169 Best Sights in Boston, Massachusetts

Less posh than Newbury Street, this broad thoroughfare is the southern commercial spine of the Back Bay, lined with big-name restaurants and shops, and where you'll find the Boston Marathon finish line. Also located here is the Boston Marathon Bombing Memorial, composed of light spires and stone pillars, which pays homage to the Boston Marathon bombing victims at the sites where they were killed on April 15, 2013.

This charming, yellow, 18th-century, gambrel-roof Colonial once belonged to the Loyalist William Brattle. He moved to Boston in 1774 to escape the patriots' anger, then left in 1776 with the British troops. From 1831 to 1833 the house was the residence of Margaret Fuller, feminist author and editor of The Dial. Today it's the office of the Cambridge Center for Adult Education, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

This gravity-defying mass of concrete and glass, built in 1963, is the only building in North America designed by the French architect Le Corbusier. It hosts Harvard's Department of Art, Film, and Visual Studies, exhibition spaces, and the Harvard Film Archive, and is dedicated to artist-centered programming. The open floor plan provides students with five stories of flexible workspace, and the large, outward-facing windows ensure that the creative process is always visible and public. The center regularly holds free lectures, workshops, and receptions with artists.

At the top of the ramp, the Sert Gallery plays host to changing exhibits of contemporary works and has a café. The Main Gallery on the ground floor often showcases work by students and faculty. The Carpenter Center Bookshop, a collaboration with Berlin-based Motto Books, is one of the only local places to carry small-press contemporary art books, magazines, and journals, with an emphasis on international publications and limited-edition projects.

Occupying an entire corner of the Cole Hersee Building, this taproom has signature brews, from IPAs to lagers, as well as some limited releases, on draft. In nice weather, the front garage doors open to reveal a contemporary rendezvous spot for craft beer lovers. Children are welcome if they're accompanied by adults, but it's 21 and over after 8 pm. Check the website for frequent public events, including weekly trivia on Tuesday.

This enormous 1875 Gothic cathedral dominates the corner of Washington and Union Park streets. The main church of the Archdiocese of Boston and therefore the seat of Cardinal Seán Patrick O'Malley, Holy Cross is also New England's largest Catholic church. It's also home to an 1875 Hook & Hastings pipe organ, the largest instrument ever built by that company.

The small Central Burying Ground may seem an odd feature for a public park, but remember that in 1756, when the land was set aside, this was a lonely corner of Boston Common. It's the final resting place of Tories and Patriots alike, as well as many British casualties of the Battle of Bunker Hill. The most famous person buried here is Gilbert Stuart, the portraitist best known for his likenesses of George and Martha Washington.

Located at Massachusetts Avenue (known by locals as "Mass Ave."), Prospect Street, and Western Avenue, Central Square has burger and beer joints, ethnic eats, music clubs, vintage record stores, and consignment shops. Cambridge's city government is here, and Ben Affleck and Matt Damon used to live here. The Central Square T stop is on the Red Line.

Runners, bikers, and in-line skaters crowd the Charles River Reservation at the Esplanade along Storrow Drive, the Memorial Drive Embankment in Cambridge, or any of the smaller and less-busy parks farther upriver. Here you can cheer a crew race (perhaps the famous Head of the Charles), rent a canoe or kayak, learn to sail, or simply sit and share the grassy shore with packs of hard-jogging university athletes, in-line skaters, parents with strollers, dreamy couples, and intense academics.

A National Park Service site since it was decommissioned in 1974, the Charlestown Navy Yard was one of six established to build warships. For 174 years, as wooden hulls and muzzle-loading cannons gave way to steel ships and sophisticated electronics, the yard evolved to meet the Navy's changing needs. Here are early-19th-century barracks, workshops, and officers' quarters; a ropewalk (an elongated building for making rope, not open to the public), designed in 1834 by the Greek Revival architect Alexander Parris and used by the Navy to turn out cordage for more than 125 years; and one of the oldest operational naval dry docks in the United States. The USS Constitution was the first to use this dry dock in 1833. In addition to the ship itself, check out the Constitution Museum, the collections of the Boston Marine Society, and the USS Cassin Young. The Charlestown Navy Yard Visitors Center has exhibits on ships and a fun souvenir shop. A 10-minute movie about the Navy Yard runs every 15 minutes in a small theater.

