Okay, now that we are just about to move back to Providence (thanks a lot, Kepler…), here’s how we paid a fond farewell to Boston with a true Bostonian experience – a visit to the JFK Library and Museum. I was quite taken with the experience. Here’s a sentimental recap.

Really, it’s a combination of a library, museum, and a memorial. The architecture is grand, yet minimal – fine work by I.M. Pei. The planning process was a bit of a debacle, and the site shifted locations from a site Kennedy chose on the Harvard Campus in Cambridge to a former garbage dump in Dorchester. In the end, Pei was not happy with the outcome. But visiting it, one would never know. It’s on a remote peninsula shared by UMass Boston, and it has a beautiful view of the sea – fitting for the role that sailing played in Kennedy’s life.

The museum is a linear narrative. Visitors enter on the second floor, and, from the lobby, get a grand but distant view of the water. There is a landing below, but from here, people are separated from it by a glass partition. One enters a theatre, sees an introductory film, and then exits into the hall of exhibits – the buildup to the Cold War, the space race, the Peace Corps. I found it particularly interesting to see the room with a large map highlighting the former Soviet Union’s global expansion of Communism and next to it – the room featuring the creation of the Peace Corps – implying the undertones of American world expansion in its intent. Subtleties like that were all around.

We learned that Robert Frost (elderly at the time) had written a poem for JFK’s inauguration, but during the ceremony, he wasn’t able to read it in the bright daylight, so instead he recited The Gift Outright from memory.

Also, there was a room dedicated to Ted Sorensen, Kennedy’s advisor and speech writer who just passed away at the end of October. In it, a framed copy of The Elements of Style, from which Sorensen took many cues.

This one's for you, Joe.

We saw a film on the Cuban Missle Crisis. It was frightening how close we came to nuclear annihilation. I also realized that it happened in 1962, one year after most of my dad’s side of the family had left Cuba for the US. However, my grandmother was still living there at the time.

There was a bit on the Space Race, recreations of what some of the White House offices looked like during Kennedy’s term, photos of grand events that Jackie took part in organizing – bringing in Igor Stravinsky and the like.

Toward the end – a dark, narrow hallway with “November 22, 1963 Dallas, Texas” written on one wall. On the opposite wall, television screens of various sizes were scattered at different heights showing a loop of his assassination. Visitors emerge into a bright room showing various buildings, large and small, around the world that bear Kennedy’s name. Then another room showing pieces of Kennedy’s legacy – Apollo 11, a huge piece of the Berlin Wall, the Profile in Courage Award.

Then one emerges into the bottom floor of the room overlooking the sea with the expansive glass walls. Here, one can see a huge American flag hanging from the ceiling (which was not visible from the lobby). Quotes from Kennedy are etched on small pillars spaced out in front of the windows. Very poetic.

Farewell, Boston.