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Key Attractions Freedom Trail This is a self-guided walking tour – following a redbrick line on the pavement – that can be taken at any pace and divided up into sections but is designed to take at least one whole day. The four-kilometre (2.5-mile) trail starts from the Boston Common Visitor Information Center and passes through North End, over the River Charles and onto the Bunker Hill Monument with great views back over to the city. On the way, it takes in at least 16 historic sites associated with the movement to free the Colonies from British control and information is provided at every point. The various sites along the way have their own admission conditions and opening hours. From Boston Common Visitor Information Center, the tour first reaches the Massachusetts State House on Beacon Street. Designed by Charles Bulfinch, completed on 11 January 1798, this is the oldest building on Beacon Hill and the seat of the Massachusetts’ state government. Founded in 1809 and the site of a number of important anti-slavery speeches in the early 1800s, among other historic events, the Park Street Church, 1 Park Street, is next on the trail. Then comes the Granary Burying Ground, Tremont Street, which is the final resting place of the original ‘Mother’ Elizabeth Goose, not to mention the revolutionaries Samuel Adams, John Hancock and Paul Revere. The trail weaves its way on to Kings Chapel, 58 Tremont Street, which houses Paul Revere’s largest bell, as this hero of the Revolution was actually a silversmith and metal worker. Nearby, there is a plaque marking the site of the first public school (1635) and a statue of Benjamin Franklin outside the Old City Hall. Next on the trail is the Old Corner Bookstore, 1 School Street, once a cornerstone of 19th-century literary activity. The Old South Meeting House, 310 Washington Street, a hive of revolutionary activity and the site of the decisive meeting that took place before the Tea Party, is the trail’s next site. The next stop is the Old State House, 206 Washington Street, which was not only the seat of British government in Boston, but also where the Declaration of Independence was first read in 1776 from the balcony. Nearby, a ring of cobblestones marks the site of the Boston Massacre in 1770. Faneuil Hall, next to Quincy Market, built in 1742 was an open meeting hall for 250 years and the location of much revolutionary protest. The famous golden grasshopper crowns it. Paul Revere’s House is nearby at 19 North Square. Built in 1680, Boston’s oldest house was home to the famous revolutionary from 1770 to 1800. Close by is the oldest church in Boston (1723), Old North Church, 193 Salem Street. It was here that signals were given to the revolutionaries warning of the movements of the ‘Redcoats’, the British Colonial forces, during the Revolution. The trail passes by the Copps Hill Burying Ground, the ship USS Constitution and its Museum, and ends at the Bunker Hill Monument and Museum in Charlestown. This is where the battle of Bunker Hill, the first formal battle of the American Revolution, took place on 17 June 1775. As well as the complete self-guided Freedom Trail, the National Park Service conducts free 90-minute tours that cover highlights from the trail, from the Old South Meeting House to the Old North Church. The tours leave the Boston National Historic Park Visitor Center at regular intervals in spring, summer and autumn, weather permitting. Boston Common Visitor Center 146 Tremont Street Boston National Historic Park Visitor Center 15 State Street Tel: (617) 242 5642. Website: www.nps.gov/bost Freedom Trail Foundation 3 School Street Tel: (617) 227 8800. Fax: (617) 227 2498. Website: www.thefreedomtrail.org Transport: Subway Park Street station. Black Heritage Trail Celebrating 19th-century African-American history and contributions, this self-guided walking tour covers much of the Beacon Hill district. The 2.5km (1.6-mile) trail includes 14 historic sites but does not enter every site. Starting from Boston Common, the first site on the trail is the Robert Gould Shaw and 54th Regiment Memorial, which is a commemoration of the first black regiment of the Civil War. The oldest home built by African-Americans on Beacon Hill, the George Middleton House at 5 Pinckney Street, is next on the trail. Nearby, on Anderson and Pinckney Streets, is the Phillips School, one of the first mixed-race schools, and the John J Smith House, at 86 Pinckney Street, which was the home of the black abolitionist who was also a member of the Massachusetts legislature. The Charles Street Meeting House, at Mount Vernon Street and Charles Street, was a popular site for abolitionists meetings and where Timothy Gilbert rebelled against church segregationist seating policies in the early 1830s. The Lewis and Harriet Hayden House at 66 Phillips Street was part of the Underground Railroad. Its owner, Lewis Hayden, was born a slave in Kentucky in 1811, but escaped to the North via this secret network of safe houses and transport – and then set his house up as a station. Coburn’s Gaming House, at Phillips and Irving Streets, was a gambling house designed by the architect