Boston This article is about Boston, the capital of Massachusetts.
Boston .
Boston, Massachusetts City of Boston Back Bay skyline, Fenway Park, Christian Science Center, Boston Common, the Financial District, and the Massachusetts State House Back Bay skyline, Fenway Park, Christian Science Center, Boston Common, the Financial District, and the Massachusetts State House Flag of Boston, Massachusetts Flag Official seal of Boston, Massachusetts Named for Boston, Lincolnshire Council Boston City Council Boston (pronounced Listeni/ b st n/ boss-t n) is the capital and most crowded city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States.
Boston is also the seat of Suffolk County, although the county government was disbanded on July 1, 1999. The town/city proper covers 48 square miles (124 km2) with an estimated populace of 667,137 in 2015, making it the biggest city in New England and the 23rd most crowded city in the United States. The town/city is the economic and cultural anchor of a substantially larger urbane region known as Greater Boston, a Metropolitan Travel Destination (MSA) home to a census-estimated 4.7 million citizens in 2014 and ranking as the tenth-largest such region in the country. Alternately, as a Combined Travel Destination (CSA), this wider commuting region is home to some 8.1 million citizens , making it the sixth-largest as such in the United States. One of the earliest metros/cities in the United States, Boston was established on the Shawmut Peninsula in 1630 by Puritan pioneer from England. It was the scene of a several key affairs of the American Revolution, such as the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, the Battle of Bunker Hill, and the Siege of Boston.
Independence from Great Britain, it continued to be an meaningful port and manufacturing core as well as a center for education and culture. Through territory reclamation and municipal annexation, Boston has period beyond the initial peninsula.
Its rich history attracts many tourists, with Faneuil Hall alone drawing over 20 million visitors per year. Boston's many firsts include the United States' first enhance school, Boston Latin School (1635), first subway system, the Tremont Street Subway (1897), and first enhance park, Boston Common (1634).
The area's many universities and universities make Boston an global center of higher education, including law, medicine, engineering, and business, and the town/city is considered to be a world prestige in innovation and entrepreneurship, with nearly 2,000 startups. Boston's economic base also includes finance, experienced and company services, biotechnology, knowledge technology, and government activities. Households in the town/city claim the highest average rate of philanthropy in the United States; businesses and establishments project among the top in the nation for surroundingal sustainability and investment. The town/city has one of the highest costs of living in the United States as it has undergone gentrification, though it remains high on world livability rankings. Main articles: History of Boston and Timeline of Boston Map of Boston in 1775 Map showing a British tactical evaluation of Boston in 1775 Boston's early European pioneer had first called the region Trimountaine (after its "three mountain peaks," only traces of which remain today) but later retitled it Boston after Boston, Lincolnshire, England, the origin of a several prominent colonists.
Puritan ethics and their focus on education influenced its early history; America's first enhance school was established in Boston in 1635. Over the next 130 years, the town/city participated in four French and Indian Wars, until the British defeated the French and their Indian allies in North America.
Boston was the biggest town in British America until Philadelphia interval larger in the mid-18th century. Many of the crucial affairs of the American Revolution occurred in or near Boston, including the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, Paul Revere's midnight ride, the battles of Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill, the Siege of Boston, and many others.
After the Revolution, Boston's long seafaring tradition helped make it one of the world's wealthiest global ports, with the slave trade, rum, fish, salt, and tobacco being especially important. Boston's harbor activeness was decidedly curtailed by the Embargo Act of 1807 (adopted amid the Napoleonic Wars) and the War of 1812.
Foreign trade returned after these hostilities, but Boston's merchants had found alternatives for their capital investments in the interim.
Boston remained one of the nation's biggest manufacturing centers until the early 20th century, and was notable for its garment manufacturing and leather-goods industries. A network of small rivers bordering the town/city and connecting it to the encircling region facilitated shipment of goods and led to a proliferation of mills and factories.
During this period, Boston flourished culturally, as well, admired for its rarefied literary life and generous creative patronage, with members of old Boston families eventually dubbed Boston Brahmins coming to be regarded as the nation's civil and cultural elites. Boston was an early port of the Atlantic triangular slave trade in the New England colonies, but was soon overtaken by Salem, Massachusetts and Newport, Rhode Island. Boston eventually became a center of the abolitionist movement. The town/city reacted firmly to the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, contributing to President Franklin Pierce's attempt to make an example of Boston after the Anthony Burns Fugitive Slave Case. In 1822, the people of Boston voted to change the official name from the "Town of Boston" to the "City of Boston", and on March 4, 1822, the citizens of Boston accepted the charter incorporating the City. At the time Boston was chartered as a city, the populace was about 46,226, while the region of the town/city was only 4.7 square miles (12 km2). The Old City Hall was home to the Boston town/city council from 1865 to 1969.
In the 1820s, Boston's populace interval rapidly, and the city's ethnic composition changed dramatically with the first wave of European immigrants.
By the end of the 19th century, Boston's core neighborhoods had turn into enclaves of ethnically distinct immigrants.
