Let's be the City of Boston

I am the deep, bone-penetrating glacial freeze.

In July, at a gay bar.

I am the haughty brownstone facade of the Boston Atheneum.

We take education and refinement very seriously here.

Just not for you.

I am the street grid of downtown Boston.

I was planned by six drunk guys chasing a chicken in 1644.

I am the left tail fin of a 1959 Cadillac Sedan de Ville backing very slowly into your cannoli in the North End.

I am the shittiest driving this side of Montreal.

I’m overrated.

I am the ridiculousness of the whole "pahk your cah in Harvahd Yahd" thing.

These is no parking anywhere in the greater Boston Metropolitan area.

Those things that look like parked cars? They are site-specific sculptures installed 25 years ago.

I'm certain of this.

I'm the puffy, booze-bloated, red-faced Catholic priest.

I'm the extraordinary asses of the Wahlberg brothers.

Aye, R8, ya mean Father Paddy?

R10, yep -- with the roving hands.

I am the Twee, toadally orrganic Calliforrrnian visiting his loud, blue collah long-distance bf in Lynn, on the Noth Shah whom, he met at a Bear event in Puerto Vallarta.

When I ask the waitress if the lobsterrr is like rrilly, rrrilly frrree rrange, and locally sourced, she says: "Fuck you, you'll eat it. Prince Chahmin heya is payin for it, OK?".

The bf smirks at me and continues to not pronounce the letter 'R' where they belong, and yet strangely adds the 'R' where they don't belong ("idear", "sawr". etc..).

I am suffering from frostbite while he wears shorts ("shots") outside.

I am really overrated. There is nothing in me but hospitals and colleges. Even my colonial history is paltry. I am not beautiful. My natives are rubes. Don't bother with me.

My name is Bayonne, New Jersey

I'm Beacon Hill. Take for instance a bow-fronted townhouse of 7600 square feet overlooking the private gardens of Louisbourg Square, and more.

I was built only in 1890, one of three houses adjoining houses as a convent for cloistered Episcopal nuns. Posh nuns. It would have been nicer had I been built closer to the start of the 19thC, but so it goes. Architect Charles Bulfinch lived in Louisbourg Square, so did William Dean Howells, so did Louisa May Alcott who died here, Jenny Lind who never stayed anyplace long was married here, John Kerry owns a house here.

Louisbourg Square is lovely. Beacon Hill is lovely.

I am Miss Helen Slingsby. I may have been a partial inspiration for "Eleanor Rigby".

Miss Helen Slingsby was my maiden aunt,

And lived in a small house near a fashionable square

Cared for by servants to the number of four.

Now when she died there was silence in heaven

And silence at her end of the street.

The shutters were drawn and the undertaker wiped his feet —

He was aware that this sort of thing had occurred before.

The dogs were handsomely provided for,

But shortly afterwards the parrot died too.

The Dresden clock continued ticking on the mantelpiece,

And the footman sat upon the dining-table

Holding the second housemaid on his knees —

Who had always been so careful while her mistress lived.

Louisburg Square has been suggested as the location of my residence.

I'm the Massholes on I-90.

I'm Boston Strong. But I wasn't.

I'm Santarpios. I'm what somehow passes for good pizza in this town.

I’m Boston Strong 💪 woohoo! The only city to overcome a domestic terrorist attack.

I’m the rats nibbling the plump toesies of r15’s posh nuns.

Boston is the wart-filled anus of the country.

[quote] I'm the Massholes on I-90.

No self-respecting Masshole refers to it as I-90. It's either The Mass Pike or The Pike.

Now go back to New Hampshire you inbred fucktard.

I’m Southie. The less said about me, the better.

We're the hundreds thousand college students who descend on the city every non-COVID year.

We can't drive for shit, especially when drunk, we take over large sections of the city and refer to the locals as "Townies" because few of us bother to learn enough about them to understand that "Massholes" is a more appropriate term.

I'm the throngs of poorly dressed tourists on Newbury Street.

I’m Chickopee, on the outskirts of Boston. I have the best weed and more tourists visit me.

[quote]Now go back to New Hampshire you inbred fucktard.

That's COW Hampshire. And it's only good for skiing when Nashoba doesn't have snow cover.

I'm the Cocoanut Grove, site of the worst nightclub fire in US History. I'm the reason there are now outward-swinging doors next to any revolving door.

I'm the reading room of the Boston Public Library.

At any given time, I'm comprised mainly of local university students studying, with some photo-snapping tourists and unwashed homeless tossed in to keep things interesting.

I belong to Joe Kennedy III.

I'm the shitty warmed over version of an average city in the UK

I blame all my problems on tourists and students.

I'm a concert at the Hatch Shell and a moonlit night

[quote]R360 I'm the reading room of the Boston Public Library.

I am called Bates Hall.

I'm the pedantic Bostonians on this thread.

I was the Combat Zone, an area of lower Washington Street where both straight and gay sex once thrived for years.

I'm taking your life in your hands every time you drive your car.

I'm the drunk college students staggering all over the place.

I am the racists—I mean, suburbanites—who have avoided me since the early sixties.

I'm Dunkin Donuts. To find me, turn left at the Dunkin Donuts, take the first exit on the rotary just past the Dunkin Donuts, and I'm on the right just across from the Dunkin Donuts.

Most Boston thing ever then.

I am R40, posting from the year 1983

I am the full set of Tiffany windows in the Arlington street church.

>>>When I ask the waitress if the lobsterrr is like rrilly, rrrilly frrree rrange, and locally sourced, she says: "Fuck you, you'll eat it. Prince Chahmin heya is payin for it, OK?

That is hilarious.

She would call it a lobstah.

r43, Nope. Lived there from 1999-2007.

I'm a depressed drunk Irish Catholic man who is married but having an affair

I am Santa's Village, formerly housed in the windows of Jordan Marsh, and now but a memory of eldergay Bostonians.

Along with Paragon Park, of which only the carrousel remains.

I am the Boston Public Gardens, probably the most beautiful park in the United States.

I'm the gay guy who moved into Southie in the late 80s when rents were cheap, and there was So. Much. Irish. Dick to be had. All ages, frequently cute and hung, too. Then they'd run back to their families in the triple deckers on E. 8th.

I am the parking for the harbor cruise that costs more than the harbor cruise itself.

I am the capital of "a liberal state that is open-minded enough to vote for a Republican governor" (as explained by a Bostonian to this poster)

I am listening as Deval Patrick claims in 2013 that "Massachusetts invented America." My response: "Boston Strong!" Rest of the country: "Hey, wait a minute..."

I am the woman in her 80s proudly stating that she has never been outside Massachusetts in her entire life.

I am all the cartographers who went blind designing maps of Boston.

I am the all-white church, coming up with every reason except the real one to not allow a Haitian congregation to rent space, even though we could really use the income. Now we're dying. Huh.

But I'm pretty in the springtime.

We’re all the tourists who came to drink at Cheers when the actual bar that inspired the TV show is The Bull and Finch Pub.

I'm a lawn chair marking a parking space laboriously dug out after a snowstorm.

Don't fuck with me.

I’m the saturation advertising from local chains Jordans Furniture and Bernie and Phyls, who showcase their local roots with the most grating accents imaginable.

I'm Paul Newman in the Verdict

I'm James Mason from The Verdict.

R45, it would be “fuck you DEAH.” ;-)

R32, as luck would have it, I’m the lack of blasted industrial hellscapes, pinhead-skinhead ultraviolence, horrendous "nightclubs" full of pasty, gap-toothed trash, deep-fried lumps of sheep shit as food and row after soul-killing row of ugly buildings composed entirely of soot that make your UK friends’ claims complete horseshit, per usual.

