by Whalehead King

Created on: January 24, 2009

Boston can seem forlorn in winter if you're not used to frigid temperatures. It is also an easy city to navigate with ample warm spots to escape a chill. Boston is called "America's Walking City" for a reason. It is reasonably compact and everything is easy to reach on foot. In cold weather you should bundle up but it you don't, it is just as easy to take the T.

Bostonians call their subways the T. It is shorthand for Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. The 'T' in 'Transportation' is this agency's most important attitribute. It is how Bostonians get around and so should any traveller who wants to know the city at its fullet. Most every T station is protected from the elements. Some of the outlying ones are equipped with overhead heaters and, if you are downtown, the stations are underground and out of the wind. Few T stations are more than a half mile away from next one. It is a compact city.

Taking the T itself, if you don't come from a city equipped with trains, is an experience in and of itself. If you are here more than a day, buy a pass. You will enjoy the convenience and the ability to go wherever you like without extra charges. Go into one station and exit the next in a totally different neighborhood ripe for exploration. Boston is dense and full with little shops and local folkways and attractions. When you get off the T, you can't go wrong. The stations serve as nodes of commerce and culture for their immediate surroundings.

Let's say you take the Blue Line to Maverick Square. You will be surrounded by Brazilian and Hispanic restaurants, clothing stores, dramatic harbor views of downtown, and nineteenth century architechture plumb in the center of a vibrant, polyglot, civic center. Let's say you take the Green Line's "C" Trolley to Coolidge Corner. You can spend half a day there wandering between optical shops, bagel shops, coffee shops, a marble clad, enclosed shopping arcade, toy stores, clothing stores, groceries, and jewelers, all with minimal contact with the weather. Boston is picturesque. Every T stop provides eye candy and sensual opportunities and plenty of eateries. This is a city that lives on its stomach.

Take the Orange Line to Stony Brook and walk uphill to the Jamaica Plain neighborhood. There will be plenty to occupy your attention. Take the Red Line to Charles/MGH and stroll Charles Street in the hollow behind Beacon Hill, admiring the signage and the various wares on offer. Take the Red Line in the opposite direction to JFK/UMASS or Savin Hill to enjoy a sturdy, working class neighborhood full of Irish, Vietnamese and other international influences. Take the Red Line to Field's Corner or Ashmont and you'll be delighted by other vibrant ethnicities tied into Boston's fabric. In these places, as everywhere, enticing smells will be exhaled out of corner nook kitchens.

Boston is more than its Revolutionary War era tourist attractions and more than a collection of museums. It is a living, breathing, eating, drinking, active city flung far and dense between its boundaries. It is all tied together by the T. Visitors don't take enough advantage of it. It is confusing to a newcomer, but the transit system becomes simple soon enough. If you don't take the T in Boston you are cheating yourself. It is the best way to get around and the best way to embark on adventures.

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