Italians inhabited the North End, Irish dominated South Boston and Charlestown, and Russian Jews lived in the West End.
Currently, Catholics make up Boston's biggest theological community, and the Irish have played a primary part in Boston politics since the early 20th century; prominent figures include the Kennedys, Tip O'Neill, and John F.
After the Great Boston Fire of 1872, workers used building rubble as landfill along the downtown waterfront.
During the mid- to-late 19th century, workers filled almost 600 acres (2.4 km2) of brackish Charles River marshlands west of Boston Common with gravel brought by rail from the hills of Needham Heights.
The town/city annexed the adjoining suburbs of South Boston (1804), East Boston (1836), Roxbury (1868), Dorchester (including present day Mattapan and a portion of South Boston) (1870), Brighton (including present day Allston) (1874), West Roxbury (including present day Jamaica Plain and Roslindale) (1874), Charlestown (1874), and Hyde Park (1912). Other proposals were unsuccessful for the annexation of Brookline, Cambridge, and Chelsea, The town/city went into diminish by the early to mid-20th century, as factories became old and obsolete and businesses moved out of the region for cheaper workforce elsewhere. Boston responded by initiating various urban renewal projects, under the direction of the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) established in 1957.
A large number of high rises were constructed in the Financial District and in Boston's Back Bay amid this time period. This boom continued into the mid-1980s and resumed after a several pauses.
Schools such as Boston College, Boston University, the Harvard Medical School, Northeastern University, Wentworth Institute of Technology, Berklee College of Music, and Boston Conservatory attract students to the area.
Boston is an intellectual, technological, and political center but has lost some meaningful county-wide institutions, including the loss to consolidation s and acquisitions of small-town financial establishments such as Fleet - Boston Financial, which was acquired by Charlotte-based Bank of America in 2004. Boston-based department stores Jordan Marsh and Filene's have both been consolidated into the Cincinnati based Macy's. The 1993 acquisition of The Boston Globe by The New York Times was reversed in 2013 when it was re-sold to Boston businessman John W.
In 2016, it was announced that General Electric would be moving its corporate command posts from Connecticut to the Innovation District in South Boston, joining many other companies in this quickly developing neighborhood.
Boston has experienced gentrification in the latter half of the 20th century, with housing prices increasing sharply since the 1990s. Living costs have risen; Boston has one of the highest costs of living in the United States and was ranked the 129th most expensive primary city in the world in a 2011 survey of 214 cities. Even with cost of living issues, Boston rates high on livability ratings, ranking 36th around the world in character of living in 2011 in a survey of 221 primary cities. On April 15, 2013, two Chechen Islamist brothers detonated a pair of bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three citizens and injuring roughly 264. Aerial view of the Boston region from space Boston as seen from the International Space Station (ISS) Boston has an region of 89.6 square miles (232.1 km2) 48.4 square miles (125.4 km2) (54.0%) of territory and 41.2 square miles (106.7 km2) (46.0%) of water.
The city's official elevation, as calculated at Logan International Airport, is 19 ft (5.8 m) above sea level. The highest point in Boston is Bellevue Hill at 330 feet (100 m) above sea level, and the lowest point is at sea level. Situated onshore of the Atlantic Ocean, Boston is the only state capital in the adjoining United States with an oceanic coastline. The geographical center of Boston is in Roxbury.
This is not to be confused with South Boston which lies directly east from the South End.
North of the South End is East Boston and southwest of East Boston is the North End.
Boston is surrounded by the "Greater Boston" region and is adjoiningly bordered by the metros/cities and suburbs of Winthrop, Revere, Chelsea, Everett, Somerville, Cambridge, Watertown, Newton, Brookline, Needham, Dedham, Canton, Milton, and Quincy.
The Charles River separates Boston from Watertown and the majority of Cambridge, and the mass of Boston from its own Charlestown neighborhood.
To the east lie Boston Harbor and the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area (which includes part of the city's territory, specifically Calf Island, Gallops Island, Great Brewster Island, Green Island, Little Brewster Island, Little Calf Island, Long Island, Lovells Island, Middle Brewster Island, Nixes Mate, Outer Brewster Island, Rainsford Island, Shag Rocks, Spectacle Island, The Graves, and Thompson Island).
The Neponset River forms the boundary between Boston's southern neighborhoods and the town/city of Quincy and the town of Milton.
The Mystic River separates Charlestown from Chelsea and Everett, and Chelsea Creek and Boston Harbor separate East Boston from Boston proper. Sailboats on the Charles River overlook the Boston skyline, as seen from Cambridge.
From left to right: Boston City Hall, the West End, the North End, Charlestown, Boston Harbor, and East Boston Sunset view of the Boston horizon and Charles River The John Hancock Tower is the tallest building in Boston, with a roof height of 790 feet (240 m).
