Modern-day Boston in a nutshell by the New York Times

This is likely to spark outrage among the readership Adam. I have to say, this was actually a pretty standard format and tone for these NYT "36 hours in ___" and was genrally free of offensive invectives and derision. This is, of course, with the exception of every New Yorker's inability to make reference to any marginally Italian neighborhood as anything other than "Little Italy" and its mention of the gastronomic "inferiority complex" that apparently exists in The HUB. I was able to brush off those slights by imagining what nose-look-donwery might be found in one of these pieces on (gasp) Chicago, or other western frontier villiages. Heavens, what would cause you to leave Manhattan for one of THOSE areas?!

Little Italy? I have seen travel writing like this before.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/european-men-are-...

It's the NORTH END. Never Little Italy. Little Italy is in NYC.

The usual condescending New York tone. I have to say, though, the comments on the North End were right on, despite the mis-labeling. I recently spent an afternoon there with some teenage girls, and I'm thinking 'Chow time!", but we spent the whole afternoon going from one boutique to another. Where did they all come from?

In the pop-up map accompanying the article (http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2010/08/05/trave...), Charlestown is misspelled. No "w". Guess they didn't take the trip across the bridge from "Little Italy" to see.

These facts will remain true:
new yorkers will be arrogant, they will think they're better than everyone in the world because of media bias,
and they will never admit to anything in Boston is better...even though it is...
For a little history lesson, check out Boston during the roaring '20s, it was well on it's way to being bigger than it is today, i.e. if Filenes (creator of the department store as we know it) would have not been bought out by Macy's (which started here in Mass. by the way) imagine where we would be in fashion today.
Boston is finally beginning to catch up to where it's supposed to be, after being held back by conservative political leaders and closed minded developers. Let's continue this forward progress!!

..a 36 hour agenda of things to do and see in Boston. Wasn't that the point of the article? Nothing really hipster-sheek in there at all. Oh, right the PBR reference? I suppose it would be better if the world saw Boston as an old curmudgeon of a town and just went elsewhere with all their vacation and business and education dollars. Give me the Combat Zone and the old raised tracks and old man barrooms or give me death.

Wonder if the "modern sheen" includes filling in the Back Bay and building Comm. Ave.? 'Cause I'm pretty sure Paul Revere wouldn't recognize that, either.

To tell from UH posts and comments, modern-day Boston is about mentally-ill elderly exposing themselves on the subway, blacks and latinos shooting and stabbing people, and locals having nostalgia for the past or plain refusing to acknowledge the present.

....came to Boston as a child (Somerville,Jamaica Plain) and gotta laugh at the NYT usual condescension, especially regarding Boston (it's quaint, cute.....and my favorite line from this cheesy article '....as it [Boston] gets more diverse....' ALWAYS gotta throw in a comment about diversity....apparently any city that's just 50/50 minority/white like Boston isn't diverse enough. Those white ethnics just aren't cool enough for the hipsters. I don't know what town the Times reporter is talking about because I've traveled a great deal in the military, for business and pleasure and this city is actually remarkably diverse, and has been since at least since I was a kid in the 80's. As for the rest of the article, it sucked. ALL travel articles suck. But I think the worse one for Boston that I've read was out of the Lonely Planet. The female Australian author went on and on about how precious and cute Beacon Hill was, and how it looked like a fake Hollywood set. She of course adored Manhattan though.

Of course Bostonians never speak condescendingly about the rest of the country. We never smirk at, belittle, or feel superior to other regions that we know nothing about. No snobs or chauvinists in Boston. But we do fret about New York Times articles.