I'm the raw egg in dipso Paul Newman's beer in The Verdict. I'm his daily food intake.

I’m the Watch & Ward Society

No filthy James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence or Vladimir Nabokov welcome!

"From 'Beantown' To 'The Hub,' How Did Boston Earn Its Nicknames?"

I’m Quin-z (not quint-see), wuhster (not wore-Chester) and Dead-em (not dead ham)

Weah from Dead-um

And no one could be prouda

And if you cannot heah us

We’ll yell a little LOUDAH.

I’m the cream pie. And I’m not referring to what the Parker House serves for dessert.

I'm a map. Maybe R62 would like to take a look at me.

I’m SPENCER: FOR HIRE!

I am an Irish Catholic working-class middle-aged woman who lives here. My husband is either a member of the mob, or a cop.

I never forgive [italic]anyone[/italic] for anything! I feed off all of my life's many grudges.

You're not better than me.

[quote]When I ask the waitress if the lobsterrr is like rrilly, rrrilly frrree rrange, and locally sourced, she says: "Fuck you, you'll eat it. Prince Chahmin heya is payin for it, OK?".

That waitress is my heroine. Take that, pretentious California twit.

I am one of the few remaining Boston Brahmins, or (alternately) a wealthy gay man.

I [italic]am[/italic] better than you. Or at least I will try to force you to acknowledge that through every single thing I say or do.

I’m the elderly Storrow Drive bluestocking who sold my grandparents their ocean front summer house in Nahant for a song in 1940s... because my grandfather was tall and a good dancer.

Maybe he slept with her? All I know is he reportedly took her roses from the garden till the day she died.

I am Scott Herman moving to Florida because I can no longer afford paying Taxachusetts state taxes on my gym or the glorified softcore gay porn that I have the nerve to call workout videos on YouTube.

I’m the collective gasp of grief whistling through town as Brooks Brothers goes belly up.

We are a flock of birds flying south for the winter but not before we shit on the plaque that commemorates the site where once stood the Liberty Tree.

Actually it was when the J Press store in Harvard Square shut down that all the preppies cried their eyes out.

We’re Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton, respectively from Wellesley and Weston. We come into town for Robert Lowell’s poetry classes, then go get plastered together at the Ritz Bar.

When I ask the waitress if the lobsterrr is like rrilly, rrrilly frrree rrange, and locally sourced, she says: "Why yes. It's taken right from polluted Boston Harbor. Is that local enough for you? It would be wrong to ship it in from pristine waters further up the coast."

What happened to J Press?

I am a sleek skyscraper by I.M. Pei with malfunctioning windows. Watch as I send approximately 120 panes of reflective glass tumbling into Copley Square.

I'm the cab driver who when we got into his cab failed to tell us we were just a few feet away from our requested destination.

Lucky I noticed the street sign.

So we got out before he took us for a runaround.

I am dry martinis and raw oysters at the Copley Plaza Hotel.

I’m the misnomer of City when I’m actually a big town with a few blocks of beautiful townhouses surrounded by suburbs. The bulk of me is filled with cheap, vinyl sided three decker shacks made for working class poor that now sell for obscene amounts of money - despite being butt ugly and having minimal public transport.

I'm the Ghost of Filene's Basement, wandering around the old graveyard in a filthy wedding dress.

I'm the rotary, laughing my ass off as I watch the small town tourists come to a dead stop as they try to figure out how to enter this circle from hell.

I'm the Howard Johnson's, serving up authentic Boston Baked Beans & Frank's, with a side of Authentic Boston Brown Bread fresh from the round tin can.*

*Available for purchase @ the register.

I am the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, location of one of the most exquisite collections of art in the world and also, alas, the location of one of the greatest robberies of aforementioned art.

Check out my indoor Venetian garden, bitches.

I am the Mapparium, a huge stained glass globe you can walk through. I was created so that, well, actually I was hoping you would tell me.

I am the Great Molasses Disaster.

I am the Federal style. They started running me up in the 1790's and didn't stop until 1952.

I'm the Little Black Dress of American architecture.

I am the Boston Tea Party and the Psychedelic Circus.

Hands up, who remembers me?

I’m traffic.

I’m a Patriots fan. I didn’t even know that Boston had a football team until 2001, but now I’m a diehard fan. Except I might switch to the Bucs this year, not sure.

I am Pickman's model.

I am early American history, which is drummed into schoolchildren, including lots of field trips, to the point where every child, no matter his origins, thinks of it as his own.

I’m Kenmore Square.

I'm the straight guy who hates gays, but is in love with TOM BRADY

I’m that accent.

Yes, THAT accent.

I'm the one and only parking space you will find on the street within a 2 mile radius.

This too is Massachusetts..

"I’m Chickopee, on the outskirts of Boston. I have the best weed and more tourists visit me."

Chickopee is almost 100 miles from Boston

Ohhh Beacon Hill! Love it, love it, looove it!

I'm the official video for Til Tuesday's big hit "Voices Carry" partially filmed on location in Boston.

I'm Albert di Salvo, the Boston Strangler...or am I?

R88

Some seventy-three or so years later when excavation work was being done for Boston's Big Dig a huge underground hill of molasses was discovered.

Having seeped underground after the flood of molasses the mass became one large sweet food source for Boston's famous rats. The thing was riddled through with tunnels and nests made by rats over the decades.

My mannah of speaking defines old Boston Brahmin.

I'm Joanna Barnes doing my best Boston lockjaw accent as Gloria Upson in 1958 film "Auntie Mame"

Though can't figure out why my character has a Boston accent when she comes from Connecticut!

I’m the MFA, looking across the street at the Gardner and sniffing in disdain.

R100, It's also spelled Chicopee.

R106, Joanna Barnes was raised in Newton, MA.

I’m the cod.

I'm Cambridge. If people think Worcester and Chicopee are part of Boston, what chance have I got?

I'm a red brick. You will see more of me here than you could ever think possible.

Greetings, R112!

I'm Mike Dukakis, still living in Brookline and waiting by the phone for Joe Biden to call me for advice on running for POTUS.

[quote]R108 It's also spelled Chicopee.

Bitch, it’s also spelled chicka, chicka, chickabee.

R100 thank you, you beat me to it

I am the number four. In Boston, I’m pronounced with two syllables (even by educators) and sound like this: fo-wah.

“I could never live in a state that isn’t near the ocean” (even though I rarely leave my neighborhood long enough to see it).

“I’ll never travel west of the Mississippi. If I want to see national parks or historic sites, I’ll just look at pikchahs.” (The truth is, I’ll never travel west of Pittsfield.)

I am the Back Bay, a gob-smacking wedge of Victorian architecture evidently the largest such collection in the US. I contain precisely zero public places to sit down.

I am clam chowdah, and I taste great!

I'm Paul Revere, desperately trying to remember if it's "One if by land, two if by sea" or "Two if by land, one if by sea."

I'm the fried clam dinner special, with fries and cole slaw, every Friday night at The Howard Johnson's.

I'm the Citgo Sign. I'm an official city landmark.

R118 someone from Massachusetts would never say that; there are no historic sites west of the Mississippi.

I am John Singer Sargent's murals at the Boston Public Library. If you ever wondered whether Sargent was gay, look no further.

I’m the Boston Irish guy’s “sense of humor,” which is usually a string of cruel insults followed by a claim of innocence that I’m just “fuckin with ya.”

r124, ha, that's probably true. Let me rephrase it:

I am the arrogance.

I'm Boston's gay scene. I can be replicated in the safety of your own home by watching a tumbleweed bounce majestically through the tundra and muttering "fucking cunt" once it disappears.

I am Henry Hobson Richardson's Trinity Church, a mass of fire and music. Not unlike an architectural Eve Harrington.

