rss
A little Boston Trivia for those who are not from here
The geographical center of Boston is in Roxbury.
Due north of the center we find the South End. This is not to be confused with South Boston which lies directly east from the South End. North of the South End is East Boston and southwest of East Boston is the North End.
The bridge connecting Boston and Cambridge via Massachusetts Avenue is commonly know as the Harvard Bridge. When it was built, the state offered to name the bridge for the Cambridge school that could present the best claim for the honor. Harvard submitted an essay detailing its contributions to education in America, concluding that it deserved the honor of having a bridge leading into Cambridge named for the institution. MIT did a structural analysis of the bridge and found it so full of defects that they agreed that it should be named for Harvard. This is all true.
There is no school on School Street, no court on Court Street, no dock on Dock Square, and no water on Water Street. Back Bay Boston streets are in alphabetical oddah [order-for the uninitiated]: Arlington, Berkeley, Clarendon, Dartmouth, etc. So are South Boston streets: A, B, C, D, etc.
If the streets are named after trees (e.g. Walnut, Chestnut, Cedar), you are on Beacon Hill. If they are named after poets, you are in Wellesley.
Massachusetts Avenue is Mass Ave. Commonwealth Avenue is Comm Ave. South Boston is Southie. The South End is the South End. East Boston is Eastie. The North End is east of the former West End. The West End and Scully Square are no more; a guy named Rappaport got rid of them one night. Roxbury is The Berree, Jamaica Plain is J.P.
Maybe one of these days I will get into pronunciations which can be hilarious!
It’s not just Boston, Cyn.
Out in Western MA, Easthampton is southwest of Northampton, which is pretty much due east of Westhampton. There isn’t really a Southampton, though there’s a crossroads using the name that’s west of Easthampton and south of Westhampton. And there’s no Hampton whatsoever.
Nor is it just in MA. Down in New Jersey, East Orange and South Orange are pretty much where you’d expect them to be in relation to Orange, but West Orange is where you’d expect a North Orange to be (if there were a North Orange, which there isn’t).
Then there’s streets.
Pittsburgh has a West Liberty Avenue, an East Liberty Boulevard, and a Liberty Avenue ... none of which run into or intersect the others. East Liberty and Liberty come within about a mile of one another, but West Liberty is nowhere near.
Here in Seattle, First Avenue West and First Avenue North run parallel to each other, two blocks apart. And a certain body of water is bounded by East Green Lake Way North and West Green Lake Way North.
Whatya wanna bet that Water Street saw some water last night???