Boston's horizon in the background, with fall foliage in the foreground Main article: Neighborhoods in Boston Boston is sometimes called a "city of neighborhoods" because of the profusion of diverse subsections; the town/city government's Office of Neighborhood Services has officially designated 23 neighborhoods. More than two-thirds of inner Boston's undivided territory area did not exist when the town/city was founded, but was created via the gradual filling in of the encircling tidal areas over the centuries, prominently with earth from leveling or lowering Boston's three initial hills (the "Trimountain", after which Tremont Street is named) and with gravel brought by train from Needham to fill the Back Bay. Downtown and its immediate surroundings consist largely of low-rise masonry buildings (often Federal style and Greek Revival) interspersed with undivided highrises, prominently in the Financial District, Government Center, and South Boston. Back Bay includes many prominent landmarks, such as the Boston Public Library, Christian Science Center, Copley Square, Newbury Street, and New England's two tallest buildings: the John Hancock Tower and the Prudential Center. Near the John Hancock Tower is the old John Hancock Building with its prominent illuminated beacon, the color of which forecasts the weather. Smaller commercial areas are interspersed among areas of single-family homes and wooden/brick multi-family row homes.
The South End Historic District is the biggest surviving adjoining Victorian-era neighborhood in the US. The geography of downtown and South Boston was especially affected by the Central Artery/Tunnel Project (known unofficially as the "Big Dig") which removed the unsightly elevated Central Artery and incorporated new green spaces and open areas. Under the Koppen climate classification, Boston has a humid continental climate (Koppen Dfa or Dfb) that borders a humid subtropical climate or a temperate oceanic climate (Koppen Cfa or Cfb) with some maritime influence. Even with its climate, the town/city lies at the transition between USDA plant hardiness zones 6b (most of the city) and 7a (Downtown, South Boston, and East Boston neighborhoods). Summers are typically warm to hot, rainy, and humid, while winters oscillate between periods of cold precipitation and snow, with cold temperatures.
Periods exceeding 90 F (32 C) in summer and below freezing in winter are not uncommon but rarely extended, with about 13 and 25 days per year seeing each, in the order given. The most recent sub-0 F ( 18 C) reading occurred on February 14, 2016, when the temperature dipped down to 9 F ( 23 C), the coldest reading since 1957. In addition, a several decades may pass between 100 F (38 C) readings, with the most recent such occurrence on July 22, 2011, when the temperature reached 103 F (39 C). The city's average window for freezing temperatures is November 9 through April 5. Official temperature records have ranged from 18 F ( 28 C) on February 9, 1934, up to 104 F (40 C) on July 4, 1911; the record cold daily maximum is 2 F ( 17 C) on December 30, 1917, while, conversely, the record warm daily minimum is 83 F (28 C) on August 2, 1975. Boston's coastal locale on the North Atlantic moderates its temperature, but makes the town/city very apt to Nor'easter weather systems that can produce much snow and rain. The town/city averages 43.8 inches (1,110 mm) of rain a year, with 43.8 inches (111 cm) of snow flurry per season. Snowfall increases dramatically as one goes inland away from the town/city (especially north and west of the city) away from the moderating influence of the ocean. Most snow flurry occurs from December through March, as most years see no calculable snow in April and November, and snow is rare in May and October. There is also high year-to-year variability in snowfall; for instance, the winter of 2011 12 saw only 9.3 in (23.6 cm) of accumulating snow, but the previous winter, the corresponding figure was 81.0 in (2.06 m). Due to its situation along the North Atlantic, the town/city often receives sea breezes, especially in the late spring, when water temperatures are still quite cold and temperatures at the coast can be more than 20 F (11 C) colder than a several miles inland, sometimes dropping by that amount near midday. Thunderstorms occur from May to September, that are occasionally harsh with large hail, damaging winds and heavy downpours. Although downtown Boston has never been hit by a violent tornado, the town/city itself has experienced many tornado warnings.
Damaging storms are more common to areas north, west, and northwest of the city. Boston has a mostly sunny climate for a coastal town/city at its latitude, averaging over 2,600 hours of sunlight per annum.
Climate data for Boston (Logan Airport), 1981 2010 normals, extremes 1872 present See also: Chinese Americans in Boston, History of the Irish in Boston, Vietnamese in Boston, and LGBT culture in Boston Map of Boston and the encircling area displaying per capita income distribution Per capita income in the Greater Boston area, by US Enumeration block group, 2000.
The dashed line shows the boundary of the City of Boston.
Navy sailors march in Boston's annual St.
Irish Americans constitute the biggest ethnicity in Boston.
In 2016, Boston was estimated to have 667,137 inhabitants (a density of 13,841 persons/sq mile, or 5,344/km2) living in 272,481 housing units an 8% populace increase over 2010.
Some 1.2 million persons may be inside Boston's boundaries amid work hours, and as many as 2 million amid special affairs.
The median homehold income in Boston was $51,739, while the median income for a family was $61,035.
In 1950, Whites represented 94.7% of Boston's population. From the 1950s to the end of the 20th century, the proportion of non-Hispanic caucasians in the town/city declined; in 2000, non-Hispanic caucasians made up 49.5% of the city's population, making the town/city majority-minority for the first time.
Map of ethnic distribution in Boston, 2010 U.S.
