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The Suburban Crawl
The outskirts are the new city!
By Luke O'Neil
del.ico.us
reddit!
Urban sprawl has hit Boston. The office parks studding Route 128 divert the flow of work traffic from the city, drawing businesses big and small, and with them, some pretty cool attractions. It's getting harder to tell where the city ends and the suburbs begin. So, contrary to popular misconception, heading out of the city for the day won't doom you to strip mall dystopias cluttered with Applebees. They've actually got some really nice Pizzeria Uno's out there, too.
Consider this an urbanite's guide, for those brave enough to tread beyond the boundaries of the metro area. Because there are a few places you'll want to check out, only half of which are overrun by bros in pleated khakis and Sox caps.
Maybe your view of the world is like that Saul Steinberg New Yorker cover—it begins around Allston/Brighton, then skips over to New Jersey and Long Island or whatever awful place you've left behind for college—so it's probably best to begin your exploration of the suburbs slowly, with nearby Newton. First off, the place is a bookworm's dream, with New England Mobile Book Fair [82-84 Needham St., Newton Highlands. 617.964.7440. nebookfair.com], an enormous warehouse of literature you can easily get lost in, and Newtonville Books [296 Walnut St., Newtonville. 617.244.6619. newtonvillebooks.com] boasts its ever popular Books and Brews series and readings from authors you've actually heard of, like Alice Hoffman, Tom Perrotta and Richard Russo.
If all that book learnin' works up an appetite, then score a table at 51 Lincoln [51 Lincoln St., Newton Highlands. 617.965.3100. 51lincolnnewton.com]. One of the best restaurants in the area, it's as good as anything Boston has to offer with its creative food and alcohol pairings, like crispy cornbread-battered shrimp and rosemary aioli with juniper rosemary gin.
The only thing better than gin is school pride, am I right? While college football may not be king in Massachusetts like it is in most other shitty states in the country, the old boys out at Boston College still pack 'em in on autumn Saturdays at the 44,000-plus capacity of Alumni Stadium [140 Comm. Ave., Chestnut Hill. 617.552.GOBC. bceagles.com].
A little further west, Wellesley offers up a similar sense of entitled affluence, but it's also crawling with wicked-smart, liberal do-gooders at the prestigious all-women's Wellesley College, so it's worth a visit for the cultural schizophrenia alone. Blue Ginger [583 Washington St., Wellesley. 781.283.5790. ming.com], the flagship restaurant of celebrity chef Ming Tsai's cooking empire, makes this a culinary destination for foodies all over. Meanwhile, Wellesley Booksmith [82 Central St., Wellesley. 781.431.1160. wellesleybooksmith.com] is another popular independent bookstore (yes, they still have those) in the area that hosts a worthwhile reading series.
Since you're practically already out there, artsy types could do worse than checking out The Center for the Arts in Natick [14 Summer St., Natick. 508.647.0097. natickarts.org] (you know it's classy because its website says ".org"). Concerts, family events, theater, art exhibitions and folk and poetry open mic nights bring together all the hippies in the Metro West area who've given up and moved to the 'burbs.
Driving a little further along the Mass. Pike will bring you to Framingham, which, uh, we're sure has ... uh ... some nice things to do.
Just northwest of the city, out along Route 2, the Lexington/Concord area has all manners of old-timey bullshit for the historically minded. The Minute Man National Historical Park [174 Liberty St., Concord. 978.369.6993. nps.gov/mima] is a beautiful, 937-acre reservation that was the sight of the infamous "shot heard round the world" (look it up). Like a lot of other sites of historical bloody conflict, it's a great place for a picnic! Besides being the site of Thoreau's seminal treatise, Walden Pond [915 Walden St., Concord. 978.369.3254. mass.gov/dcr/parks/walden] is a popular swimming area. A little too popular, actually. A number of other mostly undiscovered ponds dot the surrounding woods. We suggest seeking one of those out, unless you're inclined to drinking kids' urine by the gallon. Nearby, the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park [51 Sandy Pond Rd., Lincoln. 781.259.8355. decordova.org] displays its gorgeous collection of contemporary and modern art, focusing on regional work like the humorous, politically provocative sketches of Laylah Ali on display now.
