Rainy Day Field Trips

Claire Donnelly

@paperandpints

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When the Sox are in a rain delay and my lecture notes are starting to look like cave paintings, I go walk around other people’s archives. These are the museums I actually return to, the ones where I know which staircase to take without looking at the map and where the guards now recognize my “I swear I’m leaving after this gallery” face. Expect art, ships, bones, and at least one place where I’ve definitely graded blue books on a bench while eavesdropping on tourists.

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Rainy Day Field Trips — 9 items
Name	Address	City	My take
1Museum of Fine Arts	465 Huntington Avenue	Boston, MA 02115	My home court for art history. I bring students to the mummies, then quietly sneak off to the Japanese prints; there’s a specific bench near the Sargent portraits where I’ve outlined entire semesters and one regrettable grant proposal.
2Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum	25 Evans Way	Boston, MA 02115	Looks like Venice, smells like potting soil and old money. I go to check on the empty frames and the nasturtiums, and to marvel that an entire museum operates on the vibe of a very opinionated aunt’s living room.
3Institute of Contemporary Art	25 Harbor Shore Drive	Boston, MA 02210	Where I go to remember that history didn’t stop in 1968. The building itself is all sharp angles and harbor views; I’ve definitely spent an entire visit watching the water instead of reading a single wall label.
4Museum of Science	1 Science Park	Boston, MA 02114	My inner ten-year-old sprints straight to the lightning show; my adult self pretends it’s purely for pedagogical reasons. Bonus: it’s the only place in town where I’ve heard a Van de Graaff generator compared to a bullpen reliever and it actually made sen
5USS Constitution Museum	Building 22, Charlestown Navy Yard	Charlestown, MA 02129	You come for ‘Old Ironsides,’ you stay because the museum quietly explains how a wooden ship outlived half the empires that built it. I once lost twenty minutes to a single sailor’s diary and missed my Orange Line train entirely.
6Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum	306 Congress Street	Boston, MA 02210	Yes, it’s theatrical. Also yes, it’s the most efficient way to watch a boatload of tourists become sudden experts on taxation policy. I secretly enjoy how many people gasp at real wooden crates like they’re priceless artifacts.
7John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum	Columbia Point	Boston, MA 02125	Part archive, part time capsule, part very dramatic ocean view. I go when I’m teaching the 1960s and need my students to physically walk through the optimism section before we hit the footnotes.
8Old State House	206 Washington Street	Boston, MA 02109	You exit the T straight into the 18th century, give or take a skyscraper. I like standing in the balcony room, imagining town meetings, and then counting how many people outside are lost on the Freedom Trail map at that exact moment.
9Boston Athenaeum	10½ Beacon Street	Boston, MA 02108	Technically more library than museum, but the art on the walls and the busts judging your life choices say otherwise. I once spent an entire rainy afternoon in a red leather chair here pretending to write about Puritans and actually reading 19th‑century g

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