Over 27,000 Chinese Americans made their home in Boston town/city proper in 2013, and the town/city hosts a burgeoning Chinatown accommodating heavily traveled Chinese-owned bus lines to and from Chinatown, Manhattan in New York City.
The city, especially the East Boston neighborhood, has a momentous Hispanic community.
In 2010, Hispanics in Boston were mostly of Puerto Rican (30,506 or 4.9% of total town/city population), Dominican (25,648 or 4.2% of total town/city population), Salvadoran (10,850 or 1.8% of town/city population), Colombian (6,649 or 1.1% of total town/city population), Mexican (5,961 or 1.0% of total town/city population), and Guatemalan (4,451 or 0.7% of total town/city population) ethnic origin.
In Greater Boston, these numbers interval decidedly , with Puerto Ricans numbering 175,000+, Dominicans 95,000+, Salvadorans 40,000+, Guatemalans 31,000+, Mexicans 25,000+, and Colombians numbering 22,000+. 15 02127 (South Boston) $42,854 $67,012 $68,110 32,547 14,994 Old South Church in Boston is one of the earliest congregations in the United States.
It was organized in 1669 by dissenters from the First Church in Boston (1630).
In 1773, Adams gave the signals from the Old South Meeting House that started the Boston Tea Party.
The town/city has a sizeable Jewish populace with an estimated 248,000 Jews inside the Boston metro area. More than half of Jewish homeholds in the Greater Boston region reside in the town/city itself, Brookline, Newton, Cambridge, Somerville, or adjoining towns. See also: Major companies in Greater Boston A global city, Boston is placed among the top 30 most economically powerful metros/cities in the world. Encompassing $363 billion, the Greater Boston urbane region has the sixth-largest economy in the nation and 12th-largest in the world. Boston's universities and universities exert a momentous impact on the county-wide economy.
Boston attracts more than 350,000 college students from around the world, who contribute more than $4.8 billion annually to the city's economy. The area's schools are primary employers and attract industries to the town/city and encircling region.
The town/city is home to a number of technology companies and is a core for biotechnology, with the Milken Institute rating Boston as the top life sciences cluster in the country. Boston receives the highest absolute amount of annual funding from the National Institutes of Health of all metros/cities in the United States. The town/city is considered highly innovative for a range of reasons, including the existence of academia, access to venture capital, and the existence of many high-tech companies. The Route 128 corridor and Greater Boston continue to be a primary center for venture capital investment, and high technology remains an meaningful sector.
Tourism also composes a large part of Boston's economy, with 21.2 million domestic and global visitors spending $8.3 billion in 2011; excluding visitors from Canada and Mexico, over 1.4 million global tourists visited Boston in 2014, with those from China and the United Kingdom dominant the list. Boston's status as a state capital as well as the county-wide home of federal agencies has rendered law and government to be another primary component of the city's economy. The town/city is a primary seaport along the United States' East Coast and the earliest continuously directed industrialized and fishing port in the Western Hemisphere. Another meaningful industry is financial services, especially mutual funds and insurance. Boston-based Fidelity Investments helped popularize the mutual fund in the 1980s and has made Boston one of the top financial metros/cities in the United States. The town/city is home to the command posts of Santander Bank, and Boston is a center for venture capital firms.
Boston is a printing and publishing center Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is headquartered inside the city, along with Bedford-St.
Pearson PLC publishing units also employ a several hundred citizens in Boston.
The town/city is home to three primary meeting halls the Hynes Convention Center in the Back Bay, and the Seaport World Trade Center and Boston Convention and Exhibition Center on the South Boston waterfront. The General Electric Corporation announced in January 2016 its decision to move the company's global command posts to the Seaport District in Boston, from Fairfield, Connecticut, citing factors including Boston's preeminence in the realm of higher education. Boston is home to the command posts of a several major athletic and footwear companies including Converse, New Balance, and Reebok.
Boston Latin School was established in 1635 and is the earliest enhance high school in the US.
The Boston Public Schools enroll 57,000 students attending 145 schools, including the famous Boston Latin Academy, John D.
O'Bryant School of Math & Science, and Boston Latin School.
The Boston Latin School was established in 1635 and is the earliest enhance high school in the US.
Boston also operates the United States' second-oldest enhance high school and its earliest enhance elementary school. The system's students are 40% Hispanic or Latino, 35% Black or African American, 13% White, and 9% Asian. There are private, parochial, and charter schools as well, and approximately 3,300 minority students attend participating suburban schools through the Metropolitan Educational Opportunity Council. See also: List of universities and universities in urbane Boston Map of Boston region universities Some of the most famous and highly ranked universities in the world are positioned in the Boston area. Three universities with a primary existence in the town/city are positioned just outside of Boston in the Cambridge/Somerville region known as the Brainpower Triangle. Harvard University is the nation's earliest institute of college studies and is centered athwart the Charles River in Cambridge, though the majority of its territory holdings and a substantial amount of its educational activities are in Boston.