Two foo lions ward off evil for those who pass through the massive, traditional paifang gate that signals your entrance to Chinatown. It was donated to the Asian residents of Boston by Taiwan, in the early 1980s. You'll likely see red lanterns hanging from it; they signify good luck. The main square around the gate acts as a gathering place for the neighborhood's residents, who meet to socialize or play games. The gate is situated at Beach Street, and it also marks the end of the Greenway.

This modest yet beautiful gray clapboard structure was designed in 1761 by Peter Harrison, the first architect of note in the colonies (he designed King's Chapel). During the Revolution, members of its mostly Tory congregation fled for their lives. The organ was melted down for bullets and the building was used as a barracks during the Siege of Boston. (Step into the vestibule to look for the bullet hole left during the skirmish.) Today, the organ facade takes inspiration from the original 1762 gallery organ.

Martha Washington requested that the church reopen for services on New Year's Eve in 1775. The church's historical significance extends to the 20th century: Teddy Roosevelt was a Sunday-school teacher here (and famously fired because he remained Dutch Reformed rather than becoming an Episcopalian), and Martin Luther King Jr. spoke from the pulpit to announce his opposition to the Vietnam War.

This 1867 Gothic Revival church, a National Historic Landmark at the corner of Newbury and Berkeley streets, has one of the largest collections of liturgical windows by Louis Comfort Tiffany in the country. It's crowned by a 236-foot-tall steeple—the tallest in Boston—that Oliver Wendell Holmes called "absolutely perfect." Inside, a 14-foot-high Tiffany lantern hangs from a breathtaking 100-foot ceiling. The church is now Presbyterian and United Church of Christ.

Over the years, various plans—involving gardens, restaurants, music, and hotels—have been floated to make this a more people-friendly site. Possibly the only thing that would ameliorate Bostonians' collective distaste for the chilly Government Center is tearing it down. Locals got their wish, as the entire City Hall Plaza area (one of the largest civil spaces in Boston) has just completed a several-stage, multiyear makeover. The brutalist redbrick plaza was torn up and revamped to create a more aesthetically pleasing array of tree canopies, terraces, and improved public spaces including a playspace with soft sidewalks, funhouse mirrors, musical structures, a water feature, and the Internet-famous "Cop Slide" (a slide that created a viral video of a police officer's very speedy exit). The plaza continues to be the home of many of the city's famed festivals, rallies, and outdoor concerts.

Built in 1712, this house (whose name rhymes with "fluff") is now the only local survivor of its era aside from Old North Church, which stands nearby. Picture the streets lined with houses such as this, with an occasional grander Georgian mansion and some modest wooden-frame survivors of old Boston's many fires—this is what the North End looked like when Paul Revere was young. Today, Clough House is home to two new attractions: the Printing Office of Edes & Gill, which offers visitors live Colonial-printing demonstrations, and Heritage Goods + Gifts, a shop dedicated to New England artisans and small businesses with a special focus on locally made products from BIPOC- and women-owned businesses.

Commissioned in the French boulevard style, the mall is a grand allée of shade trees extending down the middle of the Back Bay's Commonwealth Avenue. Studded with statuary, it serves as the green link between the Public Garden and the Back Bay Fens. One of the most interesting memorials, at the Exeter Street intersection, is a portrayal of naval historian and author Samuel Eliot Morison seated on a rock as if he were peering out to sea. The Boston Women's Memorial, installed in 2003, sculpted by Meredith Bergmann, is between Fairfield and Gloucester streets. Statues of Abigail Adams, Lucy Stone, and Phillis Wheatley celebrate the three women's progressive ideas and contributions to Boston's history.

A dramatic and personal memorial near Dartmouth Street is the Vendome Hotel Fire Memorial, dedicated to the nine firemen who died in a 1972 blaze at the Back Bay's Vendome Hotel, which, now office space, is across the street. The curved black-granite block, 29 feet long and waist-high, is etched with the names of the dead. A bronze cast of a fireman's coat and hat drapes over the granite.

Two modern structures dominate Copley Square—200 Clarendon (still referred to by its former name, the Hancock) off the southeast corner and the even more assertive Copley Place skyscraper on the southwest. An upscale, glass-and-brass urban mall built between 1980 and 1984, Copley Place includes two major hotels: the high-rise Westin and the Marriott Copley Place. Dozens of high-end designer shops, restaurants, and offices are attractively grouped on several levels, surrounding bright, open, indoor spaces.

