Holiday markets

Skating rink at Boston’s City Hall Plaza Winter Market in 2016

From Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com

Reading about the “Winter Market’’ on Boston’s often reviled City Hall Plaza last year got me thinking that a similar place for vendors (including of wine and beer) and such family-oriented activities as face-painting and clowns, and illuminated by holiday lights, might do well on Westminster Street, Kennedy Plaza or in Memorial Park, all in cozy downtown Providence, from a week or two before Thanksgiving through New Year’s.

Back in Boston, the City Hall Plaza event won’t happen this year because the windswept plaza is being renovated. However, the Boston Guardian reports that the city is looking into having a holiday season market and beer garden this year at glorious Copley Square, upon which many people from Greater Providence walk every day after alighting from the Back Bay Amtrak/MBTA station. It’s one of the world’s great public places, with the Boston Public Library and Trinity Church facing each other.

Statue of Anglo-American painter John Singleton Copley (1738-1815) in Copley Square. In the background is the Hancock Tower and Trinity Church.