Boston
By "Amanda Latona"
Boston's a fairly large city made up of about 20 neighborhoods, depending
on how you want to look at it. But that's about right. They are as
follows, and I will put their nicknames in parenthesis: Allston, Back
Bay, Beacon Hill, Brighton, Charlestown (townie), Chinatown, Dorchester
(dot), Downtown, East Boston (eastie), Fenway/Kenmore, Hyde Park, Jamaica
Plain (JP), Mattapan, Mission Hill, the North End, Roslindale (rossie),
Roxbury, South Boston (southie), the South End, and West Roxbury
(westie). Please do not make fun of our cute pet names for every
neighborhood. We're not the most eloquent folk in the world.
I know that sounds confusing. Roxbury and West Roxbury are nowhere near
each other and are completely different from each other. Same goes for
South Boston and the South End. And yes we always use those nicknames,
especially the natives from those areas. Also don't ever call
Fenway/Kenmore "Fenway Kenmore," it is either one or the other. I guess
Fenway would be the technical name for the area and Kenmore is the square
that's in it. Yep the ballpark is there, so is my high school right
across the street. I went to Fenway High School and people always get a
kick out of that because they think it's named after the ballpark. The
ballpark was named after the neighborhood. When someone mentions Fenway
we think the place, not the park, unless you say "Fenway Park." Now, a
lot of these neighborhoods are clustered together and have their own
personalities. I guess I will try to go into that as best I can.
Allston/Brighton: right next to each other. Probably the most boring
neighborhoods. Nothing to see here. Middle class, not very urban, lots of
houses and trees and such. There's a big Greek population, though, and
they have some great shops there.
Beacon Hill, Downtown, Back Bay, the South End: these are the most
affluent sections, don't bother trying to get an apartment anywhere here
for a decent price. Well that goes for the entire city but these
neighborhoods especially. They're all in the same area, right downtown
where everything is. You can walk to any store, there's Newbury Street
which I guess is like Park Avenue in New York, that sort of deal. Beacon
Hill is the very most affluent section of Boston. All the politicians
live there. Everyone is a millionaire and they live in huge townhouses
(call it a brownstone in Boston and you die). I used to go trick or
treating there every year because the residents give out entire candy
bars. Who does that? It's pretty and brick and very historic. Mostly
residential but with lots of antique shops, the rich can afford it. Right
next to Beacon Hill is Downtown, which is basically just a square with
lots of shops. No one actually lives in "Downtown." It's not so ritzy and
much more urban than Beacon Hill. Here you'll Find Macy's and such. Back
Bay is residential/shopping. MANY gay men live in this area. It is really
nice, too. Rich livin'. The South End is less nice, but still quite
expensive, and not as gay. More urban, you'll actually find some
minorities living there who rented out or bought space 20 years ago when
prices weren't sky high.
Chinatown is basically downtown, right next to it. It's exactly what you
think it is. Go here for good food.
Charlestown, the North End, East Boston: right next to each other, these
two neighborhoods have a huge history. Townie used to be all Irish (still
is but not as much I guess, I know a few Jewish families who live there
and one mulatto girl) and the North End used to be all Italian. They'd
fight and kill each other all the time. Now real estate in both places
has gotten ridiculous so young affluent yuppies are taking over and
they're not so much family neighborhoods as before. the North End is
trying to hold on to it's past buy opening a new way too fancy way too
expensive Italian restaurant every day. They also have the Fleet Center
where the Celtics play and every big name act goes to perform. My first
BSB concert was there *sob* anyway. If you are from Boston you simply
must know that The Fleet Center used to be The Boston Garden. Every
person over 30 that I talk to STILL calls it The Boston Garden and
refuses to accept that it is now the newly done over and much nicer Fleet
Center. There is a lot of history in this place. Now Eastie, it's the
only part of Boston that is it's own island. You have to cross the
Callahan tunnel or the Ted Williams bridge from Townie to get there.
Possibly the most annoying section of Boston. The airport is there so
forget about comfortable noise levels. Public transportation sucks. It's
just too far out. Eastie is the only place you can still live cheaply in
Boston. It's diverse, many Brazilians live there. The Aquarium is there,
too. God I hate that place.
