The Seaport is the South Boston Waterfront: the land between Fort Point Channel and the harbor, north of South Boston’s residential streets. For much of the 20th century it was piers, warehouses and parking lots. Since the early 2000s, starting with the Silver Line and the convention center in 2004 and the ICA in 2006, it has filled with offices, hotels, apartments and restaurants. What it offers is space and water: a continuous harbor path, big views toward the airport and the islands, and some of the city’s best-known seafood rooms.
Who might not love it: if you came for old Boston, with narrow streets and 18th-century houses, this is not it, apart from the warehouse blocks of Fort Point. Much of the district is corporate on weekdays, and the wind off the harbor makes winter visits brisk.
Getting around
The Silver Line is the Seaport’s subway. SL1, SL2 and SL3 all leave from the underground platforms at South Station and stop at Courthouse and World Trade Center; SL1 then continues to Logan Airport, SL2 to the Design Center and SL3 to Chelsea. The Route 7 bus runs along Summer Street from downtown past South Station and the convention center. On weekdays the MBTA’s Harbor Loop ferry stops at Commonwealth Pier, linking the Seaport with Central Wharf, North Station’s Lovejoy Wharf and Logan.
On foot, cross Fort Point Channel from South Station on the Summer Street, Congress Street or Seaport Boulevard bridge; Fan Pier is about 15 minutes away. The district is flat with wide sidewalks, which makes it one of the easier parts of Boston for strollers and wheelchairs. Bluebikes has docks all over, including Fan Pier, Seaport Boulevard at Sleeper Street and the convention center. Garages are everywhere; street spaces are not.
When to go
Late spring through early fall is the Seaport at its best: patios open, the Lawn on D in season and the Harborwalk full of walkers. Weekday lunch is busy with office workers; evenings and weekends belong to diners and families.
Each November and December, the Snowport holiday market sets up on Seaport Boulevard. Every December, on or around the December 16 anniversary, the Tea Party is re-created, with the tea going into Fort Point Channel by the ships. If you are booking a hotel, check whether a large convention is in town first.
A short history
Development here began in 1836, when the Boston Wharf Company started building wharves and warehouses along Fort Point Channel, first for sugar and molasses and later for wool; most of its brick lofts date from the late 1800s and early 1900s. Farther east, filled harbor flats became the Commonwealth Pier and the Boston Fish Pier, which opened in 1914. The Tea Party’s Griffin’s Wharf, just west of here, was lost to the same kind of landfill.
By the late 20th century much of the waterfront was surface parking. The Big Dig’s Ted Williams Tunnel, the Silver Line in 2004 and the convention center, opened in 2004 and now called the Thomas M. Menino Convention & Exhibition Center, changed that. The ICA arrived in 2006, and in 2010 Mayor Thomas Menino branded the area the Innovation District.
Local tips
The SL1 from Courthouse or World Trade Center is the easy way to Logan Airport, with no transfer.
Bring a layer. The harbor wind here is noticeably stronger than a few blocks inland.
For the old Seaport, detour through Fort Point’s side streets, such as Melcher, Farnsworth and A Street, rather than staying on Seaport Boulevard.
The ICA’s harbor steps are free to sit on and look straight out over the harbor. Go in the early evening.
Address 306 Congress St, Fort PointT South Station (Red, Silver Line)Hours Daily 10 a.m.–5 p.m. (tours); closed Thanksgiving, ChristmasAdmission From $36 adultsPhone 866-955-0667Webbostonteapartyship.comAccess Wheelchair accessible; ramp to the Eleanor’s top deck
This is history as theater, and it works if you play along. The 1-hour tour opens in a meeting house with “Samuel Adams” presiding, then sends you aboard the replica Beaver or Eleanor to heave a chest of tea into Fort Point Channel, as the colonists did on December 16, 1773. A 3D debate between a Patriot and a Loyalist and a short film on April 19, 1775, close it out.
