For the past 25 years, downtown Boston has changed in some significant way almost daily. A gargantuan construction project with a cute name (the Big Dig) proceeded slowly but unstoppably, making a mile-long strip of prime real estate look like a scene from a post-apocalyptic movie before it finally looked better. Today, the elevated highway that once sliced across the city like a green scar is a distant memory, and the green we see everywhere is the color of trees, plants, and flowers.
A subterranean highway carries traffic through the new Boston, a modern metropolis that's also a relentlessly historic destination, with buildings of all ages and styles, from colonial-era to Frank Gehry's latest brainstorm. From the South Boston waterfront, once a wasteland of parking lots and fish carcasses, to the Back Bay, Boston's architecture is newer, taller, and more dramatic than before. Walking around downtown provides a good reminder: The building boom may overshadow the city's famous 18th- and 19th-century architecture, but even rampant development can't change central Boston's colonial character.
It's not perfect, of course. Nightmarish traffic, daredevil drivers, and grating accents don't help any city's reputation. Although Boston is the biggest college town in the world, it doesn't have much of a late-night scene. And far from gone is the inferiority complex epitomized by the description "like New York, but smaller." Still, as it has since 1630, Boston offers cosmopolitan sophistication on a comfortable scale, balancing celebration of the past with pursuit of the future.
Here's hoping your experience is memorable and delightful.
