As a tour guide for Boston By Foot and Haunted Boston as well as other organizations, I walk around the city a great deal. I learned a lot about Boston’s history during my @BBF training to become a tour guide and I have read a lot more since then. As a blogger, I have written many posts about Boston and some comprise a series around a topic.

As I have read and written about Boston, walked through the city’s streets and poked into odd places, I have become even more interested in what it has to offer residents, visitors and tourists alike. To make it easier for readers of The Next Phase to access all the posts I have written about Boston in one place, this page collects them all. I updated this page regularly.

Boston Quizzes

How well do you know Boston? Try your knowledge in these quizzes and find out:

• So You Think You Know Boston Quiz #3
• So You Think You Know Boston Quiz #2
• The Boston Lion Hunt
• A Convocation of Eagles
• Boston vs Europe: Where Were These Photos Taken?
• The Boston Halloween Quiz
• So You Think You Know Boston

Boston’s Hidden Gems Series:

I define Boston’s Hidden Gems as largely unknown places in the city that ordinary folks can visit. Some can be found outside while some are inside and some bring the outdoors in. You can visit most of them for free although a few have admission charges. Some can be seen at any time while visiting others may require advance planning. Many residents don’t know about these little jewels but all are definitely worth a visit

1. 

   The Salada Tea Doors

   Tenshin-en — Museum District

2. The Mapparium — Back Bay
3. Boston Public Library Courtyard –Back Bay
4. The Ether Dome — West End
5. The Tiffany Sanctuary — Back Bay
6. The Salada Tea Doors — Back Bay
7. Museum Restoration — Back Bay
8. St. Francis Garden — Back Bay
9. History Dioramas — Back Bay
10. Exchange Staircase — Financial District
11. Pru Garden — Back Bay
12. Angel of the Waters — Public Garden
13. The Ayer Mansion Lobby — Kenmore
14. The Catalonian Chapel — Museum District
15. The Vertical Garden on Merrimac Street — West End
16. The Vilna Shul — Beacon Hill
17. The Great Elm on the Boston Common — Boston Common
18. The Copley Station Headhouse — Back Bay
19. The Rose Kennedy Rose Garden — Waterfront
20. The Province House Steps Connect 3 Centuries — Downtown
21. Independence Wharf Observation Deck — Waterfront
22. Boston Harbor Hotel Grand Observatory — Waterfront
23. Building Boston — Scale-Model City — Waterfront
24. The Boston Athenaeum’s Fascinating First Floor — Beacon Hill
25. The Marriott Hotel in a Molasses Warehouse — Fort Point Channel

Boston’s Angels Series

Every western city displays images of angels: big ones and small ones, cherubim and seraphim, paintings and sculptures, made of bronze and stained glass, found inside, outside, and on top of roofs and steeples. Boston has fewer angels as public art than many old cities, probably because of its Puritan heritage. This series about Boston’s angels starts with four angels worth finding.

1. The BPL’s Frieze of Angels — Back Bay
2. Cornelius and the Angel: A Tiffany Window — Back Bay
3. The Angels of Holy Cross Cathedral — South End
4. The Solitary Church Court Angel — Back Bay
5. Angel of the Waters — Back Bay
6. Thomas Gruchy’s Angels — North End
7. Coletti’s Speedy Angels — North End
8. Brattle Square Angels — Back Bay
9. Martin Milmore and the Angel of Death — Jamaica Plain

Art Hiding in Plain Sight

1. Two Sculptures in Government Center
2. The Seaglass Codfish Mural on Atlantic Avenue
3. Boston’s Missing: 4 Lost Wyeth Murals
4. Sol LeWitt on Cambridge Street
5. N.C. Wyeth’s Banking Murals
6. Robert Motherwell’s JFK Mural

Posts About Boston: The City

1. Boston’s Missing: Bank President’s Office
2. Homeless and Mentally Ill in Boston
3. When Unitarians Brought Christmas to Boston\
4. Boston’s Lanterns: City Lights
5. Welcoming Tourists to Boston
6. 1919: Boston’s Terrible Year
7. Puddingstone in Boston
8. Ray Donovan Returns to Boston
9. Navigating Boston’s Architecture
10. Boston’s Missing French-Canadian Restaurants
11. How to Keep Trucks from Being Storrowed
12. Boston’s Streets and Common Occupations
13. Boston Photos: Outtakes from the Archives: 
14. Boston’s Neon: Big, Bright and Missing
15. Boston’s Streets: Food and Cooking
16. Boston’s Privately Owned Public Spaces
17. Boston’s Five First Events
18. Looking for Boston’s Homeless People
19. Boston’s Egyptian Revival: Part 2
20. Boston’s Egyptian Revival Monuments: Part 1
21. Pope Night: An Old Religious Hatred
22. Boston’s Missing: The Pewter Pot Muffin House
23. When Back to School = Getting Storrowed
24. Lost Buildings: Does Bias Affect Preservation?
25. Architectural Art: Demolition and Salvage
26. Boston’s Not-So-Public Spaces
27. Boston Street Names: Who, What, Where? 
28. Wigglesworth Street on Mission Hill
29. Boston’s Popcorn Man
30. Boston: America’s Third Snobbiest City?
31. Can “Boston Strong” Mean Innovation Leader
32. Does a Century-Old Attitude Still Influence Boston?
33. We Are All Boston Strong
34. Nowhere to Go