Its business, medical, dental, and enhance health schools are positioned in Boston's Allston and Longwood neighborhoods, and Harvard has plans for additional expansion into Allston. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) originated in Boston and was long known as "Boston Tech"; it moved athwart the river to Cambridge in 1916. Tufts University's chief campus is north of the town/city in Somerville and Medford, though it locates its medical and dental schools in Boston's Chinatown at Tufts Medical Center, a 451-bed academic medical institution that is home to both a full-service hospital for grownups and the Floating Hospital for Children. Four members of the Association of American Universities are in Greater Boston (more than any other urbane area): Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston University, and Brandeis University. Furthermore, Greater Boston contains seven Highest Research Activity (R1) Universities as per the Carnegie Classification.
This includes, in addition to the aforementioned four, Boston College, Northeastern University, and Tufts University.
Hospitals, universities, and research establishments in Greater Boston received more than $1.77 billion in National Institutes of Health grants in 2013, more cash than any other American urbane area. Greater Boston has more than 100 universities and universities, with 250,000 students enrolled in Boston and Cambridge alone. Its biggest private universities include Boston University (the city's fourth-largest employer), with its chief campus along Commonwealth Avenue and a medical ground in the South End; Northeastern University in the Fenway area; Suffolk University near Beacon Hill, which includes law school and company school; and Boston College, which straddles the Boston (Brighton) Newton border. Boston's only enhance college is the University of Massachusetts Boston on Columbia Point in Dorchester.
Altogether, Boston's universities and universities employ more than 42,600 citizens , accounting for nearly seven percent of the city's workforce. Smaller private schools include Babson College, Bentley University, Boston Architectural College, Emmanuel College, Fisher College, MGH Institute of Health Professions, Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, Simmons College, Wellesley College, Wheelock College, Wentworth Institute of Technology, New England School of Law (originally established as America's first all female law school), and Emerson College. Metropolitan Boston is home to a several conservatories and art schools, including Lesley University College of Art and Design, Massachusetts College of Art, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, New England Institute of Art, New England School of Art and Design (Suffolk University), Longy School of Music of Bard College, and the New England Conservatory (the earliest autonomous conservatory in the United States). Other conservatories include the Boston Conservatory and Berklee College of Music, which has made Boston an meaningful city for jazz music. White Boston Police car with blue and gray stripes down the middle A Boston Police cruiser on Beacon Street Like many primary American cities, Boston has seen a great reduction in violent crime since the early 1990s.
Boston's low crime rate since the 1990s has been credited to the Boston Police Department's collaboration with neighborhood groups and church churches to prevent youths from joining gangs, as well as involvement from the United States Attorney and District Attorney's offices.
This helped lead in part to what has been touted as the "Boston Miracle".
Main article: Culture in Boston See also: Annual affairs in Boston, List of arts organizations in Boston, and Sites of interest in Boston The Old State House, a exhibition on the Freedom Trail and the site of the Boston Massacre Boston shares many cultural roots with greater New England, including a dialect of the non-rhotic Eastern New England accent known as the Boston accent and a county-wide cuisine with a large emphasis on seafood, salt, and dairy products. Boston also has its own compilation of neologisms known as Boston slang. Boston has been called the "Athens of America" for its literary culture, earning a reputation as "the intellectual capital of the United States." In the nineteenth century, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Margaret Fuller, James Russell Lowell, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote in Boston.
Some consider the Old Corner Bookstore to be the "cradle of American literature," the place where these writers met and where The Atlantic Monthly was first presented. In 1852, the Boston Public Library was established as the first no-charge library in the United States. Boston's literary culture continues today thanks to the city's many universities and the Boston Book Festival.
Symphony Hall, home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra Music is afforded a high degree of civic support in Boston.
The Boston Symphony Orchestra is one of the "Big Five," a group of the greatest American orchestras, and the classical music periodical Gramophone called it one of the "world's best" orchestras. Symphony Hall (located west of Back Bay) is home to the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the related Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra, which is the biggest youth orchestra in the nation, and to the Boston Pops Orchestra.
The British journal The Guardian called Boston Symphony Hall "one of the top venues for classical music in the world," adding that "Symphony Hall in Boston was where science became an essential part of concert hall design." Other concerts are held at the New England Conservatory's Jordan Hall.
The Boston Ballet performs at the Boston Opera House.
Other performing-arts organizations positioned in the town/city include the Boston Lyric Opera Company, Opera Boston, Boston Baroque (the first permanent Baroque orchestra in the US), and the Handel and Haydn Society (one of the earliest choral companies in the United States). The town/city is a center for intact classical music with a number of performing groups, a several of which are associated with the city's conservatories and universities.
These include the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and Boston Musica Viva. Several theaters are positioned in or near the Theater District south of Boston Common, including the Cutler Majestic Theatre, Citi Performing Arts Center, the Colonial Theater, and the Orpheum Theatre. There are a several major annual affairs, such as First Night which occurs on New Year's Eve, the Boston Early Music Festival, the annual Boston Arts Festival at Christopher Columbus Waterfront Park, the annual Boston gay pride parade and festival held in June, and Italian summer feasts in the North End honoring Catholic saints. The town/city is the site of a several affairs amid the Fourth of July period.