Welcome to stuffy old Boston, The home of the bean and the cod. Where Cabots talk only to Lowells - and Lowells talk only to God.

R122, There was also the Wednesday "all you can eat" fish fry special.

We are the eight most recent candidates from Massachusetts who ran for POTUS and failed.

Ted Kennedy - 1980

Michael Dukakis - 1988

John Kerry - 2004

Mitt Romney - 2012

Deval Patrick - 2020

William Weld - 2020

Seth Moulton - 2020

Elizabeth Warren - 2020

I’m Bickford’s

I’m Worcester. I am to Boston what Riverside is to Los Angeles.

I’m the guy dressed as Paul Revere who rides a horse up Mass. Ave every Patriot’s Day

R15: You neglected to mention that if you buy that place, John and Theresa Heinz Kerry will be your nextdoor neighbors in the house with the flag.

R124 Fuck the Mississippi. There are no historic sites west of Dedham.

R90: All too well.

I’m the turtlenecks + sweater look favored by women of a certain age.

R136, When they moved in, the Kerrys had the fire hydrant in front of their house removed.

I'm a typical downtown pedestrian. I don't give a shit if the traffic light is red, yellow or green, or if a vehicle is in the middle of a turn, because I want to cross the street now, and not a second later.

Oh, and I also don't care if I'm not near a crosswalk, either. I will cross, when and where I please, cars or no cars.

R135 I’m the French Consul who has to dress up as Lafayette and get my ass out to Lexington by 7 am on Patriots Day for the re-enactors.

I am JACQUES, the infamous Bay Village bar. The neighbors have been trying for 40yrs to have me ejected . But nothing held up in court.

And, I'M STILL HERE. bitches.

I am Joe Kennedy III -- running for senator!

I'm the North End, home to about 55 restaurants in a four-block radius. It's impossible to park inside of me!!

I am Faneuil Hall. My whole belly clams are delicious!

I'm the Boston Beguine!

I am this infectiously catchy promo for WCVB

R145, You can cut that 55 in half due to closures since COVID-19.

I'm the Sunflower House at the corner of River and Mt. Vernon Streets in Beacon Hill. I am one of the earliest Aesthetic Movement houses in the country and was admired by Oliver Wendell Holmes and Oscar Wilde.

I’m Charlie. I’m still riding the MTA after all these years.

I'm the rats! We Boston rats put New York City's in the shade.

I’m Star Market, the advertisement for which, which I first heard in the rental as I drove down the Pike, in the snow, on the wrong side of the road, did my jet lagged head in as it sounded just like home: “Stah Mahket”.

I'm a frappe.

Everywhere else you'll know me as a milkshake.

(I'm pronounced 'frap', by the way)

“Frappe” is as much a mystery to young Bostonians as it always was to the rest of the country. But I was happy to find a carton of Brigham’s peppahmint ice cream at what used to be the Stah last week. In summah!

I think a frappe has more ice cream in it than a milkshake, is served in a bigger glass, and it costs more.

If memory serves...

I’m the long gone Safari Club, like having sex in an office park. If you were cute enough they’d put you in the mirrored room that I’m pretty sure had cameras recording behind them.

I'm the Sumnah Tunnel. Good luck getting outta me at rush hour.

I'm Mindy Kaling, Conan O'Brien, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, John Krasinski, Chris Evans, Amy Poehler, and Rachel Dratch.

I'm Mass Ave. I'm hard to rhyme.

I'm the tourist in a T station trying to figure out what in bound and out bound mean.

I'm Acorn street, the loveliest street in America.

I lived in Boston in the 90s and visit about every 5 years. It has some drawbacks, but honestly it is one of the most beautiful American cities. To the person posting about no parks in the back bay - do you even know Boston? There's Copyley Square, there is the Fens behind Kenmore, there is the Public Garden (which is gorgeous) and of course, the massive Charles River esplanade which runs behind the entire back bay. Walk your lazy ass across the bridge to miles of beautiful, green park space.

I’m Philadelphia, bigger, more Colonial architecture, less pretension - and an actual city vs a big town. I may be poorer financially but I’m much richer in most other ways that make living much easier.

I’m the famous Jordan Marsh blueberry muffins

I'm the pair of Manolo Blahniks that SJP left behind in her Colonial Theatre dressing room when Plaza Suite previewed there last February.

I’m Prudence Goodewyfe sneaking a wee dram of Barbadian rum.

I am "Sweet Caroline." How did I even get here?

I am "Dominick the Donkey." I'm heard everywhere during the holidays.

I'm the much missed Romagnoli's Table in Faneuil Hall. And The Napoleon Club too They had a fabulous pianist there, Jack, who had studied under Dorothea Freitag, Broadway legend. Jack had a real Broadway 20s/30s style to his piano playing.

I'm the much missed men's rooms on the second and third floors of the Back Bay Sheraton.

I'm nice weather. I visit Boston once or twice a year, if they're lucky.

I'm the aroma of the FIlene's stop on the T.

I’m the Green Line

Green Line of vomit at Packard's Corner on a Saturday night?

R162 The jewel of Boston's park system, known as the Emerald Necklace, was laid out by Frederick Law Olmstead and stretches for miles, from the Boston Common and it's twin across Charles Street, the Public Gardens (where we were married next to the Ether Monument), then down the Commonwealth Avenue Mall for the length of the Back Bay - with plenty of places to sit as it's about a mile long and which is paralleled by the Esplanade along the Boston side and an equally large greenbelt along the Cambridge side of the Charles River, each stretching two to three miles of riverfront. The mall meets the Riverway and then the Fenway (the park, not the baseball stadium nearby and still cruisey after all these years) in Kenmore Square and connects through the Medical Area to the Jamaica Way which ends at Jamaica Pond and then the Arnold Arboretum. Not counting the Arboretum (281 acres), the Emerald Necklace consists of more than 1100 acres through the middle of the city and along Boston's border with Brookline. And there are plenty of other stand-alone parks; the Greenway along the waterfront downtown, the playing fields along the Charles by Mass General, Castle Island, the parks along the Neponset River in Dorchester or the beaches in East Boston, South Boston, and the Seaport District and Harbor Island parks.

In fact, everyone in Boston lives with a 10 minute walk of a public park and the parks total 17% of the city's land area, almost double the national average.

Anyone who says there are no parks hasn't been to Boston.

R169 Before Jack (1960's - early 70's) there was Marie, who'd been a Ziegfeld girl in her distant youth. She was her late 70's when I knew her. I never got carded and seldom paid for a drink there when I was 17, and I had a decent baritone voice. I worked for Blue Cross/Blue Shield in high school and college and I'd do her Medicare claims for her.

When Marie died, her family was blown away by the crowd at her wake. The line outside Lawler's was at least 1000 feet down the street and the floral displays were incredible. Marie was a friend to the end: I ended up tricking with and then dating a cutie from Hanscom AF Base I met while waiting to get in.

I was (because I am no longer) Henry Ferrini, aka Sylvia Sidney, aka "The Mess in a Dress," aka "The Bitch of Boston" and possibly the worst drag queen in the world back in the day.

But we loved her, although God knows it wasn't for her talent or the blowjobs she allegedly gave with her teeth in her hand.

I am the dialogue in “The Departed “. I am really hard to follow because of these awful Boston accents.

R157, where was the Safari Club? I went there drunk one night with a friend but couldn't remember where it was. The location is the only thing I don't remember from that night. Oh boy! Now that was a fun night.

R169, I remember Jack who by the time I came along was usually there during happy hour, not working evenings any longer (I think). He did a remarkable song that he said no one ever remembered but it deserved to be so. That was a remarkable bar, and it seems like something from the Stone Age now.

