Boylston St, Back Bay / Beacon Hill

You can tell a lot about a person from how they view Boylston Street. Some people think of it as a shopping street-they may hang out around the new Basement and Marshalls when Newbury Street gives them sticker shock. Some people think of it as near the Common and the Theater District-they tend to be artsy types, or Emerson students, or both. But for me, and a lot of people, this is a bar street-we get off at Hynes and hang around the dodgy end. I have had good and bad nights here, but I will say this for Boylston-there is a bar for every budget, every personality, and every level of inebriation. I would never want to live here, but I would never, never, never stop visiting.

I really love Boylston Street because so many things happen here, the best of which is that the Boston Marathon finish line is just outside the Public Library. Don't expect to get down it on Patriot's day though. Beyond the marathon is the new Mac Store, currently the biggest one in the country. There are also countless bars and some very good restaurants. My favorite being Abe and Louis the quintessential Boston steakhouse. As you move towards the harbor you run along Boston Common and as you go away from it you approach Fenway Park. Boylston is a wonderful street and if you are coming to Boston make sure you spend some time there.

Boylston Street from Tremont up to the Prudential, can be a really great walk about. On your right of course would be the Common; on the left a lot of great smaller stores; the back of the big Transportation Building faces Boylston and you can enter the concourse on Boylston, lots of fast food there. There's a little place called Edgar Allan Poe Way. There used to be a store with a pair of little old ladies who sold kind of "needful things", very spooky place. There are some old churches, good shopping in specialty stores and at the Prudential a great big indoor shopping mall. Great for people watching.

This would be about Boylston Street from Tremont down to South Station. I lived on Tremont and Boylston, and of course that is the South end of Boston Common, which is a great city park. There are some increasingly expensive apartment buildings right there; as you go further south you are in Chinatown and that district's shopping is just great, and lots of unusual little restaurants and indoor shopping malls etc. You eventually end up at the beautifully restored South Station, which has both Amtrak and Greyhound and some other bus services operating out of or near it, and that's a good place to hang out on its own, with a great food court inside. Very interesting street.