Tag: Boston

Boston: Southwest Corridor Park Walking Map

Boston: Southwest Corridor Park Walking Map

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The Southwest Corridor Park was almost a highway. On this walk you can see what happened when the expressway plan was dropped, the narrow corridor became transit lines, and a park was built around it.

The never-built Southwest Expressway would have continued I-95 from Route 128 to downtown Boston, replacing the commuter and Amtrak rail line embankment. Hundreds of businesses and homes between Forest Hills and the South End were demolished in the 1960s to prepare for the new highway. As demolition progressed, however, community residents and activists lobbied in protest. Governor Francis Sargent reexamined the issue and announced his decision in 1972: no road. Funding set aside for I-95 was transferred to public transportation, the first such transfer in the country. The Orange Line–then an elevated line on Washington Street–was relocated into the underground rail corridor.


Click for “WalkBoston’s Boston: Southwest Corridor Park Walking Map” on Google Maps

Boston: Savin Hill Walking Map

Boston: Savin Hill Walking Map

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Savin Hill sits serenely above a tangle of teeming transportation arteries. The neighborhood offers a delightful jumble of residential architectural styles lining streets that circle the hill to the park at its very top. Here you can enjoy views of the sea, downtown Boston, the peninsula of UMass Boston and the JFK Library—as well as its own ocean beach and two yacht clubs.

The neighborhood dates to 1630, when Puritans built a temporary settlement for about 140 people on what they called Rock Hill. By the 1800s the arrival of railroad transportation transformed Savin Hill. These new arteries first connected the area to Boston; it became one of the city’s first suburbs. Yet ironically, they also isolated it.

Cut off from the ocean in the early 1930s and from the surrounding urban area in the 1950s, Savin Hill became an increasingly identifiable neighborhood. Still, being cut off from the outside world has enhanced rather than detracted from its neighborly feeling and livability.


Click for “WalkBoston’s Savin Hill Walking Map” on Google Maps

Boston: Urban Core Walking Maps

Boston: Urban Core Walking Maps

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One of the many benefits of walking is that you see and experience things you’d miss using other modes of travel. And the best way to enjoy them is with a WalkBoston map.

Our maps feature places that are wonderful to walk, easy to navigate, and convenient to get around. Each one is created by those know the territory best – people who live there or are expert in a walk’s particular theme or topic.Each has a self-guided walk with a detailed route, distances and descriptions of sights and scenes.

Click on the points on the map and then on the link “Google Map” for the map you would like to view.


Click for “WalkBoston’s Boston Urban Core Walking Maps” and more on Google Maps

Boston: Harborwalk Map

Boston: Harborwalk Map

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Bostonians have always had a love-hate relationship with Boston Harbor and the waterfront. We alternately embrace it and shun it; thrive on its wealth and beauty and then pollute and isolate it. But the bond remains.

Over the past 30 years we’ve started to better appreciate the treasure in our backyard. the wharves are being reborn to lure people back, along with the allure of the aquarium, restaurants, housing, and hotels. The Harbor Islands, forgotten treasures, have been rediscovered. In the past ten years pollution has been cut to a fraction of its former levels. And of course the Central Artery has been replaced with parkland, re-knitting the city and the waterfront. To see it all, there’s the Harborwalk, hugging the water’s edge along much of the waterfront, offering views of the harbor up close.

Click for “WalkBoston’s Harborwalk Map” on Google Maps

Boston: Charlestown Walking Map

Boston: Charlestown Walking Map

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Charlestown is Boston’s oldest neighborhood—and over the years has arguably been its most volatile. For centuries the town trained and outfitted the nation’s military forces; it has seen ethnic, racial, and labor tensions simmer and erupt into violence; it has hosted one of history’s most infamous executions. And that’s not even to mention Charlestown’s two high points (literally!): Bunker Hill (where the first battle of the American Revolution was supposed to take place) and Breeds Hill (where it did). This walk will take you through the town’s compact heart and past its most colorful and historic sites.


Click for “WalkBoston’s Charlestown Walking Map” on Google Maps