The South End

A fashionable neighborhood created with landfill in the mid-1800s, the South End was deserted by the well-to-do for the Back Bay toward the end of the 19th century. Solidly back in fashion today, its redbrick row houses in various states of refurbished splendor now house a mix of ethnic groups, the city's largest gay community, and some excellent shops.

The South End neither rose haphazardly among cow paths and village lanes, like the older sections of the city, nor followed the strict, uniform grid typical of the Back Bay. It's certainly more a sum of random blocks and park-center squares than of bold boulevards and long vistas. An observation often made is that the Back Bay is French-inspired, whereas the South End is English. The houses, too, are noticeably different from those in Back Bay; although they continue the bowfront style, they aspire to a more-florid standard of decoration.

When the Bay Back was established, the South End was relegated to the status of a social backwater, which may have been due to fickle tastes but likely had something to do with the South End's location. Railroad tracks separated it from the Back Bay, and differences in planning styles and grid patterns never allowed the two districts to comfortably mesh. Even so, in the late 1970s, middle-class professionals began snapping up town houses at bargain prices and restoring them.

Today, a large African-American community resides along Columbus Avenue and Mass Ave., which marks the beginning of the predominantly black neighborhood of Roxbury. Boston's gay community also has a strong presence in the South End, with most of the gay-oriented restaurants and businesses on Columbus Avenue and Tremont Street between East Berkeley Street and Mass Ave. If you like to shop, you'll have a blast in this area, which focuses on home furnishings and accessories, with a heavy accent on the unique and handmade. At the northern tip of the South End, where Harrison Avenue and Washington Street lead to Chinatown, are several Chinese supermarkets, and south of Washington Street is the burgeoning "SoWa" District, home to a growing number of art galleries, many of which have relocated here from pricey Newbury Street.