R178 The Safari Club, aka The Dark Continent, was on Wareham Street in the South End between Albany Street and Harrison Ave near what was then Boston City Hospital (now Boston Medical Center) and the old wholesale flower market near the South East Expressway.

Thanks R179. I just looked it up on the map and I just now remember it being near the flower market.

I'm the dated wardrobe of the locals. Don't you dare try to come between me and my bootcut jeans, brown leather grommet belt, baseball cap, polar fleece vest, zip-off shorts, Old Navy knit beanie and Birkenstocks slip-on clogs.

I'm the dated wardrobe of the locals. Don't you dare try to come between me and my bootcut jeans, brown leather grommet belt, baseball cap, polar fleece vest, zip-off shorts, Old Navy knit beanie and Birkenstocks slip-on clogs.

R181, Not just dated: shitty. Among the breeders, it's said that a man wearing a Red Sox cap considers himself well-dressed for a night out.

It's true: people don't give a shit what they wear here. I'm from Boston and remember being blown away the first time I went to Chicago: people dressed up there just to go work and shopping.

I am Dave Roberts, currently manager of the L.A. Dodgers, and I will never have to pay for another drink in Boston again.

R183, it transcends all socioeconomic backgrounds. Everybody there is stuck on 2002's casual favorites.

I am 234 Berkely Street, at the corner of Newbury. I was once the Museum of Natural History, then I bacame Bonwit Teller, then Louis Boston. I think I'm now Restoration Hardware (?)

[quote]This classical French Academic-style building was designed in 1862 by architect William G. Preston as the new home of the Boston Society for Natural History, which had been founded in 1830. In the 1860’s, many of Boston’s cultural institutions relocated here to the Back Bay, the elegant residential district being built on the tidal marshes behind the city. When the museum moved here in 1863, the new building dominated the western edge of the landfill. The classical design reflected its role as a “temple of learning.”

I'm the twenty year old wicked good slippers ordered from L.L. Bean.

That would be wicked pissah, R187.

Thanks for getting it, random upvoter.

(I'm starting to feel like the youngest person here...and I'm middle-aged. This place is really going to be a ghost town in 10-15 years.)

I'm a shady bar in Allston. My floors are sticky, my lighting is dim, and I wish I were Great Scott but I'm not!

I'm the Pilgrim Theater in the heart of the Combat Zone.

Unfortunately, I was demolished in 1996, but what went on inside me was memorable.

I am THE SPIRIT OF MASSACHUSETTS.

R191 I remember attending a Drag Brunch at Club Cafe and then my friend George (Gina) and I went to the Pilgrim after being thrown out of the Glass Slipper bt the angry Thai ladyboys that were working the room.

A guy at the theater said to my friend, “You have nice lips, Gina”.

I died laughing and it was so much fun.

R183, then Boston seems like a cool place to me dude

I’m R58 and I am TRIGGAHD.

I’m the housewives.

R191 Not least the event that finally led to the Pilgrim's demolition - the cleaners found a priest dead in the balcony with his pants down around his ankles. And that was by no means the most memorable thing that happened there. Partly it was HIV that closed the place but it was real estate as well: the site was too valuable when they condo-ized lower Washington Street, aka the Combat Zone.

It was once a huge burlesque house seating 2500 people and even towards the end, when parts of it had been closed off, it was monstrous inside. I remember one of the first times I went there. After I walked in and my eyes adjusted to the dark, I walked down one of the side aisles until I came to two guys seated in one of the cross aisles going at it with one bouncing - noisily and enthusiastically - up and down on the gigantic dick of the other. It was about as big as my arm from the elbow to the wrist and they really seemed to be enjoying themselves, as one does, I guess. The rest of the orchestra was populated by maybe a dozen pairs of guys going at it, and under the boxes on the other side of the theater was a clusterfuck involving six or seven people. I thought "Hmmm, busy night" and went downstairs to the mensroom where an elderly watersports aficionado was kneeling, naked, in one of those enormous old porcelain urinals about the size of a coffin waiting to be sprayed. There were also two or three other groupings in the booths and at the other urinals sucking and fucking each other out in the open.

I went back upstairs and stood in the back of the orchestra where I was watching a pretty hunky looking guy on the floor asking people to trample him when I lit a cigarette. Almost instantly, someone who worked for the theater ran over to me and told me I couldn't smoke.

I’m The 1270.

[quote] During its heyday the 1270 was a multi-storied (plus roof deck) nightspot that aimed to please everyone's clubbing tastes. On one level you'd find a jazz vocalist singing standards; go upstairs and there was a cruise bar; continue up and you'd find the glam rockers dancing to punk; up again and there would be disco filled with mostly gay men; and up once more onto the roof deck that served food and a views of Fenway Park. It was unique -- a club that aimed to please the diversity of the emerging gay population in the city at the time; and something we'd likely never see again in our club-phobic age

Not being from Boston, nor around when place existed (in heyday or afterwards), had to look it up.

Pilgrim Theatre sounds like a few places found in parts of NYC, SF and many other old urban areas.

I’m shocked a place like Pilgrim Theater existed in Boston. Such an uptight city. Seems more like Philly.

Combat Zone, Boston sounds a bit like old Times Square in NYC.

That's what Boston would like to give out; but as song "Boston Beguine" parodies, the place was like everywhere else; if one knew where to look....

Boston Beguine - Harnick M. Sheldon

Tropical nights, Orchids in bloom, sultry perfume, Intrigues and dangers, with passionate strangers, I've seen it all, as I recall. I met him in Boston, in the native quarter, He was from Harvard, just across the border It was a magical night, with romance everywhere There was something in the air, There always is in Boston We went to the Casbah, that's an Irish bar there The underground hideout of the D.A.R. there Something inside of me said, "Watch your heart mad'moiselle" And it might be just a s well to watch you purse in Boston. We danced in a trance, and I dreamed of romance Till the strings of my heart seemed to be knotted And even the palms seemed to be potted. The BOSTON BEGUINE was casting it's spell And I was drunk with love. and cheap muscatel. We walked to the Commons, that's a pretty park there, As I remember, it was pretty dark there. In this exotic locale, by a silver lagoon, Underneath a voodoo moon, we fell asleep in Boston! That was the story of my one romance there! Our dream of adventure didn't stand a chance there! How could we hope to enjoy all the pleasures ahead, When all the books we should have read Were all suppressed in Boston! Exotic Boston, Land of the Free Home of the brave, home of the Red Sox Home of the bean, and home Of the BOSTON BEGUINE

I'm a Boston marriage, which isn't what people think; well not at first anyway.

I am The Other Side.

I’m the airport, the Kai-Tak of New England.

I am the Bee Gee, going back to Massachusetts.

I’m The Bee Gees song "(The Lights Went Out In) Massachusetts". The Bee Gees had never actually been to Massachusetts when they wrote me; they just liked the sound of the name.

Nobody in Massachusetts who grew up there has ever heard of me, because none of the local radio stations play it.

I'm WBGH-TV, the local PBS station in Boston. We still feature the BeeGees concerts in our pledge drive several times a year, and those Bostonians cat get enough.

I am Boston City Hall, I am an example of ugly concrete Brutalist architecture. Philadelphia City Hall is so much nicer.

I am Old Boston City Hall, a block away from new City Hall and every inch as nice as the one in Philadelphia, thank you.

I am the Ayer Mansion, one of only a handful of completely intact Louis Comfort Tiffany designs and the only surviving one where he had a hand in the exterior. I am occasionally open for tours and am owned by a sinister affiliate of Opus Dei.

I’m the bubbler.

I am “Make Way for Ducklings”

I'm Kelly's Roast Beef in Revere!