The star artifact is the Robinson Tea Chest, which the museum calls the only known surviving chest from that night. The real Griffin’s Wharf lay about 100 yards away, near the InterContinental Hotel and Independence Wharf on Atlantic Avenue. Tickets are timed, though some walk-up places are held for each tour. No ticket is needed for Abigail’s Tea Room, which pours the five teas that went overboard.
Tip The battle scene in the closing film can be intense for young children.
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Fort Point District
NeighborhoodsIf you have time
Address Along Fort Point Channel, off Congress and Summer StsT South Station (Red, Silver), Courthouse (Silver)Webfortpointarts.orgAccess Mostly level streets and Harborwalk along the channel; South Station has elevators
Fort Point is the brick warehouse district along Fort Point Channel, the old industrial seam between downtown and the Seaport’s glass towers. Artists moved into its empty turn-of-the-century buildings in the 1970s for the low rents and made it one of New England’s largest artist communities; the Fort Point Arts Community, founded in 1980, still supports hundreds of artists a year and runs FPAC Art Space at 70A Sleeper Street.
Cross from downtown on the Congress Street or Summer Street bridge and wander the brick-and-beam blocks along the channel; the Children’s Museum and the Tea Party Ships sit at the water’s edge. The time to come is Fort Point Open Studios, a free weekend in mid-October (Friday evening and Saturday–Sunday afternoons), in four artist buildings plus galleries and pop-ups.
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Boston Children’s Museum
Kids & FamilyWorth a visit
Address 308 Congress St, Fort PointT South Station (Red, Silver Line)Hours Wed–Mon 9 a.m.–4 p.m.; closed TueAdmission $24 ages 1 and up; under 1 freePhone 617-426-6500Webbostonchildrensmuseum.orgAccess Wheelchair accessible; elevator to all three floors
Follow the 40-foot Hood Milk Bottle. It was built in 1934 as an ice-cream stand in Taunton, came to Boston by water in 1977, and has stood on the wharf here ever since. Behind it is the second-oldest children’s museum in the country, founded by teachers in Jamaica Plain in 1913 and steered toward hands-on play by Michael Spock, its director from 1962 to 1985.
Children head first for the New Balance Foundation Climb, a three-dimensional climbing maze. Upstairs are the Construction Zone, where kids pretend to drive a Bobcat and run a jackhammer, and the Japanese House, a two-story silk merchant’s home from Kyoto, rebuilt here by Japanese carpenters as a 1979 gift from Boston’s sister city. Arrive at the 9 a.m. opening with tickets bought online; afternoons are the busiest.
Tip On the first Saturday of each month the museum opens at 10 a.m., not 9.
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Martin’s Park
Kids & FamilyIf you have time
Address 64 Sleeper St (Children’s Wharf, beside the Children’s Museum), Fort PointT South Station (Red, Silver Line), 8-minute walk; Courthouse (Silver Line)Admission FreeWebboston.gov/parksAccess Fully accessible; built for wheelchairs and strollers
Martin Richard was 8 when the second Marathon bomb killed him in 2013, and the park in his name, opened on June 15, 2019, beside the Children’s Museum, is the most joyful memorial in the city. His family asked for a place where every child could play together, so the playground is built around a replica boat that wheelchairs can roll onto, with a water-play garden, climbing structures and open lawn sloping to Fort Point Channel, and five cherry trees stand for the five people who died in the bombing and its aftermath.
It is small; give it 20 minutes before or after the museum, and let the children run. The Harborwalk continues along the channel to the Tea Party Ships.
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Institute of Contemporary Art (The ICA)
MuseumsMust-see
Address 25 Harbor Shore DrT Courthouse (Silver Line)Hours Tue–Wed & Sat–Sun 10 a.m.–5 p.m.; Thu–Fri 10 a.m.–9 p.m. (to 5 p.m. on the first Friday of the month)Admission $20 adults; 18 and under free; free Thu 5–9 p.m.Phone 617-478-3100Webicaboston.orgAccess Galleries, program spaces and theater accessible
Come for the building as much as the art. Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s ICA, opened in December 2006, cantilevers out over the Harborwalk, whose wooden planks rise into an outdoor grandstand where anyone can sit and watch the harbor. Inside, the Mediatheque’s window is cut so that you see nothing but the surface of the water.
