Yo, Yelp: Boston may be small, but it's not that small

By adamg on Tue, 07/14/2009 - 7:50pm

Yelp Boston thinks Allston/Brighton, Dorchester, Jamaica Plain and Roslindale are "beyond city limits!" Maybe it's time to break down and actually hire editors from the area? Nah.

Via Bostonist.

Neighborhoods:

Topics:

Free tagging:

Ad:

Like the job UHub is doing? Consider a contribution. Thanks!

Comments

Whoa

By eeka on Tue, 07/14/2009 - 8:35pm.

I posted basically exactly that in some of the threads.

http://1smootshort.blogspot.com

Funny

By Sock_Puppet on Wed, 07/15/2009 - 8:19am.

Leighann's response to you is pretty funny, and deserves reposting.

...The first part featured patio dining in Boston Proper... and this issue focused on patios beyond Boston proper. Allston, Brighton, JP, etc. are not located in Boston proper, but are part of the city of Boston, very much in the same way that Queens and Brooklyn, while not located in Manhattan (which New Yorkers refer to as 'the city') are still part of the City of New York.

Hope that clears up any confusion!

Sure does. Nobody could confuse her for a Bostonian now.

Man, there's nothing like somebody who is not from Boston and doesn't live in Boston explaining Boston to Bostonians because she should know based on the expertise in New York she got from being from New Jersey.

Eeeka posted a nice response

By HenryAlan on Wed, 07/15/2009 - 9:17am.

Eeka posted a nice response to her ignorant condescension. I threw a bit more fuel on the fire, too, heh, heh.

Seriously, doesn't she know

By ShadyMilkMan on Wed, 07/15/2009 - 9:09am.

Seriously, doesn't she know the easiest way to turn a Bostonian against you is to even bring up New York?

That's the problem with all your bridge and tunnel people

By adamg on Wed, 07/15/2009 - 9:32am.

Never mind that the headline for the discussion itself is "Patio dining outside of the city....Allston? Cambridge? Brighton?" because New Yorkers clearly know the city better than the locals.

OK, yes, technically, there is a "Boston Proper," but, and somebody please correct me, doesn't it only consist of the parts of Boston that existed back in, oh, 1680, like the North End, Beacon Hill, part of downtown and what's left of the West End?

guidebooks too!

By david_yamada on Wed, 07/15/2009 - 9:37am.

These omissions are rampant in the city tourist guidebooks too. They're all about Beacon Hill, Back Bay, North End, Cambridge, and that's about it. Maybe a smattering of back-of-the-book mentions for other 'hoods.

That might be considered

By HenryAlan on Wed, 07/15/2009 - 9:38am.

That might be considered original Boston.

I don't know, I have to go with Cliff Clayburn on this one. There was a Cheers episode in which he was trying to impress upon somebody that Boston was a truly big city. He said something along the lines of "while your Boston proper has a population of 600,000, the greater Boston consists of several million people." Clearly he meant the complete city by Boston proper. How can we accept any other definition?

"Boston Proper" vs. "Downtown"

By Laura on Wed, 07/15/2009 - 9:57am.

I remember buying a Frommer's guide when I first moved here (hey, I was 17), that referred to "downtown" as Beacon Hill, North End, Govt. Center, Financial District, Downtown Crossing and the waterfront--i.e., the old city limits prior to the mid-19th century. So if that's downtown, perhaps Boston Proper would include those neighborhoods plus Back Bay, the South End, and the Theater District, but not the areas that were originally separate cities (Allston/Brighton, Roslindale, etc.)

However, the Yelp article clearly didn't refer to either "downtown" or "Boston proper," so it's a moot point. I love NYC, so that reference on her part didn't bother me--except that in NY, the 75% of the population that doesn't live in Manhattan really hates those who refer to Manhattan as "the city."

"the city"

By Saul on Wed, 07/15/2009 - 11:10am.

I grew up in Brooklyn, and always say I am from NY when asked, but would still say "I'm going to the city" when referring to Manhattan. There may still be a sign or two in some old Brooklyn subway stations -- I'm thinking on the Q -- that were old railroad stations predating the 1898 city merger, that say "To City".

Sure, you'll find that here,

By HenryAlan on Wed, 07/15/2009 - 11:14am.

Sure, you'll find that here, too. Most commuter rail stations, whether or not they are outside of Boston, have a sign on the inbound platform that says "trains to Boston." That really means trains that terminate in Boston, rather than somewhere else. And people around here will talk of going "in to town," in the same way you talked of going to the city. But as you note, when asked where you are from, you say New York.