R209 I’m Scollay Square and the Old Howard Theater. I was torn down to make way for that monstrosity. My stage saw performances from John Wilkes Booth to Fanny Brice to Gypsy Rose Lee. Shakespeare to Burlesque. I saw it all.

I’m Dorothy Faye Dunaway, throwing salads and slapping stagehands at the Huntington Theater.

I’m our momentary, three-weeks-long-only summers.

Clearly R217 hasn't been here for a while: we've had a gorgeous summer. It's difficult to enjoy thanks to the pandemic. If not for Covid-19 it would have been wonderful.

I’m Boston Harbor. In the Seventies and Eighties I was filthy, brown, and filled with jellyfish. Now after decades of restoration, my water is so clean and clear the fish have returned and people are even allowed to eat them!

Poor Philadelphia. So insecure.

R210: The old one on School Street across from the Parker House is even better - do they have a Ruth's Chris in Philadelphia's City Hall? I didn't think so.

At least Philadelphia had the good sense to name the street it's on after a Bostonian...

[quote] Poor Philadelphia. So insecure.

Philadelphia had two grand department stores, John Wanamaker and Strawbridge & Clothier. Boston had Filene's and Jordan Marsh, which were perfectly respectable, but neither one could be considered particularly 'grand'.

Your desperation is unbecoming, Philadelphia.

Perhaps as a consequence, R222, Boston has had a Saks Fifth Avenue and a Neiman-Marcus downtown - not in some mall in King of Prussia or Bala Cynwyd - for years.

I’m Katie Gibbs (the Katharine Gibbs School) on Beacon Street. The impoverished heroine of SCRUPLES takes secretarial courses at me, then quickly marries her rich old boss once she’s placed at a job.

I’m Boston adjacent Ruth Gordon (from Quincy)

I'm the houses that Ruth Gordon lived in that are all still there in Wollaston. I'm also Billy De Wolfe who grew up around the corner, though Gordon was a good ten years older.

Oh, oh! Don’t forget me!

I was practically Quincy Royalty, because my dad owned Remick’s Department Store.

AND Stephen Sondheim wanted to marry me.

[italic]Follies!

R228, Oh yeah, and JFK fucked me.

The bubblah, r12

I'm the first subway in North America.

R231 The Boylston stop still looks like that.

🦈 I'm JAWS.

C'mon in bitch, the water's fine !

Boston's old city hall is so tiny compared to Philadelphia's.

I’m the Charles River. I had a song written about me. Love that dirty water...Boston you’re my home.

Yeah but Boston's Dior boutique is in a mall, R224.

The Dior boutique is hardly a department store.

Yes but aren't luxury boutiques in malls tacky and suburban.

Didn't look through all the comments but, i loved the amazing bakeries, the world class aquarium (at that time) , the market, the seashore, museum, and always loved a regional accent plus tons of Dunkin Donuts every damn-where and all the round-abouts. I had a good time the three times i visited. When I was there, they were doing the Big Dig, which was pretty interesting. charming in it's own way, i know it had some real issues though....a rough city in many ways. i'd never live there but i really enjoyed my visits. combined it in some visits with whale watching and Plymouth Plantation. It's really its own place.

Forgot to mention i witnessed the best Fourth of July over the Charles River with the Boston Pops playing, i fully admit it brought me to tears. And i wasn't even with someone i remotely care about...it was amazing.

I'm Charles Laquidara on WBCN radio.

I'm a T pass. I'm officially known as a CharlieCard, which proves the MBTA has a sense of humor.

I'm the sultry cheesemonger at Formaggio Kitchen!! You all know me. I'm a DL legend!

I'm Wellesley Hills, Massachusetts. You wish you could afford me!

I'm Somerville, MA. Ditto.

Slumma-vile, no thank you.

I'm those long faded red, white, and blue footprints to guide you through the city for a walking tour during the Bicentennial Celebration.

I’m Jack. Not some faakin’ piano player upthread but the bitchy, soulless owner and bartender at The Eagle. I used to be able to scream at a hundred of you silly faggots a night, but now only 4 or 5 ever come in.

I'm Kim and I do PSAs, telling you what you can expect in Boston, sort of...

I am Park Square, a gritty neighborhood between Boyleston and Columbus across from the Public Garden. I was ripped down in the 80s.- no more: Playboy Club, The Hillbilly Ranch Skipper's (male hustler bar) , Greyhound and Trailways bus stations and the old Howard Johnsons 57. I was replaced with The Four Seasons Hotel, The Heritage Condos, and fancy retail like Hermes and La Perla. And fat Lydia Shire's restaurants BIBA and PIGNOLI.

I'm colleges and universities; I'm everywhere, I'm everywhere!

I'm Aaron Hernandez's used jockstrap up for auction on eBay.

I'm the gay tourist only in town long enough to get off the plane, shudder at the jankyass nature of the airport, then take the free (but also jankyass) shuttle bus to the harbor, then wait in line to take the ferry to P-Town.

You would have loved the old days (70's) when Provincetown - Boston Airways was in Logan's Terminal A, then Eastern's, where the Air Shuttle emplaned and deplaned.

On weekends, PBA had "Champagne and Quiche" service on the DC-3, the only one they owned. All the NYC queens would be running, screaming, from one plane to the other.

I'm New Edition (Ronnie DeVoe, Michael Bivins, Ricky Bell, Ralph Tresvant, Bobby Brown) - an example of famous black people from Boston.

We're from Roxbury, which I assume is gentrified at least partially now.

Do we have a specific Boston black accent?

I am the well known South End/Dorchester restaurateur who regularly invites his cuter male servers to join him and his partner in drug enhanced sex sessions.

I’m the hatred of New York.

R256 at what restaurant of yours might I have eaten?

I’m the belligerent rudeness spewing from millions of thuggish assholes.

R258, B. C.

I’m the historic stuff that really isn’t very interesting. Like this grave of Robert lash, a member of the Sons of Liberty, participant in the Boston Tea Party, and friend of Paul Revere. It’s in the crypt under Old North Church, immortalized in the Longfellow poem that begins, [italic] “One if by land, two if by sea...” [/italic]

I am the golden dome of the State House, floating like the perfect, luminous tit of some triumphant Roman goddess over the roofs of Beacon Hill.

I'm me, always forgetting that the capital of Massachusetts is Boston. It seems too obvious.

[quote] R239: ... When I was there, they were doing the Big Dig ...

I’m the Big Dig. I built a tunnel under Boston Harbor to facilitate access to the airport, which is really convenient. I also built another tunnel under the city. Then disassembled the old traffic bridge that ran through the city and replaced it with a park. I also upgraded al the telcom equipment in the business district, and the 100 year old pipes. Basically I dragged Boston into the 21st century.

At the same time, I was upgrading the water & sewage system to clean up the famously dirty water.

The Big Dig was a fascinating infrastructure/public works project. A royal pain for Boston during the process - and of course way over budget and off schedule as these things always are. But definitely worth it given all the benefits you've summarized.

I’m the Irish social clubs. You wonder what i look like inside. Say hello to your mother for me.

We haven't recovered from forced busing in the South End.

Still mourning the loss of S.S. Pierce.

I'm a cockroach and I am everywhere. Get the fuck otta my way.

I'm Allston Christmas. I just ended last week.

R267, it was South Boston, not the South End where forced bussing occurred.

R268, How I miss their cashews.

I’m the Dunkin’ Donuts appearing on every single corner.

I’m the Napoleon Room at Club Cafe, a wan fading memorial to the original Napoleon’s, a fabulous but long gone piano bar hosting old men downstairs and the hottest Latin hustlers in the 70’s disco upstairs.

I'm Philadelphia, so insecure, have to compare myself to Boston, which has less than half the population.

