The Mini Rough Guide to Boston, 2nd Edition (Rough Guide Pocket)

INTRODUCTION

Boston is as close to the Old World as the New World gets, an American city that proudly trades in on its colonial past, having served a crucial role in the country’s development from a few wayward pilgrims right through the Revolutionary War. It occasionally takes its past a bit too seriously – what might pass for a faded relic anywhere else becomes a plaque-covered tourist sight here – but none of that detracts from the city’s overriding historic charm nor its present-day energy. Indeed, there are plenty of tall skyscrapers, thriving business concerns and cultural outposts that are part-and-parcel of modern urban America, not to mention excellent mergers of past and present, such as the redeveloped – and bustling – Quincy Market, a paradigm for successful urban renewal. No other city gives a better feel for the events and personas behind the birth of the nation, all played out in Boston’s wealth of emblematic and evocative colonial-era sights. But the city’s cafés and shops, its attractive public spaces, and the diversity of its neighborhoods – student hives, ethnic enclaves, and stately districts of preserved townhouses – are similarly alluring, going some way to answering the twin accusations of elitism and provincialism to which Boston is perennially subjected.

As the undisputed commercial and cultural center of New England, Boston is the highlight of any trip to the region, truly unmissable as almost every road in the area leads to it (indeed Boston was, until the late-1700s America’s most populous and culturally important city). It’s also the center of the American university system – more than sixty colleges call the area home, including illustrious Harvard, in the neighboring city of Cambridge. This academic connection has also played a key part in the city’s long left-leaning political tradition, which has spawned a line of ethnic mayors, and, most famously, the Kennedy family.

Today, Boston’s relatively small size – both physically and in terms of population (it ranks eighteenth among US cities) – and its provincial feel actually serve the city to advantage. Though it has expanded since it was first settled in 1630 through landfills and annexation, it has never lost its core, which remains a tangle of streets clustered around Boston Common that can really only be explored on foot. Steeped in Puritan roots, local residents often display a slightly anachronistic Yankee pride, but it’s one which has served to protect the city’s identity; indeed, the districts around the Common exude an almost small-town atmosphere, and, until recently at least, were relatively unmarred by chain stores and fast-food joints. Meanwhile, groups of Irish and Italian descent have carved out authentic and often equally unchanged communities in areas like the North End, Charlestown, and South Boston. Even as Boston has evolved from busy port to blighted city to the rejuvenated and prosperous place it is today, it has remained, fundamentally, a city on a human scale.

WHEN TO VISIT

Boston is at its most enjoyable from September through early November, when the weather is cooler and the long lines have somewhat abated (though they are never totally absent), and in late spring when the magnolia trees on Commonwealth Avenue blossom and the parks spring back to life. The former time also happens to roughly coincide with New England fall foliage season mid-September to mid-October and Boston is a convenient point of departure to make such specialized trips to the countryside; in the city itself the leaves change colors a bit later, sometimes well into November. Summer is the most popular time to come, both for the warmer weather and frequent festivals, but July and August can be uncomfortably humid, and you ll have to fight with large student-related influxes around graduation time in early June and the beginning of school near Labor Day. Boston winters can be harsh affairs: they tend to run from late November through March, but, thanks to the moderating influence of the Atlantic, mild spells often break the monotony of chilly days and snowfall is lighter than in the interior regions of New England. No matter when you go, be prepared for sudden changes in the weather in the space of a single day: a December morning snow squall could easily be followed by afternoon sunshine and temperatures in the 50s.