one of 'em!
Saugus Restaurants
The Hilltop has slipped in quality over the years -- not sure if it would still make the list (not sure which list that would be -- certainly not "1,000 Great Places" of MA, maybe "1,000 Kitschy Places" of MA, "1,000 Sentimental Urban Roadside Oddities" of MA?).
Now Prince Pizzeria (as Kowloon) has maintained a constant quality level over the years; I'll let the big plate, vertical food people decide exactly where that level is. As far as Saugus goes, get off the beaten trail (or given the traffic, beat you trail) and stop in at the Hammersmith Inn or Kane's Donuts.
And even the snobby foodies must genuflect a tad as they drive past the one and only Karl's Sausage Kitchen. (Can't help but get X's cover of 'Soul Kitchen' stuck in my head whenever I drive past.)
If they're going to list the entire Greenway
They should have just put the entire Saugus/Lynnfield strip - starting with the orange dinosaur - on the list.
I understand where you're coming from...
but the broad audience this list is aimed toward won't care. Not in the least. Local bartenders' drift toward tiki purism is laudable and the argument for authenticity in ethnic cuisine (especially when the veggie-laden genuine article is better than the Americanized alternative on several levels) has merit, but you're assuming that anyone cares about either when they go to Kowloon. Much like the Bali Hai and the area's other lingering '50s era tiki joints, the appeal draws from the exact opposite of what you're angling for. Kowloon, like the Hilltop, et al., is a dying vestige of roadside kitsch. The "Vegas cheesy" atmosphere is an ant lodged in amber, preserved for generations. The Andelmans, for all their questionable food reviewing, likely aren't the only Mass. residents who ate there when they were kids and, like those who mourn the extinct cottage hotels and buffalo burgers of Route 66, view the Kowloon as one of the last vestiges of that culture as part of a heritage worth preserving -- msg-laden warts and all. Establishments like Kowloon thrive because of simplicity and sentiment and retain exactly what a place like Sacco's Bowl Haven loses in its transition to a flatbread pizza outlet: Familiarity. It goes largely against the mission of a food critic -- whose mission, in part, is to broaden and refine the reader's palate -- but Kowloon is the beneficiary of the same preservationist spirit that maintained many of the other sites on this list.
Roadside kitsch
If you're a fan of it, as I sometimes am, I highly recommend a drive along the Mohawk Trail -- Route 2 from Greenfield to North Adams. A throwback to pre-1950s automobile touring culture.
"1000 Great Places" list is an embarrassment
The list is lame and filled with errors. Some attractions are listed in the wrong towns, some are misspelled, some are closed or inaccessible to the public. This program makes the state government and specifically its tourist office look bumbling and incompetent. Check out the comments here and here, for instance.
In other words....
"This program makes the state government and specifically its tourist office look bumbling and incompetent."
No surprise from this corner!
I haven't checked, but heard
I haven't checked, but heard that there are some places that are listed twice by name and by name with "The ..." before the name of the place, occupying 2 spots on the list, not just in a lookup index.
Duplicates
Yes, there were several such duplicates, including The Longfellow Bridge, and Mount Auburn Cemetery which was listed under both Cambridge and Watertown.
okay list, but kind of amateurish
There are a lot of great places and a few dumb ones. Ben Franklin Institute of Technology is a fine institution but nothing to look at. Kelly's Roast Beef is spelled Kelley's. Also, can't they combine Charlestown Navy Yard, the Constitution Museum, the USS Constitution and the USS Cassin Young to make room for, say, Trinity Church? It's not a bad list, it just feels a little amateurish in places.