Boston
(pronounced ) is the capital and largest city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is considered the economic and cultural center of the region, and is sometimes regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England." [1] Boston city proper had a 2007 estimated population of 608,352, making it the twenty-first largest in the country. [2] Boston is also the anchor of a substantially larger metropolitan area called Greater Boston, home to 4.4 million people and the tenth-largest metropolitan area in the country. Greater Boston as a commuting region includes parts of Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Maine; it includes 7.4 million people, making it the fifth-largest Combined Statistical Area in the United States.
In 1630, Puritan colonists from England founded the city on the Shawmut Peninsula. [3] During the late 18th century Boston was the location of several major events during the American Revolution, including the Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party. Several early battles of the American Revolution, such as the Battle of Bunker Hill and the Siege of Boston, occurred within the city and surrounding areas. Through land reclamation and municipal annexation, Boston has expanded beyond the peninsula. After American independence was attained Boston became a major shipping port and manufacturing center, and its rich history now attracts 16.3 million visitors annually. [4] The city was the site of several firsts, including America's first public school, Boston Latin School (1635), [5] and first college, Harvard College (1636), in neighboring Cambridge. Boston was also home to the first subway system in the United States. [6]
With many colleges and universities within the city and surrounding area, Boston is a center of higher education [7] and a center for medicine. The city's economy is also based on research, finance, and technology – principally biotechnology. Boston ranks first in the country in jobs per square mile ahead of New York City and Washington, DC. [8] The city has been experiencing gentrification and has one of the highest costs of living in the United States, though it remains high on world livability rankings. [9]
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BOSTON - THE BAND TICKETS
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History
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Boston was founded on September 17, 1630, by
Puritan colonists from England.
The Puritans of the
Massachusetts Bay Colony are sometimes confused with the
Pilgrims, who founded
Plymouth Colony ten years earlier in what is today
Bristol County,
Plymouth County, and
Barnstable County, Massachusetts. The two groups, which differed in religious practice, are historically distinct. The separate colonies were not united until the formation of the
Province of Massachusetts Bay in 1691.
The
Shawmut Peninsula was connected to the mainland by a narrow
isthmus and was surrounded by the waters of
Massachusetts Bay and the Back Bay, an
estuary of the
Charles River. Several prehistoric
Native American archaeological sites that were excavated in the city have shown that the peninsula was inhabited as early as 5,000 BC.
[10] Boston's early European settlers first called the area
Trimountaine
, but later
renamed the town after Boston, Lincolnshire, England, from which several prominent colonists had emigrated.
Massachusetts Bay Colony's original governor,
John Winthrop, gave a famous sermon entitled "
A Model of Christian Charity," popularly known as the "City on a Hill" sermon, which captured the idea that Boston had a special covenant with God. (Winthrop also led the signing of the
Cambridge Agreement, which is regarded as a key founding document of the city.) Puritan ethics molded a stable and well-structured society in Boston. For example, shortly after Boston's settlement, Puritans founded America's first public school,
Boston Latin School (1635),
and America's first college,
Harvard College (1636). Boston was the largest town in British North America until Philadelphia grew larger in the mid-18th century.
[11]
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In the 1770s, British attempts to exert more-stringent control on the
thirteen colonies—primarily via taxation—prompted Bostonians to initiate the
American Revolution.
The
Boston Massacre, the
Boston Tea Party, and several early battles—including the
Battle of Lexington and Concord, the
Battle of Bunker Hill, and the
Siege of Boston—occurred in or near the city. During this period,
Paul Revere made his famous midnight ride. After the Revolution, Boston had become one of the world's wealthiest international trading ports because of the city's consolidated seafaring tradition—exports included rum, fish, salt, and tobacco. During this era, descendants of old Boston families were regarded as the nation's social and cultural elites; they were later dubbed the
Boston Brahmins
. In 1822, Boston was chartered as a city.
[12]
The
Embargo Act of 1807, adopted during the
Napoleonic Wars, and the
War of 1812 significantly curtailed Boston's harbor activity. Although foreign trade returned after these hostilities, Boston's merchants had found alternatives for their capital investments in the interim. Manufacturing became an important component of the city's economy, and by the mid-1800s, the city's industrial manufacturing overtook international trade in economic importance. Until the early 1900s, Boston remained one of the nation's largest manufacturing centers and was notable for its
garment production and
leather-goods industries.
thumb, 1841
A network of small rivers bordering the city and connecting it to the surrounding region made for easy shipment of goods and led to a proliferation of mills and factories. Later, a dense network of railroads facilitated the region's industry and commerce. From the mid-19th to late
19th century, Boston flourished culturally; it became renowned for its rarefied literary culture and lavish artistic patronage. It also became a center of the
abolitionist movement.
[13] The city reacted strongly to the
Fugitive Slave Law, which contributed to President
Franklin Pierce's attempt to make an example of Boston after the
Burns Fugitive Slave Case.
thumb in the 1880s
In the 1820s, Boston's population began to swell, and the city's ethnic composition changed dramatically with the first wave of European
immigrants. Irish immigrants dominated the first wave of newcomers during this period. By 1850, about 35,000
Irish lived in Boston.