The institution is older than it looks: it was founded in 1936 as the Boston Museum of Modern Art and moved its galleries more than a dozen times before landing here. Expect rotating exhibitions of contemporary painting, sculpture, photography, video and performance, drawn partly from a growing permanent collection. In summer, a ferry from the ICA crosses the harbor to the Watershed, its free gallery in an East Boston shipyard.
Tip Free Thursday nights, 5–9 p.m., need an advance ticket.
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Harpoon Brewery
Shopping & DiningWorth a visit
Address 306 Northern Ave, Seaport (Marine Industrial Park)T Silver Line SL2 from South Station; the loop runs along Northern Avenue past the breweryHours Beer Hall Mon–Thu noon–9 p.m., Fri–Sat noon–10 p.m., Sun noon–6 p.m.; kitchen until an hour before closingAdmission Free; tours and tastings $15 (21+, or under 21 with a parent), Mon–Thu 3:30–5:30 p.m., Fri–Sun 12:30–5:30 p.m., up to 15 a groupPhone 617-456-2322Webharpoonbrewery.comAccess Visitor lot closed weekdays until 6 p.m.; pay garage across the street and meters on Northern Ave
Harpoon is the brewery Boston drank before craft was a word: Dan Kenary, Rich Doyle and George Ligeti founded it in 1986, and since 2014 the employees have owned the company. The Beer Hall, beside the working brewery at the far end of Northern Avenue, is a long room of communal tables with a bar that pours the whole range and a kitchen that does one thing well: pretzels, spent-grain with ale mustard and Harpoon IPA cheese, or cinnamon-sugar with butterscotch caramel.
Tours and tastings cost $15, start on the half hour from 3:30 p.m. Monday to Thursday and from 12:30 p.m. Friday to Sunday, and same-day tickets go first come, first served. Come late on a weekday afternoon; Saturday is a scene. Trillium’s Fort Point taproom is the other Seaport brewery; Harpoon is the one with the tour.
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The Lawn on D
Parks & GardensIf you have time
Address 420 D St, Seaport DistrictT World Trade Center (Silver Line SL1, SL2, SL3)Hours Daily May–Oct (closes by Oct 31); hours vary with eventsAdmission FreeWebsignatureboston.com/lawn-on-dAccess Level lawn and paved walks; public restrooms when The Grove is open
The Lawn on D is the Seaport’s backyard, 2.7 acres of grass beside the convention center, set up for the warm months with lawn games, Adirondack chairs, food, drink and a running calendar of live music, markets and game-day screenings. The glowing swings that made it famous are gone, retired after the 2023 season once 10 years of wear had taken its toll.
In their place since 2024 stand Kaleidoscope Garden, a field of lit discs that change color with the wind around a mirrored kaleidoscope, and Urban Grove, seating under a leaf-like canopy that glows after dark. Come at dusk, when the installations light up; on a weekend, arrive in the afternoon and stay into the evening. It suits an hour on a Seaport day, not a special trip.
Where to eat
Restaurants in Seaport District
Seafood is the Seaport’s calling card, from waterfront shacks to polished raw bars, while the brick warehouse blocks of Fort Point hold more relaxed neighborhood places. Office workers pack weekday lunch; book dinner on weekends and on convention or concert nights.
A Fort Point oyster bar in a renovated 1908 textile warehouse, with a long raw-bar list and a lobster roll that turns up on best-of lists. Sit at the bar for oysters and a beer or a glass of wine, or settle in for a full seafood dinner. Open daily from 11:30 a.m.; reserve for dinner.