Asher Benjamin, and the nearby Smith Court Residences are five houses that typify a black household in the 1800s in Boston. They are still private residences. At 46 Joy Street, the first public school for black children, the Abiel Smith School, was founded in 1834. New England’s largest Afro-American museum, the Museum of Afro-American History, is located on this site. Finally, the African Meeting House, 8 Smith Court, is the oldest existing church building in the USA dedicated to the black community, built in 1806. In 1832, the New England Anti-Slavery Society was founded here. The Black Heritage Trail can be self-guided but tours can also be arranged through either the Boston African American National Historic Site or the Museum of Afro-American History. Boston African American National Historic Site Tel: (617) 742 5415. Website: www.nps.gov/boaf Museum of Afro-American History 46 Joy Street Tel: (617) 725 0022 Website: www.afroammuseum.org Transport: Subway Park Street. Harvard University & Harvard Square A trip to Boston would be incomplete without crossing the river to visit one of the country’s oldest (1638) and most prestigious universities. Combined with the neighbouring and equally prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), there are over 30,000 students from all over the world enrolled here. Harvard Square is actually a triangle of brick pavement sitting above the Harvard subway station. In and around it are a couple of dozen cafés, bookshops, banks and restaurants, providing a backdrop to street performers, politically and religiously motivated campaigners and lots of ordinary pedestrian activity according to the season and the weather. Harvard University makes up one side of the triangle. The Out of Town newsagents is itself an institution – a good place to buy a local or foreign paper from before settling into a café and soaking up the student-cum-intellectual atmosphere. A focal point for visitors is the Harvard Yard (1636), which is the entrance into the quadrangle surrounded by ivy-covered buildings. The buildings chronicle American architecture from Colonial 18th century to the present day. The Harvard University Events and Information Center offers free tours of the Yard. Harvard also has four world-class museums worth visiting. The first three can be entered on one ticket and together they encapsulate a history of world art in over 80,000 exhibits. The Fogg Art Museum covers the European Renaissance to the modern day, with notable works by Renoir, Monet, Van Gogh, Whistler and Klee. The Bush-Reisinger Museum takes in Central and North European art 1880-1980. The Arthur Sackler Museum has Islamic and Asian exhibits, including Chinese jade. The fourth, the Museum of Natural History, is renowned for its display of 3000 authentic-looking types of flowers made from hand-blown glass. Harvard University Events and Information Center Holyoke Center, 1350 Massachusetts Avenue Tel: (617) 495 1573. Website: www.harvard.edu Opening hours: Mon-Sat 0900-1900, Sun 1200-1700. Harvard Art Museums Fogg Art Museum and Bush-Reisinger Museum, 32 Quincy Street Arthur Sackler Museum, 485 Broadway Tel: (617) 495 9400. Fax: (617) 496 8576. Website: www.artmuseums.harvard.edu Opening hours: Mon-Sat 1000-1700, Sun 1300-1700. Admission: US$6.50 combined ticket; free Sat 1000-1200. Museum of Natural History 26 Oxford Street Tel: (617) 495 3045. Opening hours: Daily 0900-1700. Admission: US$6.50 (separate ticket); free Sun 1000-1200. Transport: Subway Harvard station. Boston Tea Party Ship & Museum This is actually part of a larger complex on Museum Wharf that also includes The Children’s Museum (see Further Distractions). The ‘Tea Party’ was an act of rebellion against British rule and in particular against new taxes, imposed on, among other commodities, tea. The protest took place on 16 December 1773. A group of Bostonians, disguised as Mohawk Indians, boarded the tea-clipper Beaver and threw all of its cargo into the harbour waters. Visitors can discover the full story on-board a full-size replica ship, Beaver II. Congress Street Bridge Tel: (617) 338 1773. Fax: (617) 338 1974. Website: www.bostonteapartyship.com Transport: Subway South Station. Opening hours: Mar-Nov daily 0900-1700 (until 1800 in summer). Admission: US$8. JFK Library and Museum Located on the UMass campus, the JFK Museum chronicles the life of the late John F Kennedy from his birth until his assassination on 23 November 1963. The exhibition begins with an 18-minute movie that chronicles Kennedy’s life until his presidential nomination in 1960. The rest of the museum brings his last years to life with products of the times, like kitchen appliances, 1960s TV commercials, magazines and newspapers. TV monitors broadcast his speeches and there is a reproduction of the TV studio where the Kennedy-Nixon debates took place. His presidential accomplishments are displayed in a reproduction of the White House. Columbia Point Tel: (617) 929 4500 or (877) 616 4599. Fax: (617) 929 4538. Website: www.jfklibrary.org Transport: The T Red Line JFK/UMass station. Opening hours: Tues-Sun 1100-1700. Admission: US$8. |
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