Take Five

 

The poem continues:

Take five steps 

In the area of his direction

We must, of course, somehow find our way to the Puopolo ball field. Krupat’s proposed path from the Boston Public Library to Columbus Park, and from there counting five “steps” (wharfs) north, is as good as any theory that you might find online, but Palencar confirmed on Expectation Unknown that the woman in the image was not Columbus, not by design anyway—and even if it were, that’s not what the poem says! The steps are not taken in the direction of north, but “in the area of” north. “The area of his direction” then refers to the area of north in Boston, in other words, Boston’s North End. Therefore, interpreting the whole sentence we get: Take five steps in the North End. Instead of taking five steps to the North End from Columbus Park, we start in the North End looking for a place where we can “take five steps.”

Let’s see if we can confirm in the image that Boston’s North End is part of the puzzle. Remember the number 112 near the flower? If you look a little to the left, you’ll see a 3 hidden there. To the right of 112 there is a circular indentation in the wall resembling a zero. Writing these numbers in reverse order we get 02113, one of the zipcodes of Boston’s North End. 

The term steps, when outdoors, can refer to a flight of steps, as in the sentence, “Take the steps to the garden.” The phrase, “Take five steps,” therefore, could refer to five flights of steps. The question then becomes—Where in the North End can you take five flights of steps? If you know the North End well, then you know exactly where I’m going with this. If you descend from the south edge of Copp Hill Terrace, heading north, you will take exactly five flights of steps (ignoring a couple very small landings) as you descend to Commercial Street and the Puopolo baseball fields just east of Langone Park. To verify these five flights of steps using Google Earth, you will have to go into 3D mode and pan around a little to be able to see the top flight of steps. There are some trees directly above it obscuring the view. 

A green tower of lights

Most people think, as did I, that this refers to one of the floodlight towers illuminating the Puopolo baseball fields, just west of Langone Park. In the Secret Podcast episode about Boston, George Ward said in passing that someone told him that the floodlight towers were at one time painted a pale green. Hearing this sealed the deal for me. Case closed. 

When typing up my notes for this clue, I had trouble determining which tower of floodlights the puzzle referenced. The poem clearly states that there’s “A tower…,” just one tower—but which one? I also had trouble reconciling the floodlights with the good puzzle principle—it’s not interesting. I carefully ignored these red flags.

Again I turned to my online acquaintance Renovator to review my interpretation. Unsurprisingly, he found a crucial flaw in my interpretation of the line “A green tower of lights.” He had researched this clue and had determined that these floodlight towers were never painted green, that they had always been white. I then had multiple problems with my interpretation and no viable alternative. I could argue the Tobin Bridge fits the description as Krupat had, but a bridge is not a tower. It has towers, but isn’t one. I had to concede that my interpretation was wrong, and I was back at square one. 

Welcome to Level 3.