B
Committee
Greek · $$
50 Northern Ave, Boston, MA 02210 · T Courthouse (Silver Line), 2-minute walk
A Greek ouzeri where meze arrive throughout the meal: order a spread to share and let it come in waves, with ouzo or a cocktail alongside. Lunch runs weekdays, brunch weekends and dinner nightly, with a bar menu in between. It is handy before a concert at the Leader Bank Pavilion; book on weekends.
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Woods Hill Pier 4
New American (farm to table) · $$$$
300 Pier 4 Blvd, Boston, MA 02210 · T Courthouse (Silver Line), 7-minute walk
Owner Kristin Canty’s 360-acre farm in Bath, New Hampshire, The Farm at Woods Hill, supplies much of this harbor-view dining room: pastured beef, pork, lamb and chicken, with raw-milk cheeses and organic produce rounding out the menu. Dishes change with the seasons, so autumn brings squash and pumpkin alongside local fish. Dinner nightly, brunch on weekends; book ahead.
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Yankee Lobster
Seafood · $$
300 Northern Ave, Boston, MA 02210 · T World Trade Center (Silver Line), 12-minute walk
A family-owned fish market and casual restaurant since 1950, out among the working piers at the far end of Northern Avenue. Order stuffed clams, chowder or a traditional lobster roll and eat on the heated patio, which stays open year-round. Lunch and dinner daily from 11 a.m.; no frills, no dress code.
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The Barking Crab
Seafood · $$
88 Sleeper St, Boston, MA 02210 · T Courthouse (Silver Line), 4-minute walk
A red-and-yellow tented crab shack on Fort Point Channel, open since 1994 and now year-round, with a wood stove for winter. Settle in with shellfish, fried seafood and a cold beer, looking across the channel to the downtown skyline. Open from noon daily; it is walk-in friendly, and takeout is pick-up only.
F
Trillium Fort Point
Brewery taproom · $$
50 Thomson Pl, Boston, MA 02210 · T Courthouse (Silver Line), 5-minute walk
The Fort Point taproom of a Boston-born craft brewery, with a full food menu on the first floor, an outdoor patio and a roof deck. Upstairs, the Headroom lounge serves small plates and cocktails in the evening. Open daily from noon (11 a.m. on weekends); reservations are optional and walk-ins are welcome.
G
Elephantine Bakery
Bakery and café · $
332 Congress St, Boston, MA 02210 · T Courthouse (Silver Line), 4-minute walk
The Boston outpost of a Portsmouth, New Hampshire, bakery. Come for croissants and bread in the morning, a sandwich at lunch or weekend brunch, with coffee or a cocktail. Open daily 8 a.m.–3 p.m.; go early for the widest pastry choice.
H
The Smoke Shop BBQ
Barbecue · $$
343 Congress St, Boston, MA 02210 · T Courthouse (Silver Line), 5-minute walk
617-261-7427 · thesmokeshopbbq.com · Reservations on Resy; takeout available
Chef Andy Husbands’ Fort Point barbecue joint makes a welcome break from the Seaport’s seafood. Order a platter of Texas-style brisket or burnt ends, which comes with cornbread and two sides, such as mac and cheese and pit beans, or add a half rack of St. Louis pork ribs. On Fridays and Saturdays, a giant beef rib joins the menu. Open daily from 11:30 a.m.
I
Lolita Fort Point
Mexican · $$$
253 Summer St, Boston, MA 02210 · T South Station (Red Line), 7-minute walk
The Fort Point branch of Lolita Cocina & Tequila Bar takes a modern, polished approach to Mexican food, with margaritas and tequila cocktails to match. Start with guacamole (the Especial adds Maine lobster), then order tacos such as pork al pastor or crispy rock shrimp, or the steak quesabirria. Dinner runs to 11 p.m. or midnight, and the bar stays open later.
Where to stay
Hotels in Seaport District
Boston’s newest neighborhood rose on old parking lots and rail yards along the harbor, and it shows: glass towers, rooftop bars, the Institute of Contemporary Art and the convention center. Next door, Fort Point keeps its brick warehouses and artists’ studios. The Silver Line runs underground from South Station, and the Harborwalk ties it together. Conference-goers, food lovers and families with kids do well here.
