Since at least 2400 B.C. the Indigenous Massachusett people inhabited Boston. In 1630 a fleet of ships departed England and settlement began in Boston. In came English, Irish, Italian, Dutch, and more immigrants over the years who ultimately shaped aspects of the city we encounter today.
Parts of the city are marked by the Indigenous Massachusett people like the names of streets such as Shawmut, and others have a European touch, like the brownstones of the South End.
Places in Boston similar to Europe
These are the spots Bostonians most consider to resemble Europe:
- Commonwealth Avenue from Mass Ave. to Arlington St.
- Bridges between Cambridge and Boston
- The cobblestoned street areas, the vibe in Back Bay, and the North End
- Back bay, with the row house
- Acorn Street
- North End
- South end
- Beacon Street
- Copley Square because of the beautiful church
- Boston Public Library’s Beaux-Arts architecture
- Any of the oldest parts of Boston. They were mostly designed by people from Europe, or by people who at least still worked in those styles.
- Isabella Stewart Gardiner museum. It is modeled on Venetian Renaissance palaces.
- Commonwealth Avenue Mall is a grand allée of shade trees, connecting the Public Garden to the Back Bay Fens and forming the central axis of the Back Bay. Inspired by Parisian boulevards and designed by Arthur Gilman, the Mall was created between 1858 and the 1870s under the Back Bay Development Plan. From its inception, the Mall has been a vital amenity for both residents and visitors. Winston Churchill once praised it as “the grandest boulevard in North America.”
From the Friends of the Public Garden website - Well, one time I was visiting London and walking around Earl’s Court. At the time, I thought that I put sufficient distance between myself and anything having to do with Boston, until I overheard two ladies behind me exclaim in the heaviest Boston accents, ‘This area looks just like Beacon Street!’
- Acorn Street – England, Seaport District – Scandinavia (Sweden?). Many parts
Others were a bit cynical of the comparisons made by their fellow Bostonians. “None of it honestly. But if I absolutely HAAAAAD to pick…Beacon Hill. And even THATS a stretch. I mean…have folks BEEN to Europe?!” A few others said Dorchester and Roxbury for laughs.