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Giant objects, odd monuments and things built for no clear reason.
Cambridge, MA
Dozens of bronze gloves are scattered through Porter Square station as if lost by generations of commuters. The installation turns one of the most commonly misplaced winter objects in New England into a permanent underground art cycle.
Boston, MA
An enormous bright-yellow pear stands outside a Dorchester property on Columbia Road. The oversized fruit is a classic giant-object roadside attraction: simple, unexplained at a glance, and almost impossible to miss once you know where to look.
Boston, MA
The enormous head of Boston Pops conductor Arthur Fiedler is assembled from dozens of stacked aluminum plates. From a distance the face looks solid, while closer views break it into thin shimmering slices, creating an unusually effective optical illusion along the Charles River Esplanade.
Wellesley, MA
A 28-foot rotating globe weighing roughly 25 tons dominates the Babson College campus. Built at the direction of eccentric businessman Roger Babson, the enormous sphere was designed as an educational model of the world and remains one of the largest rotating globes ever constructed.
Worcester, MA
A 56-foot miniature feudal castle rises from Salisbury Park as a memorial to historian and U.S. Navy secretary George Bancroft. The stone folly contains small rooms and battlements but was built mainly as an elaborate decorative monument; the grounds are normally open even when the tower interior is locked.
Salem, MA
A bronze Elizabeth Montgomery as Samantha Stephens sits astride a crescent moon in downtown Salem. The statue was installed as a promotional tribute to the television series 'Bewitched,' which filmed several episodes in Salem, and its cheerful sitcom witch makes a strange contrast with the city's real 1692 history.
Gardner, MA
Gardner's history as 'Chair City' produced a series of oversized chairs competing for world-record status. The surviving Bicentennial Chair was erected in 1976 and, although no longer the world's largest, remains a giant monument to the city's furniture-making past.
Salem, MA
A darkly theatrical Salem shop from twin artists Matt and Ryan Murray combines macabre artwork, apparel, curiosities and an immersive gothic interior. It is a contemporary oddities stop rather than a witch-trial site.
Easton, MA
A stone mansion built for eccentric botanist Oakes Ames and artist Blanche Ames stands amid the unusual landscaped estate that became Borderland State Park. Blanche designed much of the house herself and filled the property with artistic and scientific experimentation.
Boston, MA
Four elaborate historical dioramas hide inside the lobby of a Back Bay office building. The miniature scenes are easy to walk past from the street, making them a genuinely hidden bit of Boston history rather than a conventional museum exhibit.
Boston, MA
A giant gilded kettle has hung above downtown Boston since the nineteenth century. It was originally installed as an advertising stunt, complete with a contest to guess how much liquid it could hold, and has survived as a rare piece of oversized Victorian commercial signage.
Worcester, MA
A nude boy rides an enormous sea turtle at the center of this eccentric downtown fountain. Officially named the Burnside Fountain, the sculpture is universally known as Turtle Boy and has become one of Worcester's most recognizable unofficial mascots.
Boston, MA
Boston's oldest Italian café doubles as a museum of vintage espresso machines, coffee equipment and old advertising. The dense collection gives a cup of coffee the surroundings of an accidental technology museum.
Dennis, MA
A 1930 movie theater hides an enormous Rockwell Kent mural across its curved ceiling, filled with constellations, floating figures and celestial imagery. Moviegoers often find the ceiling as memorable as whatever is playing on the screen.
Charlton, MA
A narrow concrete tunnel built in 1926 allowed cattle to pass safely beneath busy Route 20 instead of crossing traffic. The unusual agricultural underpass was preserved during recent trail work and now sits along the Midstate Trail as a wonderfully specific piece of roadside infrastructure.
Worcester, MA
In 1840, miller and Millerite believer Solomon Parsons Jr. carved a roughly 215-word deed into a boulder declaring ten surrounding acres conveyed to God. Parts of the inscription remain legible along trails in the city-owned God's Acre conservation land.
Boston, MA
A painstaking miniature Venetian palace scene is tucked inside the Boston Public Library's McKim Building. The architectural model grew out of one collector's obsession with recreating an ornate European interior in tiny scale.
Eastham, MA
A massive glacial erratic rests beside the road within Cape Cod National Seashore. The boulder was carried here by ice and left behind as the glaciers retreated, producing one of the Cape's largest and easiest-to-reach pieces of Ice Age geology.
Springfield, MA
Bronze versions of the Cat in the Hat, Horton, the Grinch and other Dr. Seuss characters surround a sculpture of Springfield-born author Theodor Geisel. The outdoor garden turns his illustrated universe into a walkable cluster of oversized characters.
Cambridge, MA
A giant fisherman statue stands outside the Royal Sonesta-area/Alewife corridor like a survivor from the classic fiberglass roadside era. The oversized figure has moved over the years, so older photos and maps may show him elsewhere; this pin reflects the currently documented Cambridge location.
Newton, MA
A nineteenth-century aqueduct bridge over the Charles River creates an unusually strong repeating echo beneath its stone arch. A public stairway leads to the echo platform, where a shout or clap can bounce back several times in rapid succession.
Sherborn, MA
A bronze cow marks the grave of Emily, who escaped a slaughterhouse in 1995 and survived hidden in the woods for weeks before being rescued by the Peace Abbey. She became a local symbol of animal welfare, and the memorial preserves one of Massachusetts' strangest animal-escape stories.
Boston, MA
A cavernous Chinatown restaurant occupies the former Globe Theatre, leaving diners surrounded by balconies, ornate plasterwork and remnants of a grand performance hall while eating dim sum.
Boston, MA
An ornate nineteenth-century staircase survives inside a modern office tower even though the building it once served is gone. The preserved steps rise dramatically into contemporary space, looking like a grand staircase disconnected from its original world.