[14] In the latter half of the 19th century, the city saw increasing numbers of Irish, Germans,
Lebanese, Syrians,
[15] French Canadians, and
Russian and
Polish Jews settle in the city. By the end of the 19th century, Boston's core neighborhoods had become enclaves of ethnically distinct immigrants—Italians inhabited the
North End, Irish dominated
South Boston &
Charlestown, and Russian Jews lived in the
West End.
Irish and
Italian immigrants brought with them
Roman Catholicism. Currently, Catholics make up Boston's largest religious community,
[16] and since the early 20th century, the Irish have played a major role in Boston politics—prominent figures include the
Kennedys,
Tip O'Neill, and
John F. Fitzgerald.
thumb, 1909
Between 1631 and 1890, the city tripled its physical size by
land reclamation—by filling in marshes, mud flats, and gaps between wharves along the waterfront
[17]—a process that
Walter Muir Whitehill called "cutting down the hills to fill the coves." The largest reclamation efforts took place during the 1800s. Beginning in 1807, the crown of Beacon Hill was used to fill in a 50-
acre (20
ha) mill pond that later became the
Haymarket Square area. The present-day
State House sits atop this lowered Beacon Hill. Reclamation projects in the middle of the century created significant parts of the
South End, the
West End, the
Financial District, and
Chinatown. 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 the Boston Common with gravel brought by rail from the hills of Needham Heights. Also, the city annexed the adjacent towns of
Roxbury (1868),
Dorchester (1870),
Brighton,
West Roxbury (including present day
Jamaica Plain, Roslindale, and West Roxbury), and
Charlestown. The last three towns were annexed in 1874. Other towns include Hyde Park, Mattapan, and East Boston.
[18]
thumb, 1999
By the early 20th and mid-20th century, the city was in decline as factories became old and obsolete, and businesses moved out of the region for cheaper labor elsewhere.
Boston responded by initiating various
urban renewal projects under the direction of the
Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA), which was established in 1957. In 1958, BRA initiated a project to improve the historic West End neighborhood. Extensive demolition was met with vociferous public opposition to the new agency.
[19] BRA subsequently reevaluated its approach to urban renewal in its future projects, including the construction of
Government Center. By the 1970s, the city's economy boomed after 30 years of economic downturn. Hospitals such as
Massachusetts General Hospital,
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and
Brigham and Women's Hospital led the nation in medical innovation and patient care. Schools such as
Harvard University,
MIT,
Tufts University,
Boston University,
Boston College, and
Northeastern University attracted students to the Boston area. Nevertheless, the city experienced conflict starting in 1974 over
desegregation busing, which resulted in unrest and violence around public schools throughout the mid-1970s.
thumb, located on the
Columbia Point peninsula, 2007
The first
Community Health Center in the United States was the Columbia Point Health Center in the
Dorchester neighborhood of Boston. It was opened in December 1965 and served mostly the massive
Columbia Point public housing complex adjoining it. It was founded by two medical doctors—Jack Geiger of Harvard University and Count Gibson of Tufts University. It is still in operation and was re-dedicated in 1990 as the Geiger-Gibson Community Health Center.
[20] The Columbia Point housing projects, built in 1953 on the Dorchester peninsula, had gone through bad times until there were only 350 families living in them in 1988. They were run down and dangerous. In 1984, the city of Boston gave control of these projects to a private developer, Corcoran-Mullins-Jennison, who re-developed and revitalized the property into an attractive residential mixed-income community called Harbor Point Apartments, which was opened in 1988 and was completed by 1990. It is a very significant example of revitalization and re-development, was the first federal housing project to be converted to private, mixed-income housing in the United States, and was used as a model for the federal
HUD HOPE VI public housing revitalization program begun in 1992.
[21]
thumb, 2006
In the early
21st century, the city has become an intellectual, technological, and political center. It has, however, experienced a loss of regional institutions,
[22] which included the acquisition of the
Boston Globe
by
The New York Times
, and the loss to mergers and acquisitions of local financial institutions such as
FleetBoston Financial, which was acquired by
Charlotte-based
Bank of America in 2004. Boston based
department stores Jordan Marsh and
Filene's have both been merged into the New York based
Macy's The city also had to tackle
gentrification issues and rising living expenses, with housing prices increasing sharply since the 1990s.
Geography
thumb's
Landsat 3
Owing to its early founding, Boston is very compact. According to the
United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 89.6 square miles (232.1 km²)—48.4 square miles (125.4 km²) (54.0%) of land and 41.2 square miles (106.7 km²) (46.0%) of water. Boston is the country's
fourth most densely populated city that is not a part of a larger city's
metropolitan area.