Beacon Hill

1. Beacon Hill and Ashburton Park: Part 1
2. Beacon Hill and Ashburton Park: Part 2
3. Boston’s Memorials to Women
4. Boston’s Onscreen Accuracy: Part 2
5. The State House’s Historic Murals
6. 25 Beacon Street’: Boston’s Movable Address
7. The Bachelor Apartment on Beacon Street
8. Boston’s Streets: Temple Street
9. The Hotel Bellevue on Beacon Hill
10. Boston’s Doors: The John Hancock Mansion
11. Benedict Chambers: The Boarding House on Beacon Hill
12. Derne Street: William Eaton from the Shores of Tripoli to Beacon Hill
13. The Many Homes of Nixon Black
14. The Chester Harding House on Beacon Street
15. The Sunflower Castle on Beacon Hill Flat
16. The Congregational House Bas-Relief Sculptures
17. The Boston Athenaeum’s Fascinating First Floor
18. A Beacon Hill with a Boo Halloween

Chinatown

1. Boston’s China Trade Gate
2. Three Building Facades on Essex Street
3. The Boston Medical Dispensary’s Good Samaritan

Downtown / Financial / Commercial Districts

1. Two Pieces of the Old Expressway
2. The Building at #33 Union Street
3. Boston’s Architectural Decorations
4. Liberty Square and Three Rebellions
5. The Bedford Building: Red, White and Gothic
6. Where Somerset Street Meets Sudbury Street
7. The Steaming Kettle’s Invisible Creator
8. St. Paul’s: Boston’s First Greek Revival Church
9. Boston’s Streets: Bosworth Street
10. The Richardson Block: A Phoenix from the Ashes
11. The Tunnel Col. Perkins Built in the  Ladder District
12. The International Trust Company Building 
13. The Transcript Building on Newspaper Row
14. The City Hall Annex on Court Street
15. The Brewer Fountain on Boston Common
16. 

    The Lead Works Shot Tower

    The Chadwick Lead Works

17. Boston’s Streets: Pearl Street
18. Boston’s Streets: Water Street
19. Boston’s Streets:  Milk Street
20. Boston’s Streets: Winter and Summer Street
21. Boston’s Missing: Helion and the Giant Lollipops
22. Christmas Magic in Department Store Windows
23. Boston’s Doors: The Dickens Door
24. Pieroni’s Sea Grill: Gone but Not Forgotten
25. The Niles Building: Hub of a Financial Scandal
26. Boston’s Missing: The Horticultural Goddesses
27. Washington Street Before George Washington
28. Arch Street and the Mystery of the Missing Arch
29. Solved: Hemenway Building = 10 Tremont Street
30. The Mystery of 10 Tremont Street
31. Batterymarch Street: Who Goes There?
32. The Great Spring on Boston’s Spring Lane
33. A Not-So-Spooky Tour at King’s Chapel
34. Pemberton Square and the John Adams Courthouse
35. Inside the John Adams Courthouse

Theater District and Piano Row

1. Avery Street: From Taverns to Condos
2. The Buildings of Piano Row: Part 1
3. The Buildings of Piano Row: Part 2
4. The Buildings of Piano Row: Part 3 and Steinert Theater
5. Piano Row: Carver Street and Poe Square
6. Boylston Place: Education, Art, Football
7. The Boston Young Men’s Christian Union
8. The Emerson Colonial Theater: Gilded Glory Returns
9. LaGrange Street: Connecting Centuries
10. The Cutler Majestic: A Gilded Renovation
11. The Little Building’s Arcade and Murals

The North End

1. Hanover Street and the Prince of Hanover
2. Salutation Street: The Long and Short of It
3. Boston’s Streets’ Sun Court and Moon Streets
4. The Great Molasses Flood: Anniversary Lessons
5. Movies and Mobsters in Boston’s North End
6. Charles Ponzi’s House on the Market
7. Learning from a History of Violence in Boston
8. Revisiting Copp’s Hill Burying Ground

The South End

1. The Parker Memorial Building
2. Boston’s Tuscan Fire Lookout Tower
3. The Calf Pasture Pumping Station
4. Boston’s Fountains: The Statler Fountain
5. Boston’s Two Suffolk County Mortuaries
6. The Boston Medical Dispensary’s Good Samaritan

