Acorn Street is Boston’s most photographed street. This famous cobblestoned street in the Beacon Hill neighborhood was laid out in the 1820s. Originally called Kitchen Street because the small row houses were once occupied by the cooks and coachmen who lived close to their employers. Some homes were even used as horse stables at one time! Over the years, Acorn Street has become one of Boston’s popular tourist destinations. Its 19th-century charm, colorful flowers in the window boxes, antique gas lamps along the narrow brick sidewalks all add to its character. And then there’s the eye-catching historical treasure: the cobblestones. So, what’s the backstory on Boston’s most iconic street? In the early days, the ground was filled with rounded, irregular shaped stones, known as “cobs”. As Boston developed from a town into a city, flat land was needed for the…
May 19, 2020
The pandemic may have disrupted our everyday lives, but it didn’t stop the tulips from blooming in the Boston Public Garden or the trees from blossoming around the city during this crazy spring of 2020. The Boston Public Garden traces its origins to marshland that Bostonians avoided in the 19th century. In 1837, a visionary named Horace Gray led an effort that transformed the swampy area into the first botanical garden in America. The first bed of tulips and the first poinsettia in the U.S. were planted in the Boston Public Garden. Over the next century, the Public Garden deteriorated and was almost beyond saving by the 1960s. Flowerbeds and trees were diseased, the fountains were inoperable, and the bridge over the lagoon was deemed unsafe. In 1970, the Friends of the Public Garden formed and with generous private donations…
May 11, 2020