1,000 Places to See in the U.S.A. & Canada Before You Die (13 page)

Spring Returns to New England on Foot

Boston, Massachusetts

Spring arrives in Boston in various guises—a robin, a crocus, a legendary footrace. The Boston Marathon is the world’s oldest annually contested marathon and one of the most prestigious. It’s also the centerpiece of the
city’s celebration of Patriots Day, the third Monday in April, a state holiday commemorating the start of the Revolutionary War. As thousands upon thousands of runners set out from suburban Hopkinton and make their way along the course, crowds pour into the streets to cheer them on. Half a million spectators line almost the entire route, raising spirits and bolstering resolve even on the toughest stretch, in the steep hills of Newton. (Paradoxically, the overall course loses so much elevation that an official world record can’t be set in the Boston Marathon.)

The Boston Marathon dates to 1897, just a year after the first modern-day marathon (in the Athens Olympic Games). Fifteen men started, and the winner took nearly 3 hours to cover the 24.5-mile course. Today the race is the regulation 26.2 miles, and the runners are both male and female. Most of them start in two waves, at noon and 12:30, a relatively new strategy to alleviate crowding. Professional competitors pursue cash prizes and international prestige, but the vast majority are amateurs motivated by the cachet of being able to say they “finished Boston.” The 20,000 official runners qualify either by completing another marathon within a certain time or by joining a charity fund-raising program. But the race also has a rich history of bandits—unofficial competitors who jump in behind the pack at the start or midway, sometimes in costume, and run just for the experience. Most of the field (minus the inevitable dropouts) eventually winds up on Boylston Street in Boston’s Back Bay, crossing the finish line in front of the Boston Public Library.

W
HERE:
starts in Hopkinton, 26.2 miles west of the finish line.
Race info:
Tel 617-236-1652;
www.bostonmarathon.org.
When:
Patriots Day, the 3rd Mon in Apr.
W
HERE TO
S
TAY:
Charlesmark Hotel, tel 617-247-1212;
www.thecharlesmark.com.
Cost:
from $99 (off-peak), from $199 (peak).
B
EST TIMES:
around 2
P.M.
in Kenmore Square, when the lead runners are passing by; near the finish line in late afternoon, when determined amateurs persevere.

Baseball’s Preeminent Cathedral

Boston, Massachusetts

Fenway Park is the oldest major league ballpark in America. When it opened in April 1912, William Howard Taft was president, the
Titanic
had just met its fate, and Babe Ruth wasn’t yet in the minors. Boston is a
baseball town, in large part because of the beloved park and its star-crossed occupants, the Red Sox. Part of the park’s appeal is its quirky architecture. Left field is short (just 310 feet from home plate) but tall—“The Wall,” which holds the hand-operated scoreboard, rises 37 feet. Famously known as the Green Monster, The Wall is painted green and topped with some of the most desirable seats in the park.

The most famous of the ballpark’s 33,871 seats (the smallest capacity in the majors) is seat 21 in deep right field, in row 37, section 42, the only red seat in a sea of blue. It marks the point, 502 feet from home plate, where Ted Williams deposited the longest home run ever hit in the park, on July 9, 1946.

Fenway Park’s first night game was held on June 13, 1947.

Part of Fenway’s appeal these days is the redemption the Red Sox earned by winning the World Series in 2004, for the first time since 1918. And a big part of it is the history that oozes from every brick and board. The gold standard of the Fenway experience is watching a late-season Red Sox–Yankees game with playoff implications as you devour a Fenway Frank, but even a lazy midsummer tilt with an uninspired visiting team and some soggy popcorn can be magical.

If you don’t manage to see a game or take one of the year-round tours of the ballpark, you can always soak up the atmosphere at one of the area’s many sports bars. The Cask ’n Flagon, across the street, is a traditional memorabilia-packed hangout. Inside the park (but without a direct entrance—you have to enter through the turnstiles), Game On! is high-tech sports-fan heaven. It attracts a young crowd with its dozens of high-definition and plasma TVs, and a sound system designed to create the illusion that you’re actually in the stands. It’s nothing like the real thing, but it is close.

W
HERE:
Ticket office, 4 Yawkey Way. Tel
877-
RED-SOX
-9 (tickets) or 617-226-6666 (tour info);
www.redsox.com.
Cost:
tickets $12–$275.
When:
regular-season games Apr–early Oct.
C
ASK ’N
F
LAGON:
Tel 617-536-4840;
www.casknflagon.com.
G
AME
O
N!:
Tel 617-351-7001;
www.gameonboston.com.
B
EST TIMES:
early–mid-Apr for Opening Day; any Yankees game; Oct for (fingers crossed) playoffs and World Series.

A Stroll Through a Young America’s History

Boston, Massachusetts

One of America’s great walking cities, Boston is best explored by following the 2.5-mile self-guided Freedom Trail that unfolds through its historic neighborhoods. Laid out in 1958, the trail connects 16 important sites
, extending all the way across Boston Harbor to Charlestown. The signposted path is a line of red paint or red brick (or both) that runs down the center of the sidewalk. It begins at Boston Common, the nation’s oldest park (1640), and runs past Colonial and Revolutionary War–era landmarks such as churches, graveyards or “burying grounds,” monuments, and houses of government, as well as the USS
Constitution,
better known as Old Ironsides, the oldest commissioned U.S. Navy warship (1797).