The Back Bay

1. The Pru’s “Boston Tapestry” Sculpture
2. Farewell to the Arlington Building
3. The Fairmont Copley Plaza: Boston’s Grande Dame
4. The New England Mutual Life Insurance Company
5. Obnoxious Noises Around Boston Common
6. The Hancock Building’s Weather Beacon
7. The New Riding Club Near the Back Bay Fens
8. Finding Cornelia Wells Walter
9. Boston’s Missing: Two Statues Find a New Home
10. Potions, Parking and Profits in the Back Bay
11. Boston’s Fountains: The Bagheera Fountain
12. Boston’s Doors: The BPL’s Bronze Portals
13. The Berkeley Building: Shining Bright in the Back Bay
14. Boston’s Missing: “Quest Eternal” at the Pru
15. Boston’s Missing: The Kakas Fur Company Polar Bear
16. Spiritual Temple or Movie Theater?
17. Arthur Bowditch and the Berklee College of Music
18. The Ether Monument’s Good Samaritan
19. The Haberstroh Building in the Back Bay
20. Overnight Guests at Boston Police Headquarters
21. Why So Few Skyways for Boston? 
22. Small Treasures of Boston’s Back Bay
23. Boston’s Back Bay: The Once (and Future?) Body of Water
24. On the Tour: The Back Bay from the Ground Up
25. Walking Through Boston’s Back Bay
26. Phillips Brooks and the Christmas Carol
27. Haddon Hall: Tall in the Back Bay

The West End

• Redeveloping the Hurley Building
• Boston’s Streets: Canal Street
• Causeway Street: Where Did the Water Go?

Fenway / Kenmore / Museum District

1. Boston’s Neon: The White Fuel Sign
2. Boston’s Missing: Charlesgate Park
3. Remembering the Old Knight Children’s Center
4. Veterans Memorial Park in the Back Bay Fens
5. The Charlesgate: Haunted or Just Haunting?
6. Louis Prang Street and Christmas Cards

The Waterfront / Seaport / Fort Point Channel Districts

1. Long Wharf’s Historic Buildings
2. History on Boston’s Long Wharf
3. Boston’s Missing: The Whale and the Dolphins
4. Raining at the Flynn Cruiseport
5. Innovation and Glass Boxes in the Seaport
6. A Zig-Zag Walk to the Cruiseport
7. Welcoming Tourists to Boston
8. Photo-ops in the Seaport: Part 2
9. Photo-ops in the Seaport’s East End
10. The Cunard Building’s Maritime Link
11. Terminal Upgrades and Sea-Level Rise
12. How the Black Falcon Terminal Got Its Name
13. Boston Ignores Its Maritime History
14. The Army Supply Base/Innovation Design Building
15. Lincoln Wharf:: From Steamships to Condos 
16. Battery Wharf’s Maritime Pocket Museum
17. Boston’s Missing: Partisans and Starved Horses
18. Sleeper Street in the Fort Point Channel District
19. Boston’s Russia Wharf: From Tea Party to Tower
20. The Boston Wharf Company Sign on Boston’s Skyline
21. Boston’s Innovation District Scales Up
22. On the Nantucket Lightship LV-112

The Bronze Menagerie Series

As in many cities, statues and other types of public art fill the streets, squares, parks and buildings of Boston. The majority, however, memorialize what have been called, “dead white men.” You can find a few statues of women but, surprisingly, there are far more statues of animals.

This collection of posts includes animals large and small, wild and domestic, walking and swimming, fierce and friendly. You can find them fairly easily because they are scattered all over the city but it helps if you know where to look. These posts include maps to help you find Boston’s Bronze Menagerie.

1. Boston’s Bronze Rhinos
2. Boston’s Animal Statues: Codfish
3. Boston’s Horses: Paint and Henry
4. Boston’s Bronze Teddy Bear
5. Boston’s Kensington Lions
6. Boston’s Political Animals: Democratic Donkey
7. Boston’s Political Animals: Jumbo the Elephant
8. The Fenway’s Pronghorn Antelope
9. The Lotta Fountain
10. The Tortoise and the Hare and the Boston Marathon
11. Cats and Dogs Together on Huntington Avenue
12. Make Way for Ducklings Statue
13. The Frog Pond’s Whimsical Frogs
14. Legal Sea Food’s Scientific Fish
15. Boston’s Dearth of Dragons
16. The Fed’s Scrap Metal Giraffe

Outside the City

• Medford – Wayland: Lydia Maria Child and the Thanksgiving Song

Tour Guide Chat

1. 

   Starting the Back Bay Tour

2. Questions for Boston Tour Guides
3. What Tour Guides Do Without Tourists
4. Become a Boston By Foot Docent
5. Getting Boston Strong One Step at a Time
6. Walking Tour Withdrawal
7. Tour Season’s Over
8. Good Weather Needed
9. Boston By Foot Docents Know