They include the seven-day Harborfest festivities and a Boston Pops concert accompanied by fireworks on the banks of the Charles River. Several historic sites relating to the American Revolution reconstructionare preserved as part of the Boston National Historical Park because of the city's prominent part .
The town/city is also home to a several art exhibitions and arcades, including the Museum of Fine Arts and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. The Institute of Contemporary Art is homed in a intact building designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro in the Seaport District. Boston's South End Art and Design District (So - Wa) and Newbury St.
Are both art loggia destinations. Columbia Point is the locale of the University of Massachusetts Boston, the Edward M.
The Boston Athen um (one of the earliest autonomous libraries in the United States), Boston Children's Museum, Bull & Finch Pub (whose building is known from the tv show Cheers), Museum of Science, and the New England Aquarium are inside the city.
Boston has been a noted theological center from its earliest days.
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston serves nearly 300 churches and is based in the Cathedral of the Holy Cross (1875) in the South End, while the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts serves just under 200 congregations, with the Cathedral Church of St.
The earliest church in Boston is First Church in Boston, established in 1630. King's Chapel was the city's first Anglican church, established in 1686 and converted to Unitarianism in 1785.
Air character in Boston is generally very good: amid the ten-year reconstruction - 2004 2013, there were only 4 days in which the air was unhealthy for the general public, as stated to the EPA. Some of the cleaner energy facilities in Boston include the Allston green district, with three ecologically compatible housing facilities. Boston is also breaking ground on multiple green affordable housing facilities to help reduce the carbon footprint of the town/city while simultaneously making these initiatives financially available to a greater population.
Boston's climate plan is updated every three years and was most recently modified in 2013.
Another initiative, presented by the late Mayor Thomas Menino, is the Renew Boston Whole Building Incentive, which reduces the cost of living in buildings that are deemed energy efficient.
Many older buildings in certain areas of Boston are supported by wooden piles driven into the area's fill; these piles remain sound if submerged in water, but are subject to dry rot if exposed to air for long periods. Groundwater levels have been dropping, to varying degrees, in many areas of the city, due in part to an increase in the amount of rainwater discharged directly into sewers clean water combined by the ground.
A town/city agency, the Boston Groundwater Trust, coordinates monitoring of groundwater levels throughout the town/city via a network of enhance and private monitoring wells. However, Boston's drinking waterworks, from the Quabbin and Wachusett Reservoirs to the west, is one of the very several in the nation so pure as to satisfy federal water character standards without filtration. Main article: Sports in Boston Boston has squads in the four primary North American experienced sports leagues plus Major League Soccer, and has won 37 championships in these leagues, As of 2017.
It has been suggested that Boston is the new "Title - Town, USA", as the city's experienced sports squads have won ten championships since 2001: Patriots (2001, 2003, 2004, 2014, and 2016), Red Sox (2004, 2007, and 2013), Celtics (2008), and Bruins (2011).
This love of sports has made Boston the United States Olympic Committee's choice to bid to hold the 2024 Summer Olympic Games, but the town/city cited financial concerns when it withdrew its bid on July 27, 2015. The Boston Red Sox, a beginning member of the American League of Major League Baseball in 1901, play their home games at Fenway Park, near Kenmore Square in the city's Fenway section.
Built in 1912, it is the earliest sports arena or stadium in active use in the United States among the four primary experienced American sports leagues, Major League Baseball, the National Football League, National Basketball Association, and the National Hockey League. Boston was the site of the first game of the first undivided World Series, in 1903.
The series was played between the AL Champion Boston Americans and the NL champion Pittsburgh Pirates. Persistent reports that the team was known in 1903 as the "Boston Pilgrims" appear to be unfounded. Boston's first experienced baseball team was the Red Stockings, one of the charter members of the National Association in 1871, and of the National League in 1876.
The TD Garden, formerly called the Fleet - Center and assembled to replace the old, since-demolished Boston Garden, is adjoined to North Station and is the home of two primary league teams: the Boston Bruins of the National Hockey League and the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association.
The Bruins were the first American member of the National Hockey League and an Original Six franchise. The Boston Celtics were beginning members of the Basketball Association of America, one of the two leagues that consolidated to form the NBA. The Celtics have the distinct ion of having won more championships than any other NBA team, with seventeen. While they have played in suburban Foxborough since 1971, the New England Patriots of the National Football League were established in 1960 as the Boston Patriots, changing their name after relocating.
The Boston Breakers of Women's Professional Soccer, which formed in 2009, play their home games at Dilboy Stadium in Somerville. The Boston Storm of the United Women's Lacrosse League was formed in 2015. Four NCAA Division I members play in the town/city Boston College, Boston University, Harvard University, and Northeastern University.
Of the four, only Boston College participates in college football at the highest level, the Football Bowl Subdivision.
One of the best known sporting affairs in the town/city is the Boston Marathon, the 26.2-mile (42.2 km) race which is the world's earliest annual marathon, run on Patriots' Day in April.