The Paul Revere House, constructed of wood around 1680 and purchased by the legendary silversmith (of “Midnight Ride” fame) in 1770, is the oldest dwelling in downtown Boston. Revere’s church is on the Freedom Trail, too. Still an active congregation, the “one if by land, two if by sea” Old North Church has stood in the North End since 1723 and makes a fascinating stop. Another famous house of worship is the Old South Meeting House, where disgruntled Bostonians gathered on a cold night in December 1773 and wound up throwing the so-called Boston Tea Party.

Also on the trail is Faneuil Hall (1742), Boston’s original market building and once the colony’s foremost meeting hall. Today it’s the center of a five-building complex of shops, nightspots, and restaurants. Durgin-Park, a restaurant on the second floor of the North Market Building, boasts that your great-grandfather might have eaten there, which actually seems too modest—the restaurant opened in 1827. Known for its lively atmosphere and hearty New England food, its tried-and-true signature dishes are corn bread, baked beans, and Indian pudding; the prime rib, turkey dinner, and Boston cream pie all need to be sampled, too.

Just across the street from the marketplace in the tiny, ancient area known as the Blackstone Block is Ye Olde Union Oyster House, the country’s oldest restaurant in continuous service. Its famous raw bar is visible from the street, and you can see the shuckers opening oysters and clams so quickly that their hands are a blur. Regional classics like oyster stew, lobster, and gingerbread are time-tested favorites here. The path to your table, across sloping wooden floors, may take you past Booth 18, where John F. Kennedy used to sit and read the paper.

W
HERE:
The trail begins at the Visitor Information Center on the Tremont St. side of Boston Common, but you can pick it up anywhere along the way. Tel 617-357-8300;
www.thefreedomtrail.org.
D
URGIN
-P
ARK:
Tel
617-227-2038;
www.durgin-park.com.
Cost:
dinner $25.
Y
E
O
LDE
U
NION
O
YSTER
H
OUSE:
Tel 617-227-2750;
www.unionoysterhouse.com
.
Cost:
dinner $35.
B
EST TIMES:
May–Oct for pleasant walking weather; Apr for Freedom Trail Week; early July for Boston Harborfest; mid-Dec for Boston Tea Party reenactment.

A Woman’s Palace Is Her Castle

Boston, Massachusetts

The plain facade of the 1901 mansion that houses this lesser-known museum gives no hint of the delights it conceals. Venture inside to marvel at the centerpiece of the interior, a dramatic four-story courtyard
surrounded by elaborate balconies and archways, illuminated by a skylight, and filled with seasonal blooms from the museum’s own greenhouse. The galleries that spread out from here hold an idiosyncratic assortment of European, Asian, and American art assembled to suit the museum’s unconventional founder and namesake.

Designed in the style of a 15th-century Venetian palazzo, this building was the home of Isabella Gardner and was opened as a museum while she still lived on the fourth floor. The permanent galleries remain exactly as she left them at her death, when she had already arranged for the collection to be held in public trust for the “education and enjoyment of the public forever.” A separate gallery shows changing exhibitions of contemporary works, often created by participants in the prestigious artists-in-residence program. Renowned Italian architect Renzo Piano has been selected to design an addition that will triple the special exhibition space as part of an expansion project expected to extend into the 2010s.

In the 1890s, Gardner called on her friend Bernard Berenson, a prominent art historian, to help her assemble her collection. The museum opened to the public in 1903 with more than 2,500 objects, including works by Giotto, Raphael, Rembrandt, and Botticelli. The Gardner is home to the only Pierro della Francesca fresco outside Italy and to Titian’s
Europa,
one of the most important Italian
paintings in the U.S. Another cherished holding is a John Singer Sargent portrait of Gardner, who was a uniquely colorful personality in the bland world of Boston high society. Legend has it that she once walked a lion on a leash down Tremont Street, and after the 1912 World Series she appeared at Symphony Hall wearing a headband that read “Oh You Red Sox.”

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is the only private art collection in which the building, collection, and installations were created by one individual.

Today, almost a century later, the acoustically perfect Symphony Hall is home to the Boston Symphony Orchestra with a break built in for the Boston Pops’ holiday concerts. The Pops season ends with a series of free performances on the Esplanade, including the nationally televised Fourth of July extravaganza (see p. 39).

W
HERE:
280 The Fenway. Tel 617-566-1401;
www.gardnermuseum.org.
When:
closed Mon.
B
OSTON
S
YMPHONY
O
RCHESTRA
and B
OSTON
P
OPS:
Tel 888-266-1200 or 617-266-1200 (tickets), 617-266-1492 (info);
www.bso.org.
Cost:
BSO tickets from $28; Pops tickets from $16.
When:
BSO Oct–Apr; Pops May–early July.
B
EST TIMES:
Apr, when the museum’s balconies drip with 20-foot nasturtium vines; Dec, when red and white poinsettias and holly bushes adorn the courtyard. The Tapestry Room hosts the city’s best chamber music concert series, Sept–June.