Dorchester, Roxbury, Mattapan: This is my territory. I was born and
raised in Dorchester. These three sections are basically the "inner city"
or whatever the glamorized word for ghetto is. Of course there are still
nice places to live in each of these neighborhoods. But there are also
bad. Also let it be known that Dorchester takes up about 25% of Boston.
You'd never know that because it's such an unpopular place. There's a
huge Irish community there, a black community, a Vietnamese, Hispanic,
cape verdean and hatian. Dorchester also has it's own sub-neighborhoods
within it: Uphams Corner (that's me), Lower Mills, Ashmont, Field's
Corner, Savin Hill, Dorchester Heights (which is as ritzy as it sounds),
Neponset, and I think that is it. It's huge. 4 out of 5 New Kids On The
Block are from Dorchester, and let me tell you now why I am so amused by
them. No one from Dorchester becomes a big pop star. We become janitors.
They are the same Irish kids running around getting into trouble just
living that life that most others make fun of, they'd normally be called
trash. And they got HUGE. They turned into millionaires, a bunch of
Dorchester boys! Yep. I love'm. Now Roxbury, this is the very worst
section of Boston. Probably has the highest crime rate, certainly least
safe. It's historic, too, and has one of the city's two community
colleges. Not sure what else to say about it. I know it really well.
Mattapan is next to Dorchester and Hyde Park. It's a huge Hatian
community. A lot of it is really nice. A lot of it isn't. Mostly
residential.
JP, Hyde Park, Rossie, : All right next to each other, huge Irish
communities with Hispanic mixed in, too. JP has a huge Hispanic
community, sometimes jokingly referred to as Jamaica Spain. Pedro
Martinez gets his hair cut there. He lives in the most affluent section
of JP, Moss Hill. Joey McIntyre is a JP kid which is why he's always sort
of been the outsider New Kid. He has that Irish kid JP kid sense of
humor, it's hard to describe really. But I love it. I work in JP and
everyone there is like that. JP is my favorite section of Boston. It's
very diverse and has a huge artists and musician community. Real estate
in the past few years has gone through the roof. All the artists are
moving in. It's getting to be a lot more urban. Centre St. is the heart
of JP, lots of really nice family owned restaurants and shops. The people
of JP are highly against big corporations moving in. I worked for a JP
paper a couple years ago and covered a story about how they were trying
to keep KMART out. It was really interesting. JP and Dorchester are side
by side. On the other side of JP is Hyde Park, then Rossie, then Westie.
These places are mostly residential and each one of them is more suburban
than the first. Westie is pretty wealthy and posh. Very suburban.
Southie: in a category all it's own. VERY Irish. Very...harsh. I live
about a block away from the place but I've gone in maybe twice. They have
a beach there so that's nice I suppose. I don't know, there is a lot of
history there. It's the suicide and heroin capital of the world I think.
Just go watch Good Will Hunting already, Matt Damon and his pals are
genuis in portaying the typical Southie boy.
That is just more information than anyone will ever need to know. And
there's still so much to say about the place. We don't all have Boston
accents, only the people who have generations of family here have them,
which means mostly the Irish. No minorities have them. It's a very old
city. All the streets are small, even the avenues and many are one way.
It's not like a grid, the streets are windy and annoying. Everyone here
is a bad driver. No one blinks. The city is constantly under
construction, the biggest project being The Big dig which will be an
underground high way which will abolish route 93, the traffic mecca of
the universe. The Big Dig has been in the works for years and every year
there are more and more problems with it. It will be done sometime in the
year 2090. CONSTANT construction and potholes. There is no need to drive
in this city unless you want a heart attack. Baseball is HUGE here.
You've got to know your red sox if you're a Bostonian. We HATE The
Yankees and we're obsessed with the idea that the Red Sox are under what
we like to call "the curse of the Bambino." The Bambino if you don't know
is Babe Ruth. When he left the Red Sox for the Yankees in 1817 or 1819,
we never again won a world series. We always get close but no cigar. It
is awful. We're also obsessed with football and hockey. And no matter
what the situation is, if something great has happened in this city we
chant "Yankees suck!" because we're just so mature. Did I mention we hate
the Yankees? We really hate the Yankees.
