Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Huge kettle

i posted a picture of this kettle before (here), its outside a starbucks on government center. 2 commenters (jack and ali) then told me that this wasnt a starbucks originally, and i was referred to an interesting article about the kettle by ali. this kettle belonged to the oriental tea company and was hung outside the shop in 1873 (!!!). in 1875, a contest was held to guess the capacity of the kettle, which drew huge crowds. i have seen this kettle so often now, but only when i read this article, did i realize it is a really, really big kettle! apparently on the day of the event, 8 boys and one tall man hid inside the kettle, and appeared when the event started. so... this weekend we went back to have another good look at this kettle, and hanging up there, its still hard for me to imagine that 8 boys and 1 tall man can fit in there!! during the event, the contents of the kettle were carefully measure and as you can see, they are engraved... something i also had never seen before. so cool!!! now i just want to get up there and try for myself.... would i really fit in there?!

4 comments:

Jack said...

Ali outdid me. I didn't know about the article. And, I had no idea it is that big! From below, the size is not as apparent. Even though it is at a Starbucks today, I'm glad that Starbucks preserved this small part of Boston tradition.

biebkriebels said...

It is huge, I think you will fit in it very well. But how to get there?

Unknown said...

I love the measurements for the capacity. I'm going to have to start using gills... "Would you like a gill of wine?"

;-)

Nice photo!

Kay said...

So, will Tim take your picture when you climb out? (And will he post your bail if you get arrested?)