I'm Lawrence, still somewhat affordable, but there's a reason for that.

I'm Philadelphia, so insecure, have to compare myself to Boston, which has less than half the population.

I'm Lawrence, still somewhat affordable, but there's a reason for that.

I am the unfunny, homophobic comedians that keep getting hired by SNL and then make shit films no one laughs at.

R260, the steakhouse? Interesting! Just the other day I came across a pic of their chef and thought he might be good at baking cookies as well as steaks, but no... he's married.

Did you work there at some point and fall prey to the boss?

What s the name of the steak house?

R278, Not me, but a fuck buddy has played with the owner and his partner numerous times.

R280 I’ve always wondered if those leather napkin “rings” were ever out to more debauched uses after hours.

Next time I go I will have to sniff mine! Thanks for the fun gossip.

I'm the purple panes.

I’m the fucking out-of-towner or just damned tourist who can’t tell the difference between Southie and the the South End.

I lived in several different places in the South End in the 90’s and you didn’t cross Washington St. after sunset. A brand new 1 bedroom was $600 in 1991 but had a crackhouse on both ends of the street.

R106 Joanna Barnes' accent was generic upper-crust east coast. PEGGY CASS on the other hand was Boston. Tho not upper class Boston.

I'm the 800 seat Sack Cheri movie theater "the world's first drive-up movie theater" where you could drive into the parking garage and take the elevator up to the movie. I'm also The Rat (Rathskeller) in Harvard Square where you could see the punk and new wave sensations of the 70s and 80s. Then go to Ken's Deli in Copley Square which was open late. Or if you were a disco kid, Lucifer in Kenmore Square or The Mad Hatter in Southie on the channel (The Channel live music club opened in 1980). There was also 15 Lansdowne.

I used to be home to Sporters, Buddy’s, Fritz, the Eagle,119 Merrimack, Herbie’s Ramrod Room, Machine, the 1270, Club Cafe, Paradise, Jacques, the Napoleon Club, Playland, Darts, Bobby’s, Buddies, the Other Side, Chaps, the Punchbowl, Luxor, the Loft, Haymarket and a couple more gay watering holes.

And you could park free, safely, outside any of them.

Now I have three or four left.

I am Cambridge - home of Harvard and MIT. I get to enjoy your views without being the shit city that you are. Keep your crime to yourself! We only come across the bridge for entertainment.

R287 um, try TWO!

Tho Fritz did relocate and become Cathedral Station. But still, not a good surviving lineage.

I’m the micks and wops who still inexplicably dominate every aspect of city life

R290 better them than the darkies and chinks!

Amiright?!?

R291 = old Boston WASP stock silently resigned tot the city being overwhelmed by fenians and guineas

I'm the "nawt in my backyahd" politics that come across as liberal and progressive, though my followers have never befriended a person of color in their entire lives. They just don't want any trouble in their own city.

[quote]I used to be home to Sporters, Buddy’s,

The name was Buddies

I worked for an old established firm in the same block as Buddies on Boylston Street in the early 1980s.

One year, Buddies sent all their neighbors a Christmas card featuring the club's staff shirtless and wearing Santa caps.

Our very conservative sixtysomething CEO was repulsed when he saw it. After he tossed it, I fished it out of the trash and kept it.

[quote]the Rat (Rathskeller) in Harvard Square where you could see the punk and new wave sensations of the 70s and 80s.

Did the Rat move? I lived in Boston from '82 - '88 and remember it being in Kenmore Sq.

I am Charles Bulfinch.

I and Thomas Jefferson set the tone for American architecture after the Revolution, until that miserable Alexander Jackson Downing same along.

I am the Custom House's magnificent clock tower.

I am a later addition to an 1820s design.

My clock face is wider than that of big Ben.

By accident, obviously.

Not like we were symbolically making a point or anything.

Sadly, R298, now I'm part of a Marriott Vacation Club Pulse, aka timeshares.

[quote]Did the Rat move? I lived in Boston from '82 - '88 and remember it being in Kenmore Sq.

No it didn't move, I just typed Harvard Square for some reason. I used to go to a basement music venue next door to the Wursthaus in Harvard Square though, I think I was confusing it somehow.

The Rat was in Kenmore Square.

It was years of congealed spilled beer, not nacreous layers of permacum, but your shoes still stuck to the floor in that place.

R225, I agree that's a viable route.

R287 Thank you for remembering my favorite shithole, The Haymarket. I loved when midnight arrived and the black queens would show up voguing before most of us knew what the fuck that was. The coat check queen was bitter and scary as most coat check queens tend to be.

Remember the sweet old lady waitress "Tex" who worked the Haymarket? I know she worked in other gay clubs, too, going back 40 years. She was iconic. She new all the old queens and divas from the Punchbowl's golden age (before my time but loved her stories about Judy and Vincent and Liz and Monty, etc.) She did a gig at Bobby's at North Station for a few years and a bunch of other places. Loved her. My friends and I talk about her all the time. ❤️🏳️‍🌈🔥

Haymarket wasn't one of my regular stops, R303, just one more of the gay bars that were there when I started going at the tender age of 16 and no longer exist a half-century or so later. I was very popular at the Nappy: never went up to the bar but the drinks found their way to me. One place I forgot to include was 12 Carver, a bar on a street that no longer exists - it's now the Park Square end of Charles Street near the Transportation Building - and Phil Bayonne, the enormous queen who owned the place and who, [italic]a la[/italic] Joan Collins in "The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing" used to put on a picture hat with ribbons down the back, get on his red velvet swing, and launch himself out over the crowd in the bar singing "Summertime." Except that Phil was no Joan Collins. He had to have weighed at least 300 pounds. If those ropes broke, he could have killed thirty or forty people when he fell.

I'm Irish Alzheimer's, a very common condition in Boston. You forget everything except the grudges.

I'd love to hear more stories about Boston of old. Those of you already contributing, are you still in the city and if not, what took you away?

I moved here in 2001 on a wandering whim and never would have expected I'd still be here. Gay bars and nightlife were fewer than just 5 years previous to my arrival, I later learned, still enough to provide a good time but there weren't many colorful characters anymore. Of course Jack at the Eagle was a fixture, and there was Lolly at Machine who customized awful, rotgut liquor cocktails to your mood. There was also a tough, bitchy lesbian that manned the bar at Club Cafe that I think tried to be a version of Jack, but once you broke through her mean exterior, she really was quite tolerable. We bonded over an appreciation for manners and etiquette.

The slow death of gay spaces in Boston, only accelerated by COVID, is remarkable and quite sad. I'm not sure whether the trade off is worth it: gay spaces for much wider acceptance and tolerance. It's not like we're going to a gay bar or bathhouse currently these days, but if we ever get back to that activity, I guess I'll just have to take a vacation to Lauderdale or Chicago.

I’m Brookline, next door to Boston and America’s first suburb. My population has always been widely varied, but it used to be about half Jewish and half Irish. It’s now predominantly Jewish, so the Brookline High School cheerleaders don’t use this old standby cheer these days:

“Izzy, Max, Meyer, Sam - We’re the boys who eat no ham

Brookline! Brookline! Brookline!”

R307, Brookline produced both JFK and Barbara Walters.

I am the winter garden at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

Gaze upon my beauty, crummy mortals.

R308 And Mike Wallace and Conan O’Brien.

I was a precocious teen when I stripped down to a string thong at Haymarket, used to hang out all the time at Luxor and fawn over Chris Scales. I worked a stint at Mario’s downstairs, (Roberto and Donna!) I also worked in the tanning at Club Cafe before they tore it out, and yes, Bobby’s too. I agree Boston was much gayer in the 90’s.

