The heart of the modern city is the compact downtown area, which serves as the city’s commercial and financial district. This area contains a number of historical landmarks, including the Old State House, Granary Burial Ground, and Old South Meeting House. Old South Meeting House is where American revolutionary leaders Samuel Adams, James Otis, and John Hancock conducted many of the protest meetings leading to the American Revolution (1775-1783).

On the southern end of the district is Chinatown, with its concentration of Chinese restaurants and food stores. To the north is an area known as Government Center, developed in the 1960s. City Hall and the John F. Kennedy Federal Building are located there. Not far from Government Center are two Boston landmarks: Faneuil Hall, built in 1742 as a public market and a place for town meetings, and Quincy Market, a retail and wholesale distribution center for meat and produce that was renovated in 1976 to form a festive food market.

To the west of the downtown is Boston Common, an open area originally reserved by colonists for grazing cattle. The Common is the oldest public park in the United States. The State House, which serves as the state capitol building, stands at the north end of the Common. Built from 1795 to 1798 by U.S. architect Charles Bulfinch, the gold-domed statehouse dominates Beacon Hill, a neighborhood that has been the traditional home of wealthy Bostonians. The neighborhood remains a prime address and contains many historical houses with handsome brick facades. Founded in 1807, Boston Athenaeum moved to its present building on Beacon Street in 1847. Privately operated and opened to members and their guests, the Athenaeum is one of the oldest libraries in the United States. It has notable historical collections on the American Civil War (1861-1865) and the works of 19th-century antislavery activists known as abolitionists, as well as other 19th-century materials and a rare book collection that includes 15th- and 16th-century materials.

The West End, which borders Beacon Hill north of Cambridge Street, changed radically as a result of urban renewal projects. In the 1960s the city razed tenements in the area. The Charles River apartment complex now dominates the neighborhood. One survivor of the razing was Massachusetts General Hospital, incorporated in 1811 and one of the nation’s leading medical institutions. Northeast of the hospital, in an old commercial district, is the FleetCenter, a sports and music arena opened in 1995 to replace an aging facility, Boston Garden. The Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the Boston Bruins of the National Hockey League (NHL) play at the FleetCenter. The Museum of Science is located north of the hospital on the Charles River Dam.

Northeast of the downtown is the North End, the site of historic buildings such as the house of American patriot Paul Revere, the Old North Church, and Copp’s Hill Burying Ground. Paul Revere’s House is the oldest surviving house in Boston. It is the place where he departed on his historic ride in 1775 to warn anti-British forces in Lexington and Concord of the approach of British troops sent to seize military supplies held by the colonists. Old North Church is the city’s oldest church. The North End is separated from the downtown by the Fitzgerald Expressway (Boston’s main north-south traffic artery). Known as Boston’s little Italy, the North End is a district of Italian restaurants, groceries, and three-story brick apartment buildings. During August, festivals and religious celebrations take place on the North End’s narrow streets.

Water separates two of Boston’s neighborhoods from the rest of the city. Across Boston’s Inner Harbor, East Boston straddles Logan Airport. It is predominately an Italian neighborhood of one-, two-, and three-family homes. Charlestown, located across the Charles River, has long been a tightly knit, middle-class Irish community, although it began attracting professionals to its central area starting in the 1980s. Bunker Hill Monument and Museum are found here as well as the Boston Navy Yard, a National Park Service Historic Site. It is the site of the USS Constitution, the oldest commissioned warship in the United States.

The Back Bay was created by landfill in the late 1800s to the west of Beacon Hill and Boston Common. Today it is a residential area of brownstone townhouses laid out on a grid pattern of streets dominated by the wide east-west boulevard of Commonwealth Avenue. Commercial centers are located on Copley Square, Boylston and Newbury Streets, and at the Prudential Center. Two important architectural sites at Copley Square are the Boston Public Library and Trinity Church. Boston’s two tallest buildings, the John Hancock Building and the Prudential Center, dominate the skyline of the Back Bay.

Separated by the Massachusetts turnpike (Interstate 90) from the Back Bay area, the South End is a trendy and diversified neighborhood with many upscale restaurants, art galleries, and renovated Victorian row houses. West of the South End is Fenway, one of the most ethnically diverse neighborhoods in the city. The population has substantial numbers of African Americans and Hispanics and includes the largest concentration of Asians in Boston. The Fenway area is notable for its educational, cultural, and recreational facilities. Boston University, the New England Conservatory of Music, Northeastern University, the Museum of Fine Arts, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and the world headquarters of the Christian Science Church are located here. Fenway Park, one of the oldest baseball parks in Major League Baseball, was built in 1912 for the Boston Red Sox.

East of the South End, across a narrow strip of water known as the Fort Point Channel, is South Boston. Once called America’s Dublin, South Boston housed a host of immigrants by 1900, many from Ireland. The area has maintained its ethnic and economic diversity as well as its attractive Victorian architecture. Boston Children’s Museum and the neighboring Computer Museum are located in the area.

The remaining neighborhoods lie west and south of the city center. Roxbury is a largely black neighborhood and one of the poorest residential areas. Franklin Park, the city’s largest park, is located here. Dorchester evolved from an upscale Victorian-era suburb to a working-class community, first attracting Irish-Americans and Jews and later a mixture of ethnic groups and blacks.

Jamaica Plain, one of the first U.S. suburbs connected to a major city by streetcars, is a residential area with a mixture of Hispanic, black, and white populations. Arnold Arboretum and Jamaica Pond are located here. Roslindale remains a quiet, predominately white, working-class community full of families and three-story houses. Roslindale borders West Roxbury, a predominately white, middle-class area, and Mattapan, a predominantly black residential area. Hyde Park still resembles a suburban town.

The neighborhoods of Allston and Brighton occupy the northwest corner of the city to the west of Fenway. The Allston-Brighton area is bordered to the east, north, and west by the Charles River and to the south by the Massachusetts Turnpike and the town of Brookline. It is an industrial and residential neighborhood that is also the location of Boston College and Harvard University Business School. Boston has been unsuccessful in annexing Brookline, the birthplace of U.S. president John F. Kennedy and an affluent suburb only 6 km (4 mi) from the center of Boston.

Real Estate: United States - Massachusetts

Vacation Rentals: Masschusetts - Cape Cod - Martha's Vineyard

The City of Boston Official Web Site

The Boston Globe