I really don’t care much for living in Boston, the ‘Hub of the Universe.’ This, I liked to think, was a normal enough opinion to have, but it seems I was far mistaken. People love Beantown, almost can’t get enough of it. And good on them! I like Boston too, I really do. I just can’t stand living there. In this document, I’d like to give a thorough vivisection of the first great American city, and start to pick apart how people try to discourage you from feeling about it.

First off, I do see fit to make it known I am not a born-and-bred city slicker. I am from the suburbian doldrums of Connecticut, so the City was always a respite for me – the big buildings hide you, the myriad of shops and stores and districts and whatnot keep you as a different person every ten steps you take, and most importantly, it’s just a lot more fun. While New York was always my Mecca, there was an ease about me when I visited D.C., Paris, San Francisco, Cape Town, and yes, even Boston.

My first experience with the city was to visit my sister, living in Cambridge at the time. Freedom trail, Italian food in the North End, lots and lots of boba tea, it was quite the stock trip, but I really did enjoy myself. I was taken by the city’s comforting architecture (which hasn’t changed), depth of history (which, logically, is only growing deeper), and general atmosphere of slightly Bohemian, well-to-do college students (we’ll get there). When I found myself registering for university come that fall, I didn’t hesitate to look at schools in Boston, and when I got into one, I was excited.

Part one: back bay, newbury street, and rich motherfuckers.

The Commonwealth Mall is the only thing standing between Back Bay and complete desolation. Yes, I’m serious.

As it stands, though, even with one pretty walkway, Back Bay is unbearable. Overpriced, ugly, full of banal college socialites, there is very little worth redeeming here. The Charles River walk is rather nice, but I KNOW you aren’t rich enough to live on Beacon. The Prudential Center is about the lamest mall you’ve ever been in, and God, I know you think the buildings have that Boston vibe but no, you’re thinking of the South End. A quick rundown of all the reasons people will tell you to like Boston can all be refuted from living in Back Bay. Shall we look?

There’s so much to do!

No, there isn’t. Newbury Street is not ‘something to do.’ Newbury Street is a hundred mediocre, thirty dollar lunch spots spattered with the occasional ten dollar boba tea or coffee shop (and seriously, do they have to look so corporate?). Come enjoy the most generic clothing stores this side of the Mississippi, about three ’boutique’ hobby shops ($130 pottery, anyone?), and ‘anime shops’ that are instagram-astroturfed to make you buy as many generic Studio Ghibli posters as your Northeastern dorm can hold.

Not only is there nothing to do, as we’ll see later in Downtown Crossing, everything there is to do is spread out in the most infuriating way. Want to spend some time outside? Fenway Gardens or Boston Public Gardens, 40 minutes apart. You can go to the Boston Public Library (which, admittedly, is incredible) right smack in the middle of Boylston Street, meaning it’s near NOTHING. Unless you want to buy a new phone from the Apple or Google stores, which, just like the denizens of Back Bay, have a perfectly crafted faux-minimalistic, trendy, ‘I run a fit-pic Instagram account’ crafted appeal. There’s four grocery stores in the whole neighborhood (which always seem to want you to pay $9 for ground beef), but at least one of them, the Whole Foods, serves as the only landmark close to Symphony Hall, which is inexplicably far from the Opera House.

It’s safe!

You live in Boston, Massachusetts.

There’s so much culture!

If your culture is hanging out with Northeastern frat guys, insufferable Berklee sciolists, MassArt twinks and other such exciting figures, be my guest, but there really isn’t much of a character to people here outside of how annoyingggg their psych 101 professor is. Calling the culture of Back Bay vapid isn’t entirely accurate – it’s just functionally nonexistent. Back Bay isn’t home to good concert venues, nightclubs, parties (unless you count stuffing twelve kids in a dorm room with a bottle of Everclear a party), date spots, or really anything that would facilitate a culture at all. If you do think Back Bay has a culture, please make sure you aren’t counting running into people from your university. In fact, just to double down, start wondering about your university’s culture too -there will be a link here when I inevitably rag on the Berklee College of Music. In fact, I’d argue there isn’t just a lack of interpersonal communication, but general archetype, probably because most people living in Back Bay are college students flowing in and back out. There are New Yorkers and Parisians, and even just out of the city, Cambridge and other New England areas have defined assumptions, but nobody seems to talk about the ‘Bostonite,’ and certainly not the ‘Back Bay-er.’