I bartended for several years at Buzz and got the job quite by accident. There were some catty gals that worked that bar, the house rule was you couldn’t sleep with any customers to keep the mystique of the “Buzz Boys”. I had one break a glass in the ice bin on my side of the bar so she could make more money because I had to wait for the bar back to clean and refresh the ice!

R310 My mother and Mike Wallace dated when they were students at Brookline High in the 1930’s. I have her copy of the Murivian (yearbook) someplace and Meyer’s signed blurb to her by his photo is very, uh, “complimentary.”

My grandmother and Mrs Walishinsky put a stop to it, though. Catholic girls didn’t go out with Jewish boys back then. She told me they used to go “necking” at Echo Bridge in Newton in her convertible after going dancing at Norumbega Park.

R311 Based on your timeline, we must have crossed paths. Did you know Tex? My friends and I are obsessed with her. She was like "Mother" to us.

I like to strangle ladies ...

313, yep. I do believe Tex wound up at Bobby’s. I remember her as a cocktail waitress.

I also remember the Concrete Palace, Rise, the Loft, and all those fabulous warehouse after hours parties people threw before the South End got so snooty.

"I'm Mindy Kaling, Conan O'Brien, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, John Krasinski, Chris Evans, Amy Poehler, and Rachel Dratch. "

Do they still have homes in Boston?

Chris Evans has a large house in the suburbs, Concord I think. He's seen there often. The others - don't think so.

I am (the ghost of) The Boston Strangler. I did my thing in 1962-1964. Fun times. I now have a walking tour in Boston!

I'm Wednesday! I'm Prince Spaghetti Day!

Lived in Boston 92-98. Was in the bars every weekend., mainly Luxor. But also Club Cafe, 1270, Chaps, and a few times at Bobby’s, where I picked up a twink who tossed my salad under a bush in the Public Garden. Yeah, I was a slut.

I’m the twink interns at WBCN that Mark Parenteau raped.

Must have shocked the tourists going by in the Swan boats.

I'm Cambridge, with my nose in the air.

I am Anthony Athanas, once the owner of Anthony's Pier 4.

Every celebrity who came to Boston ate at my restaurant and posed with me for my gallery of framed photos.

My restaurant was so proper, no male would be seated without wearing a suit jacket. If you arrived without one, we would provide one for you.

R324 He had terrible dandruff.

R319 Anthony just died

I am the surprisingly good restaurant in Chinatown.

R320 That was probably me. You’re welcome!

I am a swan boat.

I'm the Boston Marathon bombing of 2013.

I'm Top of the Hub. My views are stunning, but my food is mediocre.

Oh, and I’m closed.

When you first opened, R332, all the food came from Stouffers. It was made and frozen in Cleveland and later reheated at the Top of the Hub.

The food has always been mediocre.

R332, Not for long . . .

"More renovation news: The Pru’s owner says it now plans to spend $125 million-plus to renovate floors 50 through 52 of the skyscraper, the same floors that now include the Top of the Hub restaurant and Skywalk Observatory. Those are closing in April. Work is supposed to wrap in time for a mid-2022 reopening."

I’m the Stephen King book, “Cell”, which the opening chapter eerily predicted an explosion on the very same strip of Boyleston St. FOUR YEARS prior to the actual Boston Marathon bombings.

My old boss had opened a business on that same doorstep 20 years ago and I refused to go work with him as well- having sort of a similar premonition that things would end badly. Steve has a history of predicting the future in his writings-

Lotsa bad luck on that block. I used to work with a woman whose husband worked there who left his office and stepped onto Boylston Street just as the bombs went off. He ended up in the Mass General, painfully wounded twice: first by the shrapnel and the second time when his wife went to visit him at MGH and found him and his girlfriend in the hospital bed.

The divorce settlement netted her another degree for herself, a BMW convertible, a Buick Enclave, the house in Lexington, the house in New Hampshire, full tuition for three kids (oldest now at NYU, second oldest at Colgate) and an unspecified lump sum as "reparations." In a way, he's lucky. Had he died, she'd have gotten it all and he'd be dead.

"The divorce settlement netted her another degree for herself, a BMW convertible, a Buick Enclave, the house in Lexington, the house in New Hampshire, full tuition for three kids (oldest now at NYU, second oldest at Colgate) and an unspecified lump sum as "reparations." In a way, he's lucky. Had he died, she'd have gotten it all and he'd be dead."

Was there anything left?

I am the head of the official welcoming committee for the newest Boston Bruin, Craig Smith.

Definitely sex on a stick.

I'm traffic, and I am relentless and horrible!

I'm the faint smell of molasses that lingered on side streets downtown on hot summer days for decades after the Great Molasses Flood of 1919.

I'm the faint smell of molasses that lingered on side streets downtown on hot summer days for decades after the Great Molasses Flood of 1919.

I'm a brownstone on Newbury Street.

I'd love to live in there and have a lover on a winter's night and we're warm inside and he spoils me.

I'm Charlotte Vale. Miss Charlotte Vale.

I don't ask for the moon when I have the stars.

I'm the group Boston. More Than a Feeling! Amanda!

I'm r12 who just returned to California from Lynn, Lynn, City of Sin. I did not come out the way I went in. Because leaf peeping in VT, NH, and Maine. And moah lobstah!

I'm Boston Public. I'm Boston Legal. Two great TV shows!

I’m Reveah..., Girls with big hair!

I'm Marty Walsh, Mayor of Boston and starting next week, Joe Biden's Secretary of Labor.

Some things never change. Maurice Tobin, Mayor of Boston in the 1940's, was Harry Truman's Secretary of Labor.

Hate that fucking place. One of the most overrated cities in the world (despite the excellent schools and hospitals)

R349, Thanks !

And hats off to Harvard, and fuck it! Even Spaulding Rehab!

One of the trashiest and racist cities EVER.

So much of it is stealth, but it is pervasive.

Great people are everywhere, but I hated that place.

So racist, in fact R351, that Boston's Congresswoman is black, the DA is black, the Police Commissioner is black, and next week, the Mayor will be black, too.

R352, And the previous Governor was black.

I'm the Green Line; don't get on the wrong one or you can't go to Boston College

I’m Dunkin’ Donuts! At every second street corner and sometimes across the street from each other.

R353 and Massachusetts had the first black Senator since reconstruction elected back in the 1960s, but it’s sooooo racist because one angry loon was unhappy there 30 years ago.

There’s racism everywhere, Boston included. It’s a lot better than it was when a lot of other places are worse now, but that’s never mentioned. Try Minneapolis.

Typical DL response: “I know all about what a place is like even though I haven’t been there during this century.”

" . . . and Massachusetts had the first black Senator since reconstruction elected back in the 1960s."

Ah, yes, Ed Brooke, my one and only bbc.

I lived near and in Boston, from ‘64 to ‘72, first in prep school north of the city, then 4 years at BU. The 60’s were a great time to be there. Political demonstrations and “happenings” practically every week. Many pre-Broadway tryouts. It was a stirring time to be alive.

My parents had gone to school there in the 20’s: my father at MIT, my mother at Radcliffe, and they told me stories of college life then, not dissimilar to what I experienced in the 60’s. A real melting pot of cultural change.

Though I was closeted and self-hating the entire time I lived there, this never kept me from cruising in all kinds of places, usually late at night, and often drunk or high. The Esplanade, the Fenway, which was more dangerous, hitchhiking on Comm Ave were all fruitful areas. There was even cruising over at Harvard, along the Charles.

But the most prominent area was referred to as “the Block,” a square bordering on the Public Garden, consisting of Arlington St., right on Comm Ave., right on Berkeley St, then right on Marlborough St., and back to Arlington. Round and round the cars would cruise, checking out men loitering on the sidewalk, mostly along Marlborough.

