We get our morning news, sports scores, and weather forecasts from Gilbert, the town crier on the Common, whose friendly energy is as powerful as an extra cup of coffee. In the fall, my boys pick up his Siena Farms Kids’ Share, a weekly box of produce and child-friendly recipes. From May through November, our friend, farmer Chris, sells us our veggies at the market at Copley Square. And what we give up in space, we gain by our friendships with the characters in our neighborhood. When it’s rainy and we can’t play outside, we’re only a short distance away from the Museum of Science, the Boston Children’s Museum, or the new Chinatown branch of the Boston Public Library. But through school and neighborhood youth sports leagues, we have found a lovely network of friends, including neighbors with young children, and my sons have met many playmates on the playground or sledding on the Boston Common. At first, I was concerned about a lack of community. The building will include a dog day care and pet supply shop run by the house’s residents.Ĭhildren 17 and younger make up less than 8 percent of the neighborhood population downtown, one of the lowest concentrations in the city, according to the Boston Planning & Development Agency. Francis House, a nearby homeless shelter. And at The Union building at 48 Boylston Street, 46 units have been designated for low-income housing in partnership with the St. A planned 19-story tower at 41 LaGrange Street is set to include 126 mixed-income rental units. Like much of Boston, this neighborhood desperately needs more affordable housing. Though it has become a thriving center of business, retail, and tourism, the area around Washington Street is just beginning to develop its residential identity, with a mix of owners and renters, including lots of college students. We decided to move downtown because we got a good deal on our unit, and we liked living in the heart of the city. We grew weary of the tourists who would walk into our building and ask us, in front of our children, if we were home at the time of the bombing (we were, but were not hurt). We bought our new three-bedroom condo here five years ago, after spending eight years in a two-bedroom rental on Boylston Street - the exact spot where the second Marathon bomb went off in 2013. Now, major landmarks include the upscale Ritz-Carlton Hotel, with its friendly doormen who dote on our dog, and the 25,000-square-foot Roche Bros. the area was a concentration of crime and sleaze,” says Tunney Lee, professor emeritus of urban studies and planning at MIT. For years, the “Combat Zone” was filled with erotic bookstores and nude-dancing venues. The neighborhood has come a long way since 1974, when what is now the Boston Planning & Development Agency designated several blocks on Washington Street an adult entertainment district.
But choosing to live with a lot less square footage in the city has been an overwhelmingly positive decision for my family. Many of my friends have moved away from the city for a larger home, a yard, and some of the highest rated public schools in the country. My boys’ art projects consume every extra inch of our limited space, and I know we’d have more room in the suburbs.
Because of this, I avoid certain streets after midnight and keep my bag strap looped around my arm while walking outside. According to the FBI, in 2017 violent crime in Boston was almost 15 times higher than in nearby Cambridge. There are definitely downsides to this life, especially safety concerns. During much of the day, horns are honking, music is blaring, and panhandlers are yelling, sometimes directly at me. My husband and I are raising our 8- and 11-year-old sons on one of the busiest commercial thoroughfares in the city. That siren is one of the most-played tunes on the soundtrack of my life, reminding me that I’m surrounded by constant action. I can hear the comforting wail of firetrucks multiple times a day from our mid-rise condo in downtown Boston.
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