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One fun thing in each Boston neighborhood
By adamg on Thu, 01/02/2020 - 11:21am
Anna seeks suggestions:
Our family New Year’s resolution this year is to do something fun in every neighborhood in Boston. Help us out with recs from your neighborhood!
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Some answers via Twitter
This is a great idea
A friend of mine who lives in NYC took a week off work and spent one day wandering different parts of each of the five boroughs, which I always thought sounded brilliant - great to see a framework for a similar thing here!
Back Bay and Roslindale
Back Bay - check out the Mapparium at the Christian Science Center
Roslindale - Open house at the Bay State Model RR Museum - next March 7th and 8th. check events at www.bsmrm.org for times and directions (should be updated soon for the March show).
Both have a nominal charge
2 more options
#HarborWalk and #BostonHarborIslands encompass many neighborhoods, cultures and histories.
Not to be too pedantic here
but do the Harbor Islands really encompass that many neighborhoods? I'd call it one or zero neighborhoods, depending on how you're counting.
Well, the Harborwalk
would certainly at least bring you around different neighborhoods.
If one extends the Harborwalk up the Neponset River
You are talking Hyde Park, Mattapan, Dorchester, South Boston (including that seaport-y thing), the Waterfront, the North End, Charlestown, and somehow East Boston.
BHI neighborhoods
Every island has a fairly unique history, and so in the largest sense, they do comprise different neighborhoods. Deer Island: digesters, but also genocide. Calf: movie star ruins and seabird nursery, Peddocks: Portuguese summer islanders, military base, Native American fishery World's End: Olmsted planning, colonial farming, almost UN site Webb: cold war missile silos
Thompson: children's village, Outward Bounds, Native American fishery, colonial farming
According to Merriam-Webster
Just watch what ethnic neighborhood you putz all over in, as definitions of the word vary.
Are you suggesting
something unsavory?
Wait until summer and then....
Bring a picnic dinner to the tables at Millennium Park. The kids can play on the playgrounds or kick a ball around or fly a kite. We try to do this once a year.
Go to a public meeting in
Go to a public meeting in West Roxbury and watch locals lose their shit flipping out about the outside influence of the all-powerful Bike Lobby on their way of life.
They said fun stuff
If they asked for things to do in each of the Boston neighborhoods that will destroy their souls, community meetings, especially involving development, would indeed be the best route.
Ft. Hill / Highland Park neighborhood in Roxbury
Start in John Eliot square and check out the Roxbury Heritage State Park, the Dillaway-Thomas House, the First Church of Roxbury, and the "Parting Ways" 1767 Milestone. Then walk up Highland Street to the park at the top of the hill for great city views and on the way check out the Alvah Kittredge House and the William Lloyd Garrison House.
East Boston
Go to the Don Orione and see the Madonna Queen. It's HUGE. Being a Christian not required.
Then go have a pizza at Santarpio's or Kelley's Pub. Or for a real East Boston time machine experience go to Javeli's. If you go to Javeli's, walk across the street afterwards and take home some cookies or other treats from Spinelli's.
Brighton Waterworks Museum
Beautifully restored and great informative stuff. Right near the reservoir, which is great for a walk run.
Fun Stuff
The Ice Creamsmith - Dot Ave - Lower Mills
theicecreamsmith.com
A hidden gem! This place is
A hidden gem! This place is so good
Hyde Park
No one has mentioned the rural hinterlands of Boston aka Hyde Park.
Maybe hiking in Stoneybrook or the jump gym in Readville.
Rons or golfing?
Bowling at Ron's or golfing at the city course (or is that in Roslindale?)
Museum of African American History
Fascinating museum, located on Beacon Hill. Not free but worth every penny. Also you can take tours of the State House, which are free. But don’t pass up the MAAH.
Another one...
Is on Walnut Ave in Roxbury and I believe it is free
That Roxbury museum
is the National Center for Afro-American Artists, which adjoins a lovely little park.
MAAH Highland Street Foundation Free Fun Fridays
The MAAH is free on certain days
Playgrounds
If they have kids under 10, this is a fun day and I did this with my niece.. actually many came from a tweet I wrote that adam re-tweeted asking about playgrounds. I just strung it all together as a day trip.
Start at Forest Hills Station, and walk *up* the Southwest Corridor park toward Boston. Between Forest Hills and Mass Ave there's like 5 very awesome playgrounds. Then.. hit up the Pru or Boylston Street for lunch, then head over to the esplanade (at Mass Ave) and walk toward Science Park. There's 3 playgrounds there, ending at the mother of all playgrounds near Teddy Ebersol's field (near the start of Storrow Drive). If your child doesn't have fun on that big climby thing.. your kid needs to have more fun in his life. Its awesome.
Its a loooong days walk but a lot of fun to walk and explore. You'll cover several neighborhoods in the process :-)
PS - We've bullt onto this and have decided to go to almost all the playgrounds in the city when my niece comes. We have a city map we mark it off when we've been to one. Sadly she may grow out before we can finish, Boston has so many playgrounds! (that and she's getting older fast)
Walk home
Take the T to a distant stop (such as the Mattapan Trolly) and walk back home or to another distant T stop. You'll enviably come across a bunch of interesting things you never knew existed and have a good time.
Also, while it's not Boston, the Arabic sculptures behind the Apple Cinema at the Alewife (Fresh Pond) plaza are pretty neat and not something often mentioned.
The West End no longer exists, but ...
the West End Museum does, and is worth checking out. Right across Lowell Street from North Station.
You can also visit the New England Sports Museum inside TD Garden.
Symphony/Fenway: public art walking tour
For Boston sports fans there is a prime photo op on the Northeastern campus: the Cy Young statue and home plate marker at the site of the original Boston Americans (later Red Sox) field. And lots of outdoor art to be found around the campus, ranging from Jef Aerosol's stencils to large scale murals.
Around the neighborhood are various music-themed sculptures, the newest installed outside of the NE Conservatory dorm on the corner of Gainsborough and St. Botolph. There's also the clef sculpture at Harry Ellis Dickson Park across from the Symphony Whole Foods, and behind the Whole Foods (across Burbank Street) is Symphony Community Park, which has a sort of deconstructed harp (as well as some beautiful rose bushes).
Of course there is also outdoor art at the MFA: Great Spirit statue, broken french fry sculpture, giant baby heads, the elk about to get shot by an arrow, and the Zen Garden. In warmer months you can sit in the plastic adirondack chairs on the front lawn and watch the E-line trolleys go by, or sit on the back lawn for a quieter vibe.
Of course walk through the Back Bay Fens and the Victory Gardens to see what urban botanical artists are up to. The Emerald Necklace Conservancy headquarters is in the Fens, you can check with them about tours or programs going on, and also borrow a bird watching kit.
The Lower Neponset River Trail: Mattapan/Dorchester
The Lower Neponset River Trail is a fun hike in the Summer and Fall.
If you start by taking the Ashmont–Mattapan High-Speed Line from Ashmont Station to the Central stop you'll have the experience of riding on some of the oldest rolling stock (Trolleys) still in use around the country. Your ride will include a trip through a graveyard which I'm pretty sure cannot be accomplished on Public Transportation anywhere else in the USA and an excellent view of the salt marsh and river which the trail meanders through.
Or if you have to use a car there is parking at the other end of the trail at Pope John Paul II Park. Here's a link to the Mass.Gov website about the trail with some pictures and directions: https://www.mass.gov/locations/lower-neponset-river-trail
I highly recommend that trolley ride. It's almost like a trip back through time.