I am an avid photo taker, not a photographer. I take lots of photos, some of them have come out pretty good; with the amount of photos I take, I’m bound to get a few good ones. Over the years and throughout our travels I have always made it a point to take photos. Since cellphones have had decent cameras they have been my go to and only camera.

All of the photos on the walls of Za, with the exception of 2 photos of windjammer sailboats hung in the men’s room, are photos that I took with whatever cellphone I had at the time. The 2 windjammer photos were taken from an old 35mil camera of mine, back in the 90’s, before the prevalence of cellphone cameras.

My plan is to share some of these images on this blog, telling you a bit about each photo along the way.

While working at EVOO and Za in Kendall Square I would fit some exercise into my schedule by either going to the gym located upstairs from the restaurants or weather permitting I would go for a run. One of my favorite running routes was to head out from EVOO through east Cambridge, Cambridge Crossing, under the Zakim Bridge, across the Charles River locks, through the North End, Faneuil Hall, City Hall, down Cambridge Street and over the Longfellow Bridge back to EVOO.

It’s a great route, Past an awesome skate park, along the Charles, next to the Gahden, looking out on Boston Harbor, past the old Houlihan’s space, where Colleen and I met in 1984. Past the Bostonian Hotel where I worked from ’87 to 97′. There’s a lot of things to look throughout this route including a bunch of American and personal history.

Taking photos during a run was not a one-off thing, you will see in future blog posts about Za photos. I would often stop mid-run to take a photo, there are several other running photos that have made the cut to be hung on the walls of Za. If I saw something that caught my eye, thinking it was cool or that I thought would make a nice photo, I stopped took a quick photo an moved on.

This photo of the Zakim Bridge was taken in August of 2019 and is one of those that I thought, hey this looks cool, so I stopped and took a picture. This photo has also made the rounds. I first had a canvas enlargement made for Za Arlington. we need something on the wall in the men’s room. I also had a copy made for home, to hang in one of our guest bedrooms. I then had a very large canvas made 30×48 and hung it at Za Cambridge for about 5 years until we closed that location. Now the very large canvas hangs in Za Arlington.