What’s Doing in Boston

Over 12 million people visit Boston, one of the oldest cities in the United States and the capital of Massachusetts, each year. Founded in 1630, Boston was at the very forefront of the American Revolution and today is center of culture, education, and business.

If you haven’t visited Boston in the past few years, there have been dramatic changes.  Starting in the early 1980s, the Big Dig rerouted Interstate 93, the city’s main highway, known locally as the Central Artery, from an elevated roadway to an underground tunnel.

This changed the city’s profile and landscape dramatically and opened up new areas of the city to development, such as the South Boston waterfront.

The city is a mix of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century traditional architecture and modern skyscrapers.  One can find colonial-era buildings alongside the latest in shimmering high rises, although the city’s South End Historic District is the largest surviving Victorian-era neighborhood in the country.

Today, Boston has the second largest skyline in the Northeast (New York City has the first), thanks to a construction boom that started in the 1970s.

While the city’s population is around 645,000 (as of 2009), the Boston metropolitan area is home to 4.5 million people.

Given the number of higher educational institutions in the region (it’s the country’s largest college town), Boston is a center for research and medicine.  On the business side, numerous companies in research, electronics, engineering, finance, and high tech are headquartered here.

A visit to Boston combines a celebration of our nation’s past with a clear view into the future.  Boston has much to offer the visitor, from historic sites to fresh seafood to a unique mix of hotels and shops.  Boston’s hotels have much to offer the visitor as well and run the gamut from historic buildings to gleaming skyscrapers.  Many parks and squares have been refurbished in recent years and are worth a visit.

It’s easy to get around the city by foot – and for longer distances, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority’s subway, known locally as the “T”, will quickly get the visitor from point a to point b and it covers a fairly broad area including Braintree, Newton, and Cambridge.

Getting to Boston is also simple.  Almost every major airline serves the city, including American Airlines, Delta, JetBlue, and US Airways, and there are several shuttles from New York’s LaGuardia Airport including the Delta Shuttle (which was started by PanAm) and the US Airways Shuttle (which was started by Eastern).  There are numerous hotels and inns in the city and choices range from the traditional, such as the Fairmont Copley Plaza, to the ultra modern, such as the InterContinental Boston.

Greg Spira is Executive Road Warrior’s Editorial Director.

BOSTON PART I

BOSTON PART II