[23] Of United States cities with more than 600,000 people, only
San Francisco is smaller in land area. Boston is surrounded by the "
Greater Boston" region and is bordered by the cities and towns of
Winthrop,
Revere,
Chelsea,
Everett,
Somerville,
Cambridge,
Watertown,
Newton,
Brookline,
Needham,
Dedham,
Canton,
Milton, and
Quincy. The
Charles River separates Boston proper from Cambridge, Watertown, and the neighborhood of Charlestown. To the east lies
Boston Harbor and the
Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area. The
Neponset River forms the boundary between Boston's southern neighborhoods and the city of
Quincy and the town of
Milton.
[24] The
Mystic River separates Charlestown from Chelsea and Everett, and Chelsea Creek and Boston Harbor separate East Boston from Boston proper.
[25] Boston's official elevation, as measured at
Logan International Airport, is 19 ft (5.8 m) above sea level.
[26] The highest point in Boston is
Bellevue Hill at 330 ft (101 m) above sea level, and the lowest point is at sea level.
[27]
thumb in the
Back Bay are dominated by a reflecting pool. The tall buildings in the background are the
Prudential Tower and 111 Huntington Avenue.
Much of the
Back Bay and
South End neighborhoods are built on
reclaimed land—all of the earth from two of Boston's three original hills, the "trimount," was used as landfill material. Only
Beacon Hill—the smallest of the three original hills—remains partially intact; only half of its height was cut down for landfill. The downtown area and immediate surroundings consist mostly of low-rise brick or stone buildings, with many older buildings in the
Federal style. Several of these buildings mix in with modern high-rises, notably in the Financial District,
Government Center, the
South Boston waterfront, and Back Bay, which 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.
[28]
Near the John Hancock Tower is the
old John Hancock Building with its prominent
weather forecast beacon—the color of the illuminated light gives an indication of weather to come: "steady blue, clear view; flashing blue, clouds are due; steady red, rain ahead; flashing red, snow instead." (In the summer, flashing red indicates instead that a
Red Sox game has been rained out.) Smaller commercial areas are interspersed among single-family homes and wooden/brick multi-family row houses. Currently, the South End Historic District remains the largest surviving contiguous Victorian-era neighborhood in the U.S.
[29] Along with downtown, the geography of
South Boston was particularly impacted by the
Central Artery/Tunnel (CA/T) Project (or the
"Big Dig"). The unstable reclaimed land in South Boston posed special problems for the project's tunnels. In the downtown area, the CA/T Project allowed for the removal of the unsightly elevated
Central Artery and the incorporation of new green spaces and open areas.
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Boston Common, located near the Financial District and Beacon Hill, is the oldest public park in the U.S.
[30] Along with the adjacent
Boston Public Garden, it is part of the
Emerald Necklace, a string of parks designed by
Frederick Law Olmsted to encircle the city.
Franklin Park, which is also part of the Emerald Necklace, is the city's largest park and houses the
Franklin Park Zoo.
[31] Another major park is the Esplanade, located along the banks of the Charles River. The
Hatch Shell, an outdoor concert venue, is located adjacent to the Charles River Esplanade. Other parks are scattered throughout the city, with the major parks and beaches located near
Castle Island; in Charlestown; and along the Dorchester, South Boston, and East Boston shorelines.
Climate
Boston has what may basically be described as something between a
humid continental climate and a
humid subtropical climate, such as is very common in coastal southern New England. Summers are typically warm and humid, while winters are cold, windy, and snowy. Prevailing wind patterns that blow offshore affect Boston, minimizing the influence of the Atlantic Ocean.
thumb in the foreground
Spring in Boston can be warm, with temperatures as high as the 90s when winds are offshore, although it is just as possible for a day in late May to remain in the lower 40s because of cool ocean waters. The hottest month is July, with an average high of 82 °
F (28 °C) and an average low of 66 °F (18 °C), with conditions usually humid. The coldest month is January, with an average high of 36 °F (2 °C) and an average low of 22 °F (-6 °C).
[32] Periods exceeding in summer and below in winter are not uncommon but are rarely prolonged. The record high temperature is 104 °F (40 °C), recorded on July 4, 1911. The record low temperature is -18 °F (-28 °C), recorded on February 9, 1934. February in Boston has seen 70 °
F (21 °
C) only once in recorded history, on February 24, 1985. The highest temperature recorded in March was 89 °F (31 °C), on March 31, 1998.
[33]
Boston's coastal location on the
North Atlantic, although it moderates temperatures, also makes the city very prone to
Nor'easter weather systems that can produce much snow and rain.
[34] The city averages about 43 in (108 cm) of
precipitation a year, with 40.9 in (104 cm) of snowfall a year.
[35] Snowfall increases dramatically as one goes inland away from the city (Especially north and west of the city)—away from the warming influence of the ocean.
[36] Most snowfall occurs from December through March. There is usually little or no snow in April and November, and snow is rare in May and October.
[37] [38] Fog is prevalent, particularly in spring and early summer, and the occasional tropical storm or
hurricane can threaten the region, especially in early autumn. Due to its situation along the North Atlantic, the city is often subjected to
sea breeze, especially in the late spring, when water temperatures are still quite cold and temperatures at the coast can be ten to twenty degrees colder than a few miles inland, sometimes dropping by that amount near midday.
[39] [40]
Demographics
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