I avoided bars and theaters; I was afraid of being seen. And I didn’t know about bathhouses. In those days, I was a creature of shadows. My own inner torments kept me from any real interaction.

All that was to radically change, though not until many years later. But that, as they say, is another story.

Johnspike - you sound very well-bred, academically. Would love to hear about that "another story". Another good thread would be "Let's be what came of you after you left The City of Boston". Where did you go?

R358, You must be 70 now?

R358, I was at BU about a decade after you... lots of hot guys but many deeply closeted.

I had one GREAT year at school -- took part in activities, excelled (for me) in classes, had friends, a special one in particular who took me under his wing in that big brother way I always wanted; he wasn't gay and oddly, while I worshipped him, I wasn't sexually attracted to him (thank God)

it's amazing to have a period in your life where everything just comes together

I'm a tacky giant bronze plaque or sign describing some sort of historical massacre no one has remembered without my help in at least 300 years. You'll find at least one of me once per city block all over Boston. Especially the tourist areas.

I'm Khalil GIbran, author of the *The Prophet* among other globally best-selling works. I have a bronze plaque such as R362 describes, right in the middle of Copley Square, so FUCK YOU, R362.

I'm James Michael Curley, the Rascal King: Governor, Congressman, and Mayor.

My memorial is a statue of me, seated on a park bench, near Quincy Market. I look like I'm sitting next to you, talking. Thing is, it's a real bench and you can sit down and talk to me.

The people who do are usually brown-baggin' it, though.

I'm the biggest Family Guy fan I know and I can't understand why Boston is a hoity-toity university town while producing a dumb bozo like Peter Griffin.

Peter Griffin's from Quahog, RI (not a real place), not Boston.

I'm the incredibly racist Patriots fans in Southie with Irish surnames.

[R361]: I was happy in those years at BU in Boston, mostly because I spent my time acting over at Harvard, where they had open auditions. I ended up doing 12 shows there, including 10 at the Loeb Drama Center on Brattle St. As well as a number of productions at other locations around Boston.

The late 60’s were fascinating, but don’t let all that hippie talk of “free love” fool you. That was promulgated by straight hippie guys trying to get as much pussy as possible. But they still wanted women to stay in the kitchen. And they hated gays.

Still, it was a real crucible of change. And I enjoyed the sheer zeal of it all. Despite my inner torment, I still had relationships with women.

BTW: Something you never hear is that many Boston residents are students who never wanted to leave after graduation. So they linger on for years, on the periphery of their fading past. Because Boston, for all its history and charm, is nevertheless a college town. And, when college years end, it’s time to leave. Or, graduate...

I'm John Singer Sargent. I was flaming gay, fact to which any tour of my works at the Boston MFA will only euphemistically allude. I wasn't even from Boston, but my favorite hag and best patron Isabella Stewart Gardner was and she funded all my big exhibitions there, so my shit is still all over Boston even 130+ years later. Anyway I probably fucked Oscar Wilde.

And perhaps Thomas McKeller, R369, the black bellman at the Copley Plaza across from the library. He used him as a model for some of the figures. The extent of their relationship is unknown.

"McKeller was 26 and had worked as a bellhop at Sargent’s hotel. Possessed of a magnificent physique, he became the painter’s preferred model."

The Gardner had an exhibition of the works last year.

R370 I wonder what 'nobility' means in the Socialist 'Guardian's' lexicon?

Black nobility = big black cock.

Something else about Boston that hardly anyone mentions anymore is the series of magnificent paintings about the Grail Legend, painted by Austin Abbey, on the walls of a former waiting room, in the Boston Public Library in Copley Square.

15 paintings depict Sir Galahad’s search for the Holy Grail. I’ve always considered them far more spectacular than the much more allegorical Sargent works on the floor above. In fact, the Sargents were pretty much overlooked for decades, only recently getting more attention and publicity.

The whole Library is really a treasure trove of architecture, painting, and sculpture, and well worth a visit.

Imagine! A time when reading was extolled!

I visited in the 90's a few times, living in WNY and growing up in California. it was a completely different culture from me. i didn't see the racism (because of my limited time there and i was white) but did see a place with a huge amount of history, differences in culture, food, old world architecture and historical references). i would never want to live there, but i have enjoyed my few visits there. it's a very interesting (and in some places, beautiful) place, despite its racist undercurrent. not excusing it, just that it was really outside my norm of places i had visited at that point in time. San Diego and Orange County didn't really count at all in this equation, as they were very white and there was nothing but a surfer/druggie culture.

R12, I am glad you are around, because I want to tell you that I think your post is the funniest, cleverest one I have ever seen in all my years on DL.

I tip my hat, sir!

I am the youie that you gotta book when you realize you shoulda booked a left back at the roundabout.

You had it right until you got to "roundabout." In Boston it's the rotary!

And in Boston, you bang a left...

I'm the BSO and its home, Symphony Hall, which, along with the Fine Art and Isabella Stewart Gardner Museums, alone make Boston great.

R351- You're living in Boston's past.

And while it may be many other things you dislike, it is hardly "trashy".

Unless, of course, anyplace that doesn't like YOU is ipso facto, trashy.

You want to see as "trashy" city, try Hartford, CT, or Hattiesburg, MS, or Espanola, NM. I have been in all three. They are trashy.

Boston is not.

Oh, on the trashy theme - I forgot Newark and Camden, NJ.

I’m a Green Line train, being taken out of service during AM commute on the coldest morning of the year. The next train will be passing through sometime between now and your next birthday.

I’m vomit on the Causeway Street sidewalk after a Bruins game.

I’m two CVS stores directly across the street from one-another, with a third around the corner.

I’m a lobster roll and I’m made with mayo, don’t be fooled by imitators.

I’m the old Orange Line El. Nowadays, I only exist in “St. Elsewhere” reruns.

I’m the American history. Really, Boston was the birthplace of the American Revolution. Not to discount New York and Philadelphia, but it started there.

I was the Boston Phoenix personals ads, once the go to place for finding a sex partner, gay or straight.

Do they still publish Bay Windows?

All four pages, R388, weekly. And in a nod to their DL-aged readers, once a month they publish an insert - doubling the page count to eight - called “Golden Rainbow Times” for the seniors.

Assimilation ended segregation. There’s no longer much of a market for what they were selling.

Be careful what you pray for: you might get it.

Does anyone remember the band, "Girls Night Out" from the 80s? They played at the Channel a lot.

rotary and roundabout are exchangeable. also, i'm not from Boston, so my terminology wouldn't be as "local" for obvious reasons.

I’m memories of the Glad Day Bookstore, also a “casualty” of our progress and assimilation, referenced by r389

And New Words bookstore. I found a lot of apartments to share from their bulletin board.

I miss the Boston Phoenix...was hoping an online version could keep it going.

Boston is joining New York and San Francisco as one of those cities that are just took freaking expensive to live in downtown. I'll be the South End 1 bedroom /1 bath condo for $700k.

I'm Russ Lopez's "The Hub of the Gay Universe: An LGBTQ History of Boston, Provincetown, and Beyond" (2019) detailing local gay history from the time of the Pilgrims to the present.

One of the threads he touches on but doesn't explore in great detail is how places like Glad Day, Gay Community News and Bay Windows (and so to some degree, Boston) barely focused on HIV until 1984 or '85 and how much editorial time and space was spent arguing in favor of intergenerational sex (which is not about 22-year-old hotties lusting after eldergays at all) and not limiting the spread of HIV.

The band played on in Boston, too, and for longer.

I’m a pair of gilded gesso frames hanging on the wall in the Isabella Stewart Gardner. I now showcase wallpaper, rather than the Rembrandt and Vermeer that will probably never again see the light of day.