Читать книгу The Handy Boston Answer Book - Samuel Willard Crompton - Страница 12

What is Boston in the simplest and most direct terms?

Boston is an incorporated city with a charter dating to 1822. It is also the capital of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Where is Boston located?

Boston is located in the eastern United States in the state of Massachusetts. At 42.5 degrees north latitude and 71 degrees west longitude, it is close to the halfway point between the North Pole and the Equator. If one were able to draw a straight line from Boston, right across the North Atlantic, one would end up in northern Spain.

How many people live in Boston?

According to the U.S. Census of 2010, there were 617,594 residents of Boston.

What is Boston’s elevation?

Most of Boston is at around 130 feet above sea level. This means the city usually has a temperate climate. However, the Boston area experiences a rather steady air movement of about 11.6 miles per hour, making it one of the windiest cities in the United States. One feels this especially in December and January, when “wind tunnels” are felt, especially in the area around Kenmore Square.

What is Boston’s weather like?

Longtime residents will answer that Boston has a complete map of the four seasons, meaning its weather varies from fairly warm temperatures to extreme cold. Spring is usually the best of all times for Bostonians with gentle but pervading sunshine, and warm breezes: perhaps it is not a coincidence that opening day of the Red Sox season is such a favorite with the crowds. Summer can be overly warm, and many Bostonians escape either to Maine or Cape Cod on the weekend. Autumn is filled with excitement as college students arrive, and the beauty of the season builds right to Christmastime, as the students head home for break. Then comes winter, which is thoroughly unpredictable. Boston sometimes enjoys mild winters with plenty of warm rain; then again, it can also get pounded by cold temperatures and several feet of snow, as was the case in the record-breaking winter of 2015. But before long, April comes, and the cycle commences again.

What is the highest point in Boston?

The land is quite level and low, and one therefore looks to the major buildings to identify the highest landmarks in Boston. The John Hancock Building, completed in 1976, is 790 feet high, and has 62 stories. The Prudential Building, completed in 1964, is 750 feet, and contains 52 stories.

What are Boston’s geographic characteristics?

Boston lies at the extreme north-central corner of the famous bay from which Massachusetts gains its name. The original Boston—the location Puritans arrived at in 1630—was a peninsula, about 850 square acres in size. Today, the city of Boston is much larger, but one still finds evidence of its Puritan and Yankee past in the crowded streets, the frequent dead-ends, and the occasional cobblestone.

Boston lies on the south side of the Charles River, which rises in the little town of Hopkinton and runs to join with the Mystic River: together, the two streams enter Massachusetts Bay, which eventually yields to the North Atlantic Ocean. Boston is best observed from air and today this is possible through helicopter tours and other activities. For example, at the Prudential Building, best known as the “Pru,” one can take an elevator to the fifty-second floor and gaze at the marvel that is the city of Boston.

How many islands are there in Boston Harbor and the Massachusetts Bay?

More than twenty, almost all of which have played some part in the history of the city. Deer Island, for example, is where Native Americans were imprisoned during King Philip’s War. Little Brewster Island is the site of Boston Light, the nation’s oldest surviving lighthouse. Georges Island is where many soldiers—from colonial conflicts right down to the Civil War—were quartered. And Hog Island has practically disappeared: it has been taken over by Logan Airport.

What are the best places to visit in Boston?

There are at least a half-dozen. Anyone interested in exploring Boston and Cambridge’s educational history will do best in Harvard Square, while someone more interested in sports will enjoy visiting Boston Garden and Fenway Park. Admirers of landscape architecture might want to visit Brookline’s numerous parks, but the one place that lays the strongest claim to all Bostonians—and to the vast majority of visitors—is the Boston Common. In all the United States, there is nothing quite like this fifty-acre piece of common land.

There are over twenty islands in Boston Harbor, including Georges Island on which tourists will find Fort Warren, a military installation from the days of the American Civil War.

As early as the 1640s, sections of downtown Boston were spliced together to create “The Common,” an area where everyone could bring their horses, ponies, cows, and chickens. The idea of a “common” dates to the Middle Ages, when every European town had one. The Puritans who arrived in 1630 were conscious of the need for common space, and their early sectioning of the town has lasted to the present day. Of course one can compare the Boston Common to New York’s Central Park. The big difference, however, is that Central Park was never used in such a functional way.

What is the best way to enjoy the Charles River?

The great stream called the Charles River is a magnificent sight. Coursing past downtown Boston on one side and Cambridge on the other, the Charles River is the reason the Puritans first settled in the region: they needed a fast-moving stream of fresh water from which to draw their supplies. To the best of our knowledge none of the Puritans—not even the redoubtable Governor John Winthrop—ever suspected that high-rise buildings would be built in Boston or that the city would be home to 630,000 folk.

But to the main question: the best way to enjoy the Charles is to stroll along the many sidewalks along its banks. Being Americans, Bostonians have naturally upped the ante, and one sometimes gets run over by people on bicycles or rollerblades, but the essence of the joy remains. There’s nothing like a stroll along the Charles and a crossing of Longfellow Bridge, named for the famous poet of that name.

Taking advantage of an evening stroll along the Charles River is one of the benefits of living in the city.

How many tourists come to Boston each year?

If we include the many thousands of parents that bring their eighteen-year-olds to attend college in the fall, Boston may see as many as five million visitors per year. Logan Airport receives many thousands of people each day: many of these, to be sure, are “repeat” customers. The tourists come from every conceivable direction and in addition to Logan, they arrive by bus, train, and even taxicab; and many of them arrive by automobile. Traveling to Boston via car is considered the most complicated because of Boston and Cambridge’s narrow streets.

Is Cambridge fully independent of Boston? And how about Dorchester, Brookline, and other municipalities?

Cambridge is truly its own place, and sometimes it seems like its own world. This was especially the case during the 1960s, when a handful of Harvard professors led the way in the use of LSD. But most of the other towns that surround Boston have long since been incorporated into the great municipality. When one speaks of “Boston’s Finest,” one does not mean the police or just the 630,000 people of Boston, but also those residing in the twenty-two surrounding neighborhoods.

To be sure, there are places in and around Boston that seem independent of the great city. For example, East Boston used to be the home of many shipyards, and Dorchester often seems to possess a mind of its own. But when one looks out from the Skywalk Observatory of the Prudential Building, one realizes that all these areas are many pieces of one grand puzzle, which add up to the modern-day miracle that is the city of Boston.

Given its remarkable history, why is Boston not the largest and greatest of all American cities?

That’s the question that has bedeviled Bostonians for more than two centuries. Up through about the year 1800, it seemed that Boston would be number one in culture, education, population, and industrial strength. But in the two decades that followed, Philadelphia and New York powered their way right past Boston, and the number of American cities that exceed it in size has only grown since that year. One should not feel sorry for Boston, however; of all American cities, it is the one that combines historic legacy with higher education and public culture to the greatest possible extent.

A map showing the various defined regions of Boston.