If you're stuck in Roslindale or West Roxbury next July 4th
By adamg - Mon, 07/04/2005 - 11:52pm.
You can still see the Esplanade fireworks. Turn onto Beech from Washington (right if you're coming from the south; left from the north), then pull into the Bates School parking lot on your left. You'll miss most of the sound and the big booms will reach you a half-second or so late, but you'll get a perfectly clear view of all the fireworks. And if you're lucky, among the 50 or so people watching with you will be this guy with a really loud voice who manages to make the fireworks sound just like sex:
Oh, yeah! Ahh! Ahh! Oh, yeah, THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKIN' ABOUT!
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OMG
Adam, you owe me a new coffee. I just sprayed mine all over the computer.
If you're in Somerville ...
In Somerville, the place to go is Prospect Hill, just above Union Square. But get there early. In its own way, it's just as crowded as the Esplanade, and trees can obstruct some of the view.
A couple of years ago, I was surprised to find out that I could see a lot of the fireworks by standing in the median of Mass. Ave. in North Cambridge, between Rindge Avenue and Dover Street, a block from where I live.
Re: If you're stuck in Roslindale or West Roxbury next July 4th
When I was a little kid and we lived on Fairview St. right next to the Arnold Arboretum, we used to go up on top of Peter's Hill and watch from there. There were also quite a few bottle rockets & such fireworks shot off by the people up there. That hill was known by the people in the neighborhood as "Motley's Hill" back then.
Shooting off bottle rockets
We actually went to Newton for their fireworks yesterday (then stopped on the way back for the Esplanade show). As we walked back to the car on Lowell Street, we were amazed to see these guys, pretty much each one with a beer in hand, shooting off what seemed to be enough fireworks to capture Grenada from their driveway right on the street. All it would've taken was one errant shot to take out several families. The cops, who were everywhere, apparently figured directing traffic was more important.