Boston Neighborhoods
Boston is as close to the Old World as it gets. Face it, this is where it all began. An American city that proudly trades on its colonial past, having served a crucial role in the country’s development from a few strong-willed pilgrims straight through the revolutionary war.
No other city in American gives a better feel for the events and the persons behind the nation’s birth. The cities cafes and shops, its attractive public spaces and the diversity of its neighborhoods – student hives, ethnic enclaves and stately districts of preserved townhouse real estate, are just as alluring as its historic sites.
Boston is home to more than sixty colleges, including the illustrious Harvard, Boston College, Boston University and (MIT) Massachusetts Institute of Technology that is just across the Charles River in Cambridge. This academic collection has played a key part in the cities political tradition. Steeped in puritan roots, the districts around Boston still exude an almost small 
town feel, and until the past decade or so, were relatively unmarred by chain stores and fast food joints.
However, the Irish and Italian decent have carved out an authentic and often equally unchanged communities in areas like the North End, (famous Hanover Street) Beacon Hill, Back Bay, Charlestown, ( known to locals as Chucky Town ) and South Boston ( Southie ) where notable mob boss Whitey Bulger is from and where the John F Kennedy library is located.
Today, Boston remains a relatively small town both physically and in population. Though it has grown over the years, it has never lost its core, which it remains a web of tangled streets over old dirt cow paths and cobble stone roads centered around its epic-center Boston Common, ( which was originally used as a cow pasture ) and adjacent to the Public Gardens.