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Omni Boston Hotel at the Seaport
Luxury · $$$
450 Summer Street, Boston, MA 02210 · T World Trade Center (Silver Line)
Access Accessible rooms in both towers, many with roll-in showers; visual and audible alarms with door and phone alerts; accessible pool with a lift; accessible vehicles accommodated
Omni’s Seaport tower stands near the Thomas M. Menino Convention & Exhibition Center with 1,054 rooms behind floor-to-ceiling windows. The draw is a fifth-floor rooftop pool and hot tub, heated year-round, with Lifted Restaurant alongside, and six places to eat and drink plus a full-service spa fill the hours between sessions.
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The Envoy Hotel, Autograph Collection
Boutique · $$$
70 Sleeper Street, Boston, MA 02210 · T Courthouse (Silver Line)
Access Accessible rooms with roll-in showers, shower seats and grab bars; wheelchair-width main entrance with room for a ramp-equipped van at the door; elevator to all floors; visual fire alarms
At the mouth of Fort Point Channel, the Envoy faces the harbor and the downtown skyline and serves as a gateway to the Fort Point arts community. Many rooms wake up to harbor views, Rooftop at The Envoy pours cocktails above the channel, and the hotel restaurant is led by chef Tatiana Rosana, a two-time Chopped champion.
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Seaport Hotel Boston
Upscale · $$
1 Seaport Lane, Boston, MA 02210 · T World Trade Center (Silver Line)
Access 23 accessible rooms (one with a roll-in shower, 13 with accessible tubs); hearing kits on request; accessible elevator; pool lift and ramp
An independent hotel on the harbor, steps from the Harborwalk and the World Trade Center stop on the Silver Line. Beds come with the hotel’s own pillow-top mattresses, and a Pillow Library serves fussy sleepers. TAMO Bistro and Bar looks out over Boston Harbor, and the Wave Health and Fitness club comes with an indoor heated pool.
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Renaissance Boston Seaport District
Upscale · $$
606 Congress Street, Boston, MA 02210 · T Silver Line Way (Silver Line); World Trade Center (Silver Line) is close
Access Accessible main entrance; mobility-accessible rooms with roll-in showers; hearing-accessible rooms and kits; pool lift; TTY
One of the Seaport’s original hotels, formerly the Renaissance Boston Waterfront, has emerged from a multimillion-dollar renovation with rooms facing the skyline or the harbor. Capiz Lounge ladles punch-bowl cocktails on weekday evenings and books live music on some Fridays and Saturdays, and a heated lap pool sits behind banks of windows.
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YOTEL Boston
Mid-range · $$
65 Seaport Boulevard, Boston, MA 02210 · T Courthouse (Silver Line)
Access Accessible entrance and elevators; queen and king mobility and hearing-accessible cabins with roll-in showers; TTY; vibrating and strobe alarm clocks
YOTEL calls its rooms cabins, from Premium Queens up to First Class junior suites. The payoff is up top: Deck 12, a year-round indoor and outdoor rooftop bar on the 12th floor with skyline views. The Courthouse Silver Line stop is practically at the door, and Fort Point’s galleries are a short walk.
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Hampton Inn Boston Seaport District
Mid-range · $$
670 Summer Street, Boston, MA 02210 · T Drydock Avenue at Design Center Place (Silver Line SL2), about a 7-minute walk
Access Accessible entrance and elevators; water-view rooms with roll-in showers; hearing-accessible rooms; accessible pool; TTY; vibrating and strobe alarm clocks
A Hampton Inn on Summer Street at the industrial eastern end of the Seaport, a 5-minute walk from the Flynn Cruiseport and a quarter mile from the Leader Bank Pavilion. It suits cruise passengers, concertgoers and convention visitors. Hot breakfast and an indoor pool are included, and a self-pour tap system in the lounge sells beer and wine by the ounce. Parking is valet only, at $62 a night.
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