Boston has grown up around
Boston
Common, which was set aside as
public land in 1634. The obvious
first stop on any tour of the city,
it is also one of the gems in the
string of nine parks (six of which
were designed by Frederick Law
Olmsted, America's foremost
landscape architect) known as
Boston's
Emerald Necklace .
Another gem is the lovely
Public
Garden , across Charles Street,
where the two-ton
swan boats
($1.50), which paddle across the
main pond, are a less-than-natural,
though whimsical, focal point.
The visitor center - the
start of the Freedom Trail -
is near the tapering north end of
the Common. As you stand here,
facing up Tremont Street with the State
House away to your left, the
main shopping district, Quincy
Market , and the waterfront
are slightly ahead and down to the
right. The modern concrete wasteland
of Government Center is
straight up Tremont Street, with the
North End beyond - first
Irish, then Jewish, and now very
definitely Italian. A short way
behind you on the left rises Beacon
Hill , every bit as elegant as
when Henry James called Mount Vernon
Street "the most prestigious
address in America" (and far
removed from its eighteenth-century
nickname of "Mount
Whoredom"). Heading away from
the center down Tremont Street
brings you to Chinatown and
the Theater District , while
grand boulevards such as
Commonwealth Avenue lead west from
the Public Garden into the Back
Bay , where Harvard Bridge runs
across the Charles River into Cambridge.
