Talk:Massachusetts State House

Expansion request

The article is missing a considerable amount of history about the previous capital, the commissioning of the current building, and the subsequent expansion. -- Beland 01:27, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

It is funny. We say Mass is not a State-- (Yet is a Commonwealth)

... And we call the capitol building for the place "The State House"... CaribDigita (talk) 14:23, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Massachusetts is a state, whose official name is the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. There are 3 other states that use the term Commonwealth, but despite the name, when the US Constitution uses the word "state", Massachusetts and those other 3 states are included. Massachusetts is not a commonwealth in the sense of Puerto Rico or in the Commonwealth (the organization of Britain and most of its former colonies), or the Commonwealth of Independent States (the 12 former Soviet republics). Bostoner (talk) 06:05, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

formatting needs fixing: edit links

The edit links are messed up on this page--they're appearing clumped at the bottom instead of next to the section headings. Anyone know how to fix it? Thanks! Asbruckman (talk) 02:04, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

External links modified

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The Masonic cornerstone ceremony took place on July 4, 1795 and was presided over by Paul Revere

I added... The Masonic Freemasonry cornerstone ceremony took place on July 4, 1795 and was presided over by Paul Revere - Deputy Grand Master of the Massachusetts Grand Lodge. 2601:589:4800:9090:653B:EC70:5899:F2D2 (talk) 13:07, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

State House additions

The account of the State House additions needs to be de-garbled and expanded. E.g.:

1. "The Commonwealth completed a major expansion of the original building in 1895. The architect for the annex was Bostonian Charles Brigham":

The 2nd sentence is a non sequitur. Were there two different projects—an "expansion" followed by an "annex"? If not, and only one entity is being named, then reduce the 2nd sentence to: "The architect was Bostonian Charles Brigham."

2. "In 1917, the east and west wings, designed by architects Sturgis, Bryant, Chapman & Andrews, were completed":

a) Are you naming a single entity—an architectural firm called Sturgis, Bryant, Chapman & Andrews? Three entities—individuals Sturgis and Bryant, and firm Chapman & Andrews? Four individuals? If the latter, use the English word and.

b) You will have to explain how Bryant could be involved in a 1917 project when he had died 18 years earlier, in 1899.

c) At the risk of being obvious, identify all persons in a Wikipedia article by their complete names—Gridley J. F. Bryant.

Etc.

Jimlue (talk) 03:25, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

Inpopcult trivia

Some weeks ago I removed a number of "In popular culture" items as unsourced trivia. Another editor has restored them -- now with sources -- but I'm concerned that what we now have is sourced trivia:

• In the 1982 film The Verdict, the State House interior is used as both a court house and hospital. – The entirety of the source's [1] text relating to the Mass State House is Other scenes were shot at Suffolk County Court, the State House, Quincy Market, South Boston High School and South Station. Aside from the fact that there's nothing about court houses or hospitals, how does this help the reader better understand the Massachusetts State House? Some scenes from movie X were shot there. So???
• The State House is featured prominently in the 2006 film The Departed as a symbol of the ambition of the antagonist, Colin Sullivan. – The entirety of the source's text [2] is Did you know? In The Departed (2006) the State House stars as a symbol of corrupt cop Colin Sullivan's desire for power. Buildings such as state capitols, city halls, The White House, and the US Capitol are designed to be symbols of power; projecting power is their raison d'être. They're used in movies all the time for exactly that purpose, and pointing out any one particular such use -- though, BTW, there's nothing in the source about "featured prominently" -- is like pointing out, in an article on MacDonald's, that Officer Sullivan needed a quick bite so he stopped for a Big Mac. (If we had a source saying, "Strangely, the Massachusetts State House has never been used in a movie or book as a symbol of power", then that would be worth including in the article.)
  The sort of thing that would belong in the article is some version of The interior of the building is incredibly well preserved due to its historical significance, which makes it an ideal spot for filming period pieces. Unfortunately, that claim is from a promotional website ("On Location Tours: TV & movie-themed tours in NYC & Boston" [3]) which is nothing like a reliable source for such stuff.
• The State House is featured in the children's book Make Way for Ducklings. – What's the source [4] says is Mr. and Mrs. Mallard fly over Boston landmarks ... including the Charles River, the Massachusetts State House, and Beacon Hill’s Louisburg Square, before settling on an island in the Public Garden as the perfect home for their family. But since this source (a review of a community-theater Zoom production) is absurdly inappropriate, and can't even get the plot straight (Mr. and Mrs. M fly over the State House because they are abandoning the Public Garden), let's see what MWfD itself says [5]: So they flew over Beacon Hill, and round the State House, but there was no place there. That's not "featured", and though MWfD is the official children's book of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts [6], this is a trivial passing mention telling the reader nothing about the State House. (I wouldn't be surprised if some source turns up saying something like, "That even small children in the Boston area know and recognize the State House is seen in the fact that it's mentioned in the children's classic MWfD", and if so that might be worth including in the article. But we don't have such a source as things stand.)
• In the 2013 game The Last of Us, both the interior and exterior of the building are depicted, which has been partially destroyed. – The text in the source (a game review) [7] is:

  If you place landmarks in the right places, then seeing those landmarks relates the game-place to the real place. In the game’s Boston, it was the golden dome of the Massachusetts State House. In its Pittsburgh, it’s the Fort Duquesne bridge, as bright-yellow as it is in real life, spanning the Allegheny River north of the city and connecting downtown Pittsburgh to the North Side. The North Side was once the city of Allegheny, a majority of whose citizens voted against its annexation by Pittsburgh in the early 1900s. The law at the time required a majority of pro-merger votes from the combined population of both districts, making it easy for the nearly-three-times-more-populated Pittsburgh to swallow up the smaller municipality. The bridge itself was finished in 1963, but it took six years before ramps on the northern shore of the river were completed. Though it wasn’t used until 1969, a college student drove a station wagon off the end of it in 1964. He survived.

In other words, a passing mention in a sea of rambling trivia (and one giving no support to the article's talk of interior and exterior and destruction).

• The State House is featured in Fallout 4, a video game by Bethesda Softworks. – The source (a four-sentence review [8]) invites the reader to Take a tour of post-apocalyptic 22nd-century Boston but doesn't mention the State House at all, though it's shown in a photo, as are the Bunker Hill Monument, Tobin Bridge, Old North Church, and other stuff you'd expect to see, just as you'd expect to see the Golden Gate Bridge in mutant-invaded SF, the Empire State Building and Brooklyn Bridge in mutant-invaded NYC, and so on. As with all the other overblown trivia entries above, the State House isn't "featured", and this is meaningless trivia irrelevant to the reader's understanding of the Massachusetts State House.

EEng 07:22, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

There being no response, I've removed all this crap. EEng 01:24, 4 June 2022 (UTC)