Boston
City Guide:
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Boston
was, until 1755, the biggest city in America; as the one most directly
affected by the latest whims of the British Crown, it was the natural
birthplace for the opposition that culminated in the Revolutionary
War. Boston has grown up around Boston Common, which was set aside
as public land in 1634. The obvious first stop on any tour of the
city, it is also one of the gems in the string of nine parks (six
of which were designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, America's foremost
landscape architect) known as Boston's Emerald Necklace. Another gem
is the lovely Public Garden, across Charles Street, where the two-ton
swan boats, which paddle across
the main pond, are a less-than-natural, though whimsical, focal point.
The visitor center - the start of the Freedom Trail - is near the
tapering north end of the Common. As you stand here, facing up Tremont
Street with the State House away to your left, the main shopping district,
Quincy Market, and the waterfront are slightly ahead and down to the
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The
modern concrete wasteland of Government Center is straight up Tremont
Street, with the North End beyond - first Irish, then Jewish, and
now very definitely Italian. A short way behind you on the left
rises Beacon Hill , every bit as elegant as when Henry James called
Mount Vernon Street
"the most prestigious address in America"
(and far removed from its eighteenth-century nickname of "Mount
Whoredom"). Heading away from the center down Tremont Street
brings you to Chinatown and the Theater District, while grand boulevards
such as Commonwealth Avenue lead west from the Public Garden into
the Back Bay, where Harvard Bridge runs across the Charles River into Cambridge.
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