Boston Common seen from the Prudential Tower Boston Common, positioned near the Financial District and Beacon Hill, is the earliest enhance park in the United States. Along with the adjoining Boston Public Garden, it is part of the Emerald Necklace, a string of parks designed by Frederick Law Olmsted to encircle the city.
The Emerald Necklace includes Jamaica Pond, Boston's biggest body of freshwater, and Franklin Park, the city's biggest park and home of the Franklin Park Zoo. Another primary park is the Esplanade, positioned along the banks of the Charles River.
Other parks are scattered throughout the city, with the primary parks and beaches positioned near Castle Island; in Charlestown; and along the Dorchester, South Boston, and East Boston shorelines. Boston's park fitness is well-reputed nationally.
In its 2013 Park - Score ranking, The Trust for Public Land reported that Boston was tied with Sacramento and San Francisco for having the third-best park fitness among the 50 most crowded US cities. Park - Score rates city park systems by a formula that analyzes the city's median park size, park acres as percent of town/city area, the percent of inhabitants inside a half-mile of a park, spending of park services per resident, and the number of playgrounds per 10,000 residents.
See also: Boston City Hall, Boston Emergency Medical Services, Boston Finance Commission, Boston Fire Department, Boston Police Department, List of mayors of Boston, and List of members of Boston City Council Boston City Hall, assembled in 1968, is a prominent example of the Brutalist architectural style.
Marty Walsh (D), the 54th and current Mayor of Boston Boston has a strong mayor council government fitness in which the mayor (elected every fourth year) has extensive executive power.
Marty Walsh became Mayor in January 2014, his predecessor Thomas Menino's twenty-year tenure having been the longest in the city's history. The Boston City Council is propel every two years; there are nine precinct seats, and four citywide "at-large" seats. The School Committee, which oversees the Boston Public Schools, is appointed by the mayor. In addition to town/city government, various commissions and state authorities including the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, the Boston Public Health Commission, the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA), and the Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport) play a part in the life of Bostonians.
As the capital of Massachusetts, Boston plays a primary part in state politics.
Mc - Cormack Post Office and Courthouse, the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts.
Federally, Boston is split between two congressional districts.
The southern fourth is in the 8th district, represented by Stephen Lynch. Both are Democrats; a Republican has not represented a momentous portion of Boston in over a century.
Main article: Media in Boston The Boston Globe and the Boston Herald are two of the city's primary daily newspapers.
The town/city is also served by other publications such as Boston magazine, The Improper Bostonian, Dig - Boston, and the Boston version of Metro.
The Christian Science Monitor, headquartered in Boston, was formerly a around the world daily journal but ended printed announcement of daily print editions in 2009, switching to continuous online and weekly periodical format publications. The Boston Globe also releases a teen printed announcement to the city's enhance high schools, called Teens in Print or T.i.P., which is written by the city's teens and bringed quarterly inside the school year. These include El Planeta (owned by the former publisher of The Boston Phoenix), El Mundo, and La Semana.
Founded in 2006, The Rainbow Times is now based out of Boston, but serves all of New England. Boston is the biggest transmitting market in New England, with the radio market being the 11th biggest in the United States. Several primary AM stations include talk radio WRKO, sports/talk station WEEI, and CBS Radio WBZ. WBZ (AM) broadcasts a news radio format.
College and college airways broadcasts include WERS (Emerson), WHRB (Harvard), WUMB (UMass Boston), WMBR (MIT), WZBC (Boston College), WMFO (Tufts University), WBRS (Brandeis University), WTBU (Boston University, ground and web only), WRBB (Northeastern University) and WMLN-FM (Curry College).
The Boston tv DMA, which also includes Manchester, New Hampshire, is the 8th biggest in the United States. The town/city is served by stations representing every primary American network, including WBZ-TV 4 and its sister station WSBK-TV 38 (the former a CBS O&O, the latter an My - Network TV affiliate), WCVB-TV 5 and its sister station WMUR-TV 9 (both ABC), WHDH 7 and its sister station WLVI 56 (the former an autonomous station, the latter a CW affiliate), WBTS-LD 8 (a NBC O&O), and WFXT 25 (Fox).
Most of the area's tv stations have their transmitters in close-by Needham and Newton along the Route 128 corridor. Six Boston tv stations are carried by Canadian satellite tv provider Bell TV and by cable tv providers in Canada.
See also: List of movies filmed in Boston Films have been made in Boston since as early as 1903, and it continues to be both a prominent setting and a prominent site for locale shooting. The Longwood Medical and Academic Area, adjoining to the Fenway district, is home to a large number of medical and research facilities, including Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Children's Hospital Boston, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, Joslin Diabetes Center, and the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. Prominent medical facilities, including Massachusetts General Hospital, Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary and Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital are positioned in the Beacon Hill area.
The town/city has Veterans Affairs medical centers in the Jamaica Plain and West Roxbury neighborhoods. The Boston Public Health Commission, an agency of the Massachusetts government, oversees community concerns for town/city residents. Boston EMS provides pre-hospital emergency medical services to inhabitants and visitors.
Many of Boston's medical facilities are associated with universities.
