#dudleyhouse

[theunabashedepicurean]

A glamorous glimpse inside the ever so elegant Dudley House conservatory, London. This looks like the perfect spot to cool down in, accompanied by a vodka martini or two. Photography via @rizzolibooks #dudleyhouse #parklane #mayfair #london #hydepark #townhouse #interiors #decor #conservatory #interior #interiordecor #interiordecorating #interiordecoration #interiordecorator #interiordesign #interiordesigner #design #maximalism #maximalist #maximalistinteriors #aristocratic #classicalinteriors #classicalstyle #decorativearts #decorativeantiques #antiquefurniture #rizzoli #rizzolibooks #greathousesmodernaristocrats #historicbuildings (at Park Lane Mayfair) https://www.instagram.com/p/CgM8OKyjlpV/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[aka-xn]

What happens when ghosts haunt other ghosts? #DudleyHouse is the most haunted #manor in Boston, in my eyes. How do we know there are #ghosts? Because of how hard people try to remove them. No one wants them ALL gone. Just SOME, cherry-picking which stay and which are exorcised and forgotten. In the 1980s, Nathaniel Askia established his drug sobriety while incarcerated. Sobriety and #recovery is a challenge under everyday circumstances, so there’s a special degree of human resolve when accomplished within the #prisonsystem. Upon emerging, this brave man sought to help others self-determine. Within Dudley Manor (handed off to him from the #Catholic Archdiocese who had resided there for a spell) Askia’s compassionate program ran for many years. The FIRST Academy vacated the property a few years back. Times change. Budgets thin. Society does not rush support for our vital rehabilitation programs. We instead try to rely on prison and punishment, and callously seek to scrub the difficult haunting of human suffering out of view. These tough ghosts get named “the problem.” We exorcise them with silence and the privilege of money. The House was originally built by David #Dudley in 1825. Dudley was the posh, Puritanical second governor of #Massachusetts Bay Colony, and a proponent of slavery. His glorification has been properly mitigated over recent decades, but this was his house, so his ghost also there remains, and now calls to other pernicious Bostonian ghosts of wealth privilege. Gentrifiers are eyeballing the wondrous, sad mansion, hoping to eradicate the ghosts of ex-convicts trying to better their lives and glorify ghosts of wealthy oligarchs. Yet, Roxbury is in renaissance, so it’s leaders strive to remain linked to human services traditions which are part of the #heritage that makes Roxbury such a symbol of urban community success. One set of ghosts is favored by those seeking to indulge privilege. Another is favored by those seeking to retain community. Being America – being Boston – we know who is likely to prevail. 
And so the grand Manor sits, quietly haunted and loved from afar, awaiting whichever exorcism lies in it’s fate. ▫️ #akaXN #TheRealXN (at Nubian Square) https://www.instagram.com/p/CIdqwIrDin3/?igshid=1x5c8z2wq7q0a