Acorn Street is often called the most photographed street in Boston, and by some accounts in America. This single, one-block cobblestone lane on Beacon Hill runs between Willow Street and West Cedar Street, lined with narrow Federal-style brick row houses, flower boxes, and gas-style lamps. The uneven “cobs” underfoot are original stones, making it one…
Salem Street is one of the principal thoroughfares of Boston’s North End, the city’s oldest residential neighborhood and a one-square-mile peninsula jutting into Boston Harbor. For generations it was the commercial spine of the Italian-American North End, lined with salumerias, fruit stands, and grocers. That heritage endures: Polcari’s Coffee, a fixture since the early 20th…
The Paul Revere Mall, known to locals as The Prado, is a tree-shaded pedestrian corridor in the heart of the North End, running between Hanover Street and the Old North Church. Created in 1933, this roughly 480-foot cruciform walkway is bounded by high coped-brick walls and lined with linden trees and granite benches, offering a…
Chestnut Street is one of Beacon Hill’s most admired residential streets, a brick-lined corridor that captures the neighborhood’s early-19th-century character. Its rowhouses showcase the Federal style that defines the Hill, with elegant doorways, fanlights, Palladian windows, and wrought-iron railings. The house at 53 Chestnut, built in 1828, is a frequently cited example of the street’s…
Mount Vernon Street is one of the grandest and most admired residential streets on Beacon Hill, climbing from near the Charles River up toward the Massachusetts State House and passing the tree-shaded Louisburg Square along the way. Lined with stately Federal and Greek Revival brick townhouses, many set back behind small front gardens, it is…
Beacon Street is one of Boston’s storied thoroughfares, beginning downtown beside Boston Common and climbing a block up Beacon Hill to meet Park Street directly in front of the Massachusetts State House, with its gleaming gold dome. From there the street runs west for miles, threading through the Back Bay, Fenway-Kenmore, the Boston University campus,…
Kenmore Square is a busy commercial crossroads in Boston’s Fenway-Kenmore area, where Commonwealth Avenue, Beacon Street, and Brookline Avenue converge a short walk from Fenway Park. Surrounded by Boston University buildings, hotels, restaurants, and shops, it serves as a lively gateway for baseball fans, students, and visitors heading toward the ballpark and the Fenway cultural…
Louisburg Square is the most exclusive address on Beacon Hill, a graceful enclave of red-brick Greek Revival row houses framing a private gated park. Laid out beginning in 1826 by the Mount Vernon Proprietors on land once owned by painter John Singleton Copley, the surrounding homes were built between roughly 1834 and 1847. It was…
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