25 Sep 2025 September’s Office Artifact: Passport to Public Art
This month we present you with HBI’s copy of Boston’s Passport to Public Art!
This orange pamphlet was commissioned by the City of Boston under Mayor Kevin H. White’s administration in partnership with Boston’s Public Art Commission. The pamphlet unfortunately does not include a publication date within it, but Kevin White served as Boston’s Mayor from 1968- 1984. Additionally, the pamphlet references a 1976 art piece commissioned for the Bicentennial. So, we can say with confidence that this pamphlet was created between 1976 and 1984.
We suspect that it wound up in HBI’s care as the Chairman of the Boston Public Art Commission was one of our founding Board members, William B. Osgood.
Most, if not all, of these art installations remain for Bostonians to go and find. A couple of nearby favorites for us are the gravestone of Joseph Tapping in King’s Chapel Burying Ground and Mags Harries’ 1976 Asaroton (Unswept Floor) installation in Haymarket’s open-air market.
If you do go visit the grave of Joseph Tapping, be sure to stop and see King’s Chapel’s recently unveiled memorial to the 219 women, children, and men enslaved by the chapel’s past ministers and congregants, on the corner of School Street. You can read all about Tapping’s unique gravestone immediately at the entrance to King’s Chapel’s Burying Ground, but a profoundly beautiful sculpture to the memory of those enslaved awaits your attention too, as the newest installment on the Freedom Trail.
Crossing City Hall Plaza and descending the steps to Faneuil Hall, hang left for Haymarket. You may walk through Boston’s largest open-air market everyday and miss “Asaroton.” Inspired by the Roman mosaic style, “asaroton” created the illusion of an unswept floor where leftovers are depicted to convey the “opulence of the food that the owner of the house could not only afford to eat, but even waste.” In 1976, Mags Harries sought to pay homage to Haymarket’s enduring public market with this piece. Her vision intended to “valorize the everyday.” When the market was open and stalls were up, the installation became a natural part of it. When the market was closed, it remained as an echo of it.
“Let the Passport take you to places you’ve never been in Boston, and let it make you more aware of the places you often pass but never really see. ”
-Mayor Kevin H. White
