Boston Things to Do Tips by rids

Chinatown
Boston's authentic Chinatown lies wedged into just a few square blocks between the Financial and Theater districts, but it makes up in activity what it lacks in size. Just lean against a pagoda-topped payphone on the corner of Beach and Tyler streets - the neighborhood's two liveliest thoroughfares - and watch the way life here revolves around the food trade at all hours. By day, merchants barter in Mandarin and Cantonese over the going price of produce; by night, Bostonians arrive in droves to nosh in Chinatown's restaurants. Continue walking down either street, and you'll pass most of the restaurants, bakeries and markets in whose windows you'll see the usual complement of roast ducks hanging from hooks and aquariums filled with future seafood dinners. The heart of Chinatown contains little in the way of sights, and the atmosphere is best enjoyed by wandering around with no particular destination in mind.
There are a few important landmarks, such as the impressive Chinatown Gate, a three-story red-and-gilt monolith guarded by four Fu dogs at the intersection of Hudson and Beach streets, a gift from Taiwan in honor of Chinatown's centennial. Adjacent Tian An Men Park provides a place to rest, but it's poorly kept, generally littered with trash and inhabited by fearsomely aggressive pigeons. See my Travelogue for photos of the gate and peking duck.

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Other Contact: The Chinese Historical Society o

Six tall hollow glass pillars erected as a memorial to victims of the Holocaust. Built to resemble smokestacks, the columns are etched with quotes and facts about the human tragedy, with an unusual degree of attention to its non-Jewish victims. Steam rises from grates beneath each of the pillars to accentuate their symbolism, an effect that's particularly striking at night.

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Address: Union Street

Boston Common
Boston's famous park is Boston Common, a fifty-acre chunk of green, which is neither meticulously manicured nor especially attractive, though it effectively separates downtown from the posher Beacon Hill and Back Bay districts. It's the first thing you'll see emerging from the Park Street T station, the central transfer point of America's first subway and a magnet for small demonstrations and, unfortunately, panhandlers.
Established in 1634 as *a trayning field* and *for the feeding of Cattell,* as a slate tablet opposite the station states, the Common is still primarily utilitarian, used by both pedestrian commuters on their way to downtown's office towers and tourists seeking the Boston Visitor Information Pavilion, just down Tremont Street from the T, which is the official starting-point of the Freedom Trail. The shabbiness of the southern side of the Common is offset by the lovely Beacon Street Promenade, which runs the length of the northern side, from the gold-domed State House to Charles Street, opposite the Public Garden.
Even before John Winthrop and his fellow Puritan colonists earmarked Boston Common for public use, it served as pasture land for the Reverend William Blackstone, Boston's first white settler. Soon after it disintegrated into little more than a gallows for pirates, alleged witches and various religious heretics; a commoner by the name of Rachell Whall was once hanged here for stealing a bonnet worth 75¢. Newly elected president George Washington made a much-celebrated appearance on the Common in 1789, as did his aide-de-camp, the Marquis de Lafayette, several years later. Cattle have not grazed here since 1830. Ornate eighteenth-century iron fencing encircled the entire park until World War II, when it was taken down for use as scrap metal: it is now said to grace the bottom of Boston Harbor.

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Address: Park Street T .
Other Contact: This is one of those *blurry-art

Central Burying Ground
Established in 1756. Artist Gilbert Stuart, best known for his portraits of George Washington - the most famous of which is replicated on the dollar bill - died penniless and was interred in Tomb 61. Among the other notables are members of the largest family to take part in the Boston Tea Party, various soldiers of the Revolutionary Army and Redcoats killed in the Battle of Bunker Hill. From the Burying Ground it's a short walk to Flagstaff Hill, the highest point on the Common, crowned with the pillar of the Civil War Soldiers and Sailors Monument. A former repository of colonial gunpowder, the hill overlooks the Frog Pond.

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Directions: Southeast corner of the Common, near the intersection of Boylston and Tremont streets.