Guess it varies from person

By Laura on Wed, 07/15/2009 - 11:21am.

Guess it varies from person to person. Most of my family is from NY and didn't use "the city" for Manhattan.

Back in my day ...

By Saul on Wed, 07/15/2009 - 11:33am.

... Brooklyn was its own proud city, and joining New York City was the worst mistake ever.

NYC never made sense to me.

By ShadyMilkMan on Wed, 07/15/2009 - 11:47am.

NYC never made sense to me. It is so big was there really a need to combine all of the boroughs? Each one is big enough to be its own city anyway.

Not to Rain on Your Parade...

By Matt L on Wed, 07/15/2009 - 9:49am.

... and definitely not to defend Yelp, but a lot of people who live in the "Boston Proper" neighborhoods think the exact same thing. I've heard many old time North Enders describe Brighton as not being in Boston. Is it a dumb distinction? Maybe. But there is a reason for it (history) as irrelevant as it might be today.

Those must be really old North Enders

By Ron Newman on Wed, 07/15/2009 - 10:09am.

if they remember a time when Brighton wasn't part of Boston (before 1874) !

While its true people

By ShadyMilkMan on Wed, 07/15/2009 - 10:16am.

While its true people consider parts of Boston outside of downtown to be like their own little burbs nobody with any sense says they are not part of Boston itself.

Yes, that's the crux of the

By HenryAlan on Wed, 07/15/2009 - 10:18am.

Yes, that's the crux of the matter. I live in Roslindale. It is a neighborhood in Boston. It's hardly rocket science.

bridge and tunnel

By david_yamada on Wed, 07/15/2009 - 10:36am.

Adam invoked the "bridge and tunnel" line in one of his replies, and that probably captures the mentality we're dealing with. West Rox, JP, Rozzie, etc., are Boston's outer boroughs for those who think about the city in tourist/guest mode.

It's okay. Do I really want my favorite places in JP loaded up with tourists? (Then again, I can understand why the businesses would be only too happy...)

And yet

By Jay Levitt on Wed, 07/15/2009 - 7:00pm.

I gotta confess... I lived near Landmark Center for a while, and if you'd asked me "Hey, want to go into Boston tonight?" I wouldn't have considered it a nonsensical question.

My address was Boston. If you asked me if my apartment was located in Boston, I'd probably say yes. But if you asked me where I lived, I'd say "Near Fenway". (Unless we were in some other city, in which case I was from Boston. Even now, in Cambridge, I'm from Boston.)

Then again, I grew up in Long Island, my grandparents lived in Brooklyn, my mom lives in Queens and my sister in Manhattan, or as, it's known there, "the city".

So there you go.

And on the other side....

By Pete Nice on Thu, 07/16/2009 - 12:22am.

If you meet someone in Florida that is from Billerica and ask him where he is from.........they are going to say 'Boston'...

When dealing with people not from the area ...

By SwirlyGrrl on Thu, 07/16/2009 - 9:04am.

such as a conference when people are from all over the globe, I don't say that I live in Medford. It is meaningless.

I say that I'm from Boston. People know that is a US city. If people know the area, they ask what part of the metro area I live in.

Exactly even people from

By ShadyMilkMan on Thu, 07/16/2009 - 9:58am.

Exactly even people from Salem, Braintree and Framingham all say Boston when asked by someone from outside New England.

Retards

By Kaz on Wed, 07/15/2009 - 10:49am.

The lot of them.

IMAGE(http://www.cityofboston.gov/POLICE/images/dist_map_bg.jpg)

A-1 Downtown/Beacon Hill/Chinatown/Charlestown
A-7 East Boston
B-2 Roxbury/Mission Hill
B-3 Mattapan/North Dorchester
C-6 South Boston
C-11 Dorchester
D-4 Back Bay/South End/Fenway
D-14 Allston/Brighton
E-5 West Roxbury/Roslindale
E-13 Jamaica Plain
E-18 Hyde Park

This is a map of "Boston". If you want to dine "al fresca" outside of Boston, don't be inside of these lines. Thanks.

If you're trying to claim you meant "Boston Proper" or "original Boston" or some other nonsense, please refer yourself back to the map above and show me the district you're talking about. It doesn't exist. "South Boston" is as "Boston Proper" as "Back Bay/South End/Fenway" or "Downtown/Beacon Hill/Chinatown/Charlestown".