Boston Medical Center, positioned in the South End neighborhood, is the major teaching facility for the Boston University School of Medicine as well as the biggest trauma center in the Boston area; it was formed by the consolidation of Boston University Hospital and Boston City Hospital, which was the first municipal hospital in the United States. An MBTA Red Line train departing Boston for Cambridge.
Hubway bikes in Boston Logan Airport, positioned in East Boston and directed by the Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport), is Boston's principal airport. Nearby general aviation airports are Beverly Municipal Airport to the north, Hanscom Field to the west, and Norwood Memorial Airport to the south.
Massport also operates a several major facilities inside the Port of Boston, including a cruise ship terminal and facilities to handle bulk and container cargo in South Boston, and other facilities in Charlestown and East Boston. Zakim Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge crosses the Charles River from Downtown Boston.
Downtown Boston's streets interval organically, so they do not form a prepared grid, unlike those in later-developed Back Bay, East Boston, the South End, and South Boston.
Boston is the easterly end of I-90, which in Massachusetts runs along the Massachusetts Turnpike.
The elevated portion of the Central Artery, which carried most of the through traffic in downtown Boston, was replaced with the O'Neill Tunnel amid the Big Dig, substantially instead of in early 2006.
With nearly a third of Bostonians using enhance transit for their commute to work, Boston has the fifth-highest rate of enhance transit usage in the country. Boston's subway system, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA known as the "T") operates the earliest underground rapid transit fitness in the Americas, and is the fourth-busiest rapid transit fitness in the country, with 65.5 miles (105 km) of track on four lines. The MBTA also operates busy bus and commuter rail networks, and water shuttles. Nicknamed "The Walking City", Boston hosts more pedestrian commuters than do other comparably populated cities.
Owing to factors such as the compactness of the town/city and large student population, 13 percent of the populace commutes by foot, making it the highest percentage of pedestrian commuters in the nation out of the primary American cities. In 2011, Walk Score ranked Boston the third most walkable town/city in the United States. As of 2015, Walk Score still rates Boston as the third most walkable US city, with a Walk Score of 80, a Transit Score of 75, and a Bike Score of 70. Between 1999 and 2006, Bicycling periodical titled Boston three times as one of the worst metros/cities in the US for cycling; regardless, it has one of the highest rates of bicycle commuting. In 2008, as a consequence of improvements made to bicycling conditions inside the city, the same periodical put Boston on its "Five for the Future" list as a "Future Best City" for biking, and Boston's bicycle commuting percentage increased from 1% in 2000 to 2.1% in 2009. The bikeshare program called Hubway launched in late July 2011, logging more than 140,000 rides before the close of its first season. The neighboring municipalities of Cambridge, Somerville, and Brookline joined the Hubway program in the summer of 2012. In 2016, there are 1,461 bikes and 158 docking stations athwart the city. PBSC Urban Solutions provides bicycles and technology for this bike-sharing system. Boston Public Library Boston Public Library Institute of Contemporary Art in the revitalized Seaport District of South Boston.
Main article: Sister metros/cities of Boston Boston has nine official sister metros/cities as recognized by Sister Cities International. Boston has less formal friendship or partnership relationships with three additional cities.
Boston, Lincolnshire United Kingdom 1999 Boston City League (high school athletic conference) Boston Halifax relations List of diplomatic missions in Boston List of citizens from Boston National Register of Historic Places listings in Boston, Massachusetts Official records for Boston were kept at downtown from January 1872 to December 1935, and at Logan Airport (KBOS) since January 1936. "Boston's populace stays flat, but still rates as 10th-largest in U.S.
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"SELECTED POPULATION PROFILE IN THE UNITED STATES 2011-2013 American Community Survey 3-Year Estimates - Chinese alone, Boston city, Massachusetts".
Boston Redevelopment Authority/Research Division.
"2015 Greater Boston Jewish Community Study" (PDF).
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Boston Redevelopment Authority.
The Boston Globe.
"Boston: The City of Innovation".
Greater Boston Convention and Visitors Bureau.
CASE STUDY: City of Boston, Massachusetts;Cost Plans for Governments "History of Boston's Economy Growth and Transition 1970 1998" (PDF).
Boston Redevelopment Authority.
Frommer's Boston 2007 (2 ed.).
Boston Magazine.
"The MIT Press: When MIT Was "Boston Tech"".
"Boston Campus Map".
The Boston Globe.
Boston University.
"The Largest Employers in the City of Boston" (PDF).
Boston Redevelopment Authority.
Boston University.
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City of Boston.
The Boston Police Department Office Research and Development.
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Boston Globe.
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Boston Harborfest Inc.
Boston 4 Celebrations Foundation.
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Categories:
Boston - Cities in Massachusetts - County seats in Massachusetts - Irish-American culture in Boston - Irish-American culture - Populated coastal places in Massachusetts - Populated places established in 1630 - Cities in Suffolk County, Massachusetts - University suburbs in the United States - Port metros/cities and suburbs of the United States Atlantic coast - 1630 establishments in Massachusetts - Greater Boston
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