The food is so good, though!

I hope you choke on your own tongue. Back Bay has two types of restaurant, and they both cost far too much. The first is somehow probably preferable, that being the $35-60 dollar restaurant (20+ for breakfast) that’s always a 10 minute walk from wherever you actually want to be. Some of these include Lolita, First Watch, Back Bay Social, Rochambeau, Sauvage, Buttermilk, and The Berkley (Yes, the name is confusing). The other kind is the chain restaurant that populate Haviland, that aren’t quite fast food, but you know that they offer Uber Eats discounts with student ID. El Jefe, Symphony Sushi, Pressed Cafe, Amelia’s Cluck, Boston Burger Co, and so on. A special mention can go to the exorbitant chain cafe’s (Nero, Tatte, Bene, Central Perk, George Howell, Manhattan Bagel, Flour, Pavement (special mega double honorable hate mention to Pavement)), and identical boba tea establishments (Ten One, Mr. Tea, Coco Tea, Kung Fu Tea, etc) for being hand-crafted to fit into an aesthetic Tiktok post yet very, very rarely offering quality or affordability. The worst part is since all the good eateries are scattered (we’re getting there), you often don’t have much of a choice but eating at these money-sinks. I guess it’s part of the culture.

PART TWO: Cambridge, brookline, and getting anywhere.

There are, admittedly, some very cool places in Boston, and some very good reasons to visit. We’re getting there, I promise. Unfortunately, we need a brief interlude to talk about why these places, while great, suffer from being in Boston itself.

Brookline is wonderful. It really is. Everyone thinks so! It’s so wonderful it has three separate Green Line lanes running through it…….with no interconnectivity. Harvard Street is really fun, especially for tourists, but it’s fun in pockets, short flashes of cool stores (and Dunkin) in between trenches of, well, not much of anything. If you go to Northeastern and want to pay a visit to to Coolidge Corner Theater (or Tatte, if you hate yourself), you can either take a forty minute walk through nothing, or you can walk up to Hynes and take a thirty minute train ride to Coolidge Corner. Once you’re there, if you want to see a show at Brighton Music Hall, it’s going to be another twenty minute walk of nothing, albiet a pretty nothing.

If you want to have any fun whatsoever, you can always just go to Cambridge, but Cambridge is most likely at least two seperate T lines away from you, and however pretty it is, I’ll bet you aren’t walking over the Charles, especially once October hits. Harvard Square has some fun stuff to do, but as soon as you take two steps out, whoops, suburbia. If you want to double back and see some Berklee egomaniacs play at the Monkfish – though, seriously, why would you? – you can take the Red Line back, if you want to wait fourteen minutes for the train, by which time you could have walked the twenty minutes of, you guessed it, nothing back. If you want to se the Aquarium, knock yourself out, but have fun spending fifteen minutes of walking to get back to civilization.

PArt three: downtown crossing, the south end, and the places i actually like

i feel bad for screaming so much about this city. I really do. Boston has its spots, they’re just never where they should be, never the right price, and, may the lord protect me, never nearly as good as what you’d find in NYC. Because of this, I think Boston is ideal for vacations, day trips (if you live in RI, MA, or NH…..maybe that’s too niche), or living comfortably once you’re 28 and make 180k a month. Hopefully, I’ll be able to do full blogs on some of these spots, but here are some of my favorite stores, restaurants, public spaces, and general spots to see on your four day vacation to Boston. These will be sorted by how well I think you could make a #aestheticwave #mediacore #sofuckingartsy Instagram post about them.