The Frog Pond
Once home to legions of unusually large amphibians and site of the first water pumped into the city, it is a kidney-shaped pool, used for wading in summer and ice-skating in winter.

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Address: Boston Commons.

Brewer Fountain
It is an 1868 bronze replica of one from the Paris Exposition of 1855.

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Address: Park St. T, Boston Commons.

Custom House Tower
Surrounded by 32 huge Doric columns, the Customs House was built in 1847. The Greek revival structure with monolithic Quincy granite columns was designed by Ammi Burnham Young. In 1915, it was surmounted by Peabody & Stearns’ 495-foot, 30-story Classical Revival-style tower. For more than 30 years it was the tallest building on the Boston skyline. Here duties were collected and maritime business conducted as Boston clipper ships circled the world. Not surprisingly, it is no longer the tallest skyscraper in New England, but it still adds character to the Boston skyline as seen from the harbor.

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Address: McKinley Square (State Street and India Street).
Other Contact: You can se

Faneuil Hall
Merchant Peter Faneuil built this building in 1742 and donated it to the town. It was enlarged in 1806. For over 250 years the first floor has served as a marketplace and the second floor as an open forum meeting hall. Because of the protests against the British taxation policies voiced here during the 1760's, the meeting hall is dubbed the 'Cradle of Liberty'. The fourth floor houses the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company Museum. Faneuil Hall itself doesn't appear particularly majestic from the outside; it's simply a small, four-story brick building topped with a Georgian spire. The structure once housed an open-air market on its first floor and a space for political meetings on its second, a juxtaposition that inspired local poet Francis Hatch to pen the lines, *Here orators in ages past / Have mounted their attacks, / Undaunted by the proximity / Of sausage on the racks.* Faneuil Hall was where revolutionary firebrands such as Samuel Adams and James Otis whipped up popular support for independence by protesting British tax legislation. The first floor now houses tourist shops and fast food places that make for a less than dignified memorial; you'll also find an information desk and a post office. The auditorium on the second floor has been preserved to reflect modifications made by Charles Bulfinch in 1805, the focal point being a massive - and rather preposterous - canvas depicting an imagined scene of Daniel Webster speaking in Faneuil Hall as a range of luminaries from Washington to de Tocqueville look on.
During the War of 1812, folks in Beantown who were suspected of being spies were asked what flew atop Faneuil Hall as a weathervane. Those who knew it was a grasshopper were trusted as true Bostonians; those who didn't were regarded with suspicion, and sometimes even decapitated.

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Directions: Faneuil Hall is located adjacent to the Quincy Market building. Government Center or State Street T.
Other Contact: Daily 9am-5pm; free.

Quincy Market
The markets just behind Faneuil Hall - three parallel oblong structures that house restaurants, shops and office buildings - were built in the early eighteenth century to contain the trade that had quickly outgrown its space in the hall. The center building, known as Quincy Market, holds a super extended corridor lined with stands vending a variety of decent if pricey take-out treats - the mother of the city's modern food courts, it was built in 1822 under the direction of Boston's mayor at the time, Josiah Quincy. To either side of the market are the North and South Markets, which hold restaurants and popular chain clothing stores, as well as specialty shops. You'll also find the usual complement of street musicians, fire-jugglers and mimes, weather permitting. There's not much to distinguish it from any other shopping complex, although there are several good restaurants and a nice concentration of bars, which are scarce elsewhere in the downtown area.

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Address: State Street T.
Other Contact: Mon-Sat 10am-9pm, Sun noon-6pm;

Boston Public Library
Like a visit to an art gallery. The Boston Public Library was founded in 1848 as America's first major free municipal library. Its current location in Copley Square is composed of two interconnected structures: the building designed by Charles Follen McKim and completed in 1895, and the Philip Johnson-designed building added in 1972. (Johnson is the same architect who designed the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas.) The McKim Building is used to store the library's research materials, and is kept open to the public both as a historical site and a functioning research library.
Take a look at my Library Travelogue for a photo tour.

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Address: 700 Boylston Street, across from Copley Square.
Other Contact: The Volunteer Office of the Libr