Last Monday, a week ago today, JetBlue announced a sale. For its 10th anniversary they made all remaining tickets on flights for Tuesday May 11 and Wednesday May 12 just $10. Girlfriend and I decided to take advantage of the sale and hop a quick one-night vacation. Boston was the right distance and had tickets available, so we went. Flew out of DC on Tuesday morning, then back on Wednesday evening.
Here are my pictures.
From Logan Airport we took the Silver Line bus subway to South Station. More on the Silver Line later, but here is South Station.
The main hall at South Station.
Then we walked up into downtown. Lots of good retail clustered around the Downtown Crossing T station.
Custom House. Big fan. One of my favorite towers.
Interesting pop-tops.
Boston City Hall, one of the ugliest and most unfortunate buildings in America.
Massachusetts State House.
These next couple of views are from the new central artery greenway, the park created from the Big Dig. The bones are clearly there for this to become a great public space, but for the time being it's too empty. Mostly just lawns. People walk
through, but not
to it. Still, you have to assume that sooner or later this will become a really great park.
Faneuil Hall.
Quincy Market. I actually found this to be rather unfortunate. It feels too much like a mall, rather than part of a living city.
This is Chinatown.
Now we leave downtown and head to the Back Bay, which if you're familiar with Boston is a sort of Midtown.
Copley Square, with Trinity Church at left and the John Hancock Tower at right.
Copley Square again, from the other side. Prudential Tower in the distance.
Trinity Church.
Looking across the park towards the Beacon Hill neighborhood, a fun narrow building.
Back Bay.
This part of the city is very much like the Dupont Circle neighborhood in Washington, DC.
Note the park in the median of the street. This is Commonwealth Avenue.
Very pleasant. I'm a fan of linear parks, and this one is a good example for greenway planners to emulate.
Whoever designed this sure does love quoins.
Not the best work on those pop-tops, guys.
Boston Public Library, which is AMAZING. It is the perfect example of what a library should be. Monumental and cavernous. It puts
DC's Mies van der Rohe-designed main library to absolute shame.
... except the nasty brutalist annex attached to the back, which is utter FAIL. Architecture "of our time", you suck.
Now up to Boston Common and the Public Garden.
George Washington's statue.
Oh hai, George.
The famous garden bridge. When originally built in 1867 it was the shortest suspension bridge in the world, but has since been rebuilt as a normal girder bridge. The remaining suspension system is now just decorative.
It's very, very pretty.
Then through downtown again and up into the North End, Boston's densest neighborhood, and among the densest in America.
Ahmadinejad here is on an ad opposing the import of foreign oil.
Oh yeah.
Though not originally an ethnic neighborhood, North End has sense become Boston's Little Italy.
Nice arbor, in a park at the edge of the neighborhood.
Before becoming Little Italy, North End was one of Boston's most important colonial-era neighborhoods.
This is Paul Revere's house.
Old North Church, of the famous "one if by land, two if by sea" lanterns.
This is the Freedom Trail, a walking tour between historic sites. I think the brick inlay is a very clever way to designate the route.
After leaving North End, we headed off to our hotel in Cambridge, near Harvard University. The next morning we explored Harvard Square and the immediate neighborhood, before heading back to Logan and then home to DC.
Harvard Square.
The gate to Harvard University.
Campus.
There will be a separate thread for pictures of the transit system later today. To hold you over, here is the sign at a tea shop. It's a hilarious joke if you are a huge nerd. I love it.
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Boston is my favorite American city. 
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