BOOKSTORES:

Two here for you, Brattle Books (not on Brattle) and Commonwealth Books (not on Commonwealth), both in Downtown Crossing. Brattle has been well-covered by everyone (maybe I’ll lose Bostonian points for mentioning it?), so I won’t dwell on it too much, but it’s a used bookstore with a fun rare books section that you might need to ask to be let into. They have a good selection, and it makes for very fun browsing. Commonwealth Books is similar, though you won’t be buying much. They sell maps and posters with prices in the hundreds, and their rare books (my favorite being the Organ-Builders Manual) often hit the thousands. The place is dusty, scatterbrained, and impossible to sort, making it perfect for pretending you’re cool.

RECORD STORES:

Boston’s record stores could really use some work, but there’s some gems if you’re okay being in the 30 dollar range. To start, here is where you should NOT go, no matter what Reddit tells you:

• Newbury Comics.
• Nuggets.
• Good Taste Records.
• Newbury Comics.
• Cheapo Records.
• Newbury Comics.
• Newbury Comics.

These stores are either cramped, comically overpriced, often do not deal in originals, annoyingly out of the way, or all and more.

Here are some to make up for that, though.

Village Vinyl and Hi-Fi is a Brookline joint record/stereo equipment store. If you care for your wallet, ditch the records, but their speakers, turntables, and radios are good quality at quite the steal

Music Research Library is a sparse but clean store in Downtown Crossing run by 2/3 of Zamovayo. Their specialties are probably the rock and jazz label sections, which isn’t too unique, but their prices are pretty clean, and their selection always has something you want. Unfortunately, I buy all the Beatles stuff before anyone else can, so don’t expect to see much of that.

Big Dig Records and Looney Tunes are both lovely, but I’ve only been to each once, so I don’t want to write too much about them yet. Go see for yourself, you bum!

PARKS:

Mt. Auburn Cemetery, a twenty minute bus ride from Harvard Square, is probably my favorite place in the city (or, technically, out of it). The park is nicest in winter, when the lakes are covered in ice and snow blankets everything, but the hike up the titular Mt. Auburn (which is really more of a hill) offers the prettiest view of the city you can find anywhere. Bring a book for the bus and I promise you won’t regret looking around and wondering if the people with bigger graves really were more important.

For all my hate of Back Bay, the Fenway Gardens are one of my favorite spots in Boston, especially during Autumn. Ignore the north section and hang out near the bridges and river.

Comm Ave mall is also very pretty, and you can pose with all the statues. Fun for the whole family. Unfortunately, you do have to be in Back Bay.

Larz Anderson Park in Brookline is very open, and very nice to walk around in. It has a playground (if you’re 6), a gazebo, lots of big hills, and an ice skating rink that isn’t ever open. I would come here in November so you can crunch all the leaves underfoot.

FOOD:

• Greystone Cafe, South End
• Farmers Horse Cafe, Back Bay
• Charlie’s Sandwich Shop, South End
• Verveine, Cambridge
• Para Maria, Seaport
• Milkweed, Roxbury
• Colette, South End
• Mooo, Downtown
• Yvonne’s, Downtown
• The Dubliner, Downtown
• Cafe Vittoria, North End
• Arya Trattoria, North End

MISC STUFF FOR TOURISTS THAT EVERYONE KNOWS ABOUT:

• Freedom Trail (well, some of it)
• Boston Public Library
• Boston Athenaeum
• Charles River Walk
• Harvard Museum of Natural History
• Museum of Bad Art
• The Aquarium
• Roadrunner
• Fenway Park
• Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
• Please do not go to Faneuil Hall.

I like Boston. I really do. But no, I do not like living in Boston. No, I do not like being a student in Boston. No, I do not like trying to meet people or find events or plan a date or go out and explore Boston. I apologize if it sounds very negative, but this city can really start to grate on you after a while. I hope this blog convinces you to visit New York. Or Philly. Or Providence. Or Portland. Or Boston. Briefly.