Not one to be sour over over the incident, Paul Tavilla set a Guinness World Record in 1988 by catching a grape in his mouth dropped 60 stories off the top.

Today, for six bucks, you can get a rise out of going up to the observatory. A 3D map with blinking miniature buildings is strobed by disco lights recreating the Boston Massacre every 10 minutes.

 Get a view from the top

Smoot - There It Is

You can see the Harvard Bridge over the Charles River when you look down on Boston from the Hancock Tower. Don't let the name fool you. The Harvard Bridge does not end at Harvard. It goes to the campus of MIT. MIT students in 1958 thought the bridge would be easier to cross in the fog if it had markers. So they took their friend Oliver Smoot and used him as a human ruler. The bridge is 364.4 Smoots long and they get painted yearly.

Hardly Harvard

When you do reach Harvard Yard (pronounced Hahvahd Yahd) it is important to note that the statue of Harvard is not really John Harvard at all. Nobody knows just what he looked like. That included Daniel Chester French, who had his friend fill in as the model when he went about sculpting it.

A plaque proclaims Harvard was founded in 1636. It was actually 1638. And truth be known, Harvard did not found Harvard, he just donated the library. The only thing correct with the Harvard statue is the skinny legs. Harvard did have tuberculosis and that was a symptom.

Now you can tell all your friends you got a Harvard education.

John Hancock Tower
200 Clarendon Street
Boston, MA

John Harvard Statue
Old Yard, Harvard University
Cambridge, MA