Museums and parks are great, but it can be a little bit difficult to rock out there sometimes. For that you'll want to head south to Mansfield to the Comcast Center [885 South Main St., Mansfield. 617.931.2000. ticketmaster.com], one of Massachusetts' biggest rock and drunken parkinglot fight venues. With shows from Radiohead and R.E.M., to dad-rockers like Jimmy Buffett and rock radio festivals, there's a little something here for everyone. Everyone who likes to get blasted and sunburnt in the cheap seats, that is.
Only about five miles and 10 hours of traffic up the road, Gillette Stadium [One Patriot Place, Foxborough. gillettestadium.com] has been challenging Fenway Park for the title of New England sports mecca of late. But the newly built Patriots Place right around the way [One Patriots Place, Foxborough. patriot-place.com] offers all sorts of shopping, dining, comedy, theater and musical options for people who like to do their relaxing in the shadow of a hulking sports behemoth. It's also probably one of the only places you'll ever get to see awesome events listings juxtapositioned like this: 9/6/2008 Badfish a tribute to Sublime; 9/7/2008 Patriots vs. Chiefs.
Down on the South Shore, there are plenty more historical joints to visit. Quincy, the city famed as the birthplace of two American presidents, has the Adams National Historic Park [1250 Hancock St., Quincy. 617.770.1175. nps.gov/adam], where you'll get to see how that dude from the HBO series actually lived. Not to mention the USS Salem and US Naval Shipbuilding Museum [739 Washington St., Quincy. 617.479.7900. uss-salem.org], a quaint homage to our country's history of blowing things up in the water.
History of a different stripe (i.e., back when you didn't need to take out a second mortgage to go see a movie) can be experienced in Weymouth at the Cameo Theatre [14 Columbian St., South Weymouth. 781.335.2777. patriotcinemas.com]. A charming, small-town, two-screen cinema showing second-run and new-release films, they've got specials like "Economic Recovery Tuesdays" (no joke) where all screenings are $4.
Sitting inside a cramped theater is cool, but if you're more of an outdoors person, you may want to skip that and just hop a ferry from downtown Boston and shoot out to the Boston Harbor Islands National Park [617.223.8666. bostonislands.com]. The 34-island park has plenty of space for hiking, camping and picnicking. Plus, when you start getting nervous about being away from the city for so long, the view of the Boston skyline will reassure you that you aren't so far away.
Further down along the shore, the quaint town of Cohasset brings national tours and comedy acts to its charming South Shore Music Circus [130 Sohier St., Cohasset. 781.383.9850. themusiccircus.org]. The seasonal, intimate venue is a cute little spot to see nostalgic acts like the Beach Boys or Michael McDonald, or comedians like Jim Gaffigan, Brad Garrett and Artie Lang. Take your parents when they're in town visiting and go for dinner or stay at the Red Lion Inn [71 South Main St., Cohasset. 781.383.1704. redlioninn1704.com]. The building might be 300 years old, but thankfully, the menu isn't.
A little closer toward the Cape, towns like Marshfield and Duxbury are littered with beaches. Sure, most of them are rocky and the water will freeze your tits off, but there are gorgeous spots to be found. We're partial to Duxbury Beach [duxburybeach.com], with its rolling sand dunes and relative seclusion, and not just because we may or may not have done a lot of teenage making out there.
There's about 10 billion other destination spots for dining, music and more out there in the wild hinterlands. From Plymouth and the Cape to the North Shore towns of Salem and Gloucester, they're all worthy of day trips, and in these autumnal months, the drives on Routes 2 and 128 boast glorious views of both vivid leaves and towering office parks.