Every April thousands find a glimpse of Copley Square the most wonderful sight in the world: this is where the runners of the Boston Marathon end their 26.2-mile race. The civic space is defined by three monumental older buildings. One is the stately, bowfront, 1912 Fairmont Copley Plaza hotel, which faces the square on St. James Avenue and serves as a dignified foil to its companions, two of the most important works of architecture in the United States: Trinity Church—Henry Hobson Richardson's masterwork of 1877—and the Boston Public Library, by McKim, Mead & White. The 200 Clarendon (Hancock) Tower looms in the background. To honor the runners who stagger over the marathon's finish line, bronze statues of the Tortoise and the Hare engaged in their mythical race were cast by Nancy Schön, who also did the much-loved Make Way for Ducklings group in the Public Garden. From May through October, a popular farmers' market draws crowds.

An ancient and melancholy air hovers like a fine mist over this Colonial-era burial ground. The North End graveyard incorporates four cemeteries established between 1660 and 1819. Near the Charter Street gate is the tomb of the Mather family, the dynasty of church divines (Cotton and Increase were the most famous sons) who held sway in Boston during the heyday of the old theocracy. Also buried here is Robert Newman, who crept into the steeple of Old North Church to hang the lanterns warning of the British attack the night of Paul Revere's ride. Look for the tombstone of Captain Daniel Malcolm; it's pockmarked with musket-ball fire from British soldiers, who used the stones for target practice. Across the street is 44 Hull (Boston's historic Skinny House), the city's narrowest house, measuring at just a mere 10 feet wide, which fetched a selling price of $1.5 million in 2021. This is Freedom Trail stop 14.

Located just over the border from northwest Cambridge and easily accessible on the Red Line, this funky neighborhood near Tufts University is packed with great eateries, lively bars, and candlepin bowling. Harvard Square can sometimes feel a little tired after midnight, but there's still a lot of energy here late at night. At the Somerville Theatre ( 55 Davis Sq.), you can enjoy cheap first-run matinee movies ($10), excellent popcorn, and even beer and wine with your feature. The Davis Square T stop is on the Red Line.

Also known as the "Blacksmith House," this yellow Colonial is now owned by the Cambridge Center for Adult Education. The tree itself is long gone, but this spot inspired Longfellow's lines: "Under a spreading chestnut tree, the village smithy stands." The blacksmith's shop, today commemorated by a granite marker, was next door, at the corner of Story Street. Although not open to the public, you can catch a glimpse inside during the celebrated Blacksmith House Poetry Series, which runs throughout the year on Monday nights. Tickets are $5.

You've got to really look for the garage doors that mark the entrance to this zero-frills local taproom. Once you make it inside the industrial space, you can sample flights of Downeast's fresh, unfiltered cider varieties—many of which are only available at the cider house. While many breweries these days welcome the whole family, this isn't one of those places. Of course kids are allowed, but they must remain seated and Downeast does not serve any food.  There's limited seating and no standing room so you may have to wait for a table.

Located adjacent to the JFK Library and Museum, the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate offers another view of the workings of the U.S. government, this one through the lens of the Senate and one of its most influential members. Interactive exhibits take visitors through a day in the life of a senator, and the highlight is the stunning full-scale representation of the Senate Chamber. In addition, there’s an exact reproduction of Senator Kennedy’s office, complete with photos of his family, model ships, and letters from his mother. It's definitely worth planning to visit both Kennedy attractions.

Shortly after its construction in 1767, this three-story Georgian house was abandoned by its owner, Colonial governor Thomas Oliver. Also known as the Oliver-Gerry-Lowell House, it was home to the accomplished Lowell family for two centuries. Elmwood is now the Harvard University president's residence, ever since student riots in 1969 drove president Nathan Pusey from his house in Harvard Yard. Although it's not open to the public, it affords a nice view from the street.

This new memorial in the Boston Common was created as a permanent honor to the life and legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King, their love, and powerful presence in Boston.

Built in 1860, this Back Bay Gothic Episcopal church is popular among classical music lovers—every Sunday morning at 10, from September to May, as part of the liturgy, a Bach cantata, and music by Schütz, Mendelssohn, and others, including music written by living composers, is performed; guest conductors have included Christopher Hogwood and Seiji Ozawa. From May to September, the Chapel Choir, comprised of both professional and volunteer singers, performs.

Near the corner of Beacon and Arlington streets, the Arthur Fiedler Footbridge crosses Storrow Drive to the 3-mile-long Esplanade and the Hatch Memorial Shell. The free summer concerts here include the Boston Pops' immensely popular televised July 4 performance. For shows like this, Bostonians haul lawn chairs and blankets to the lawn in front of the shell; bring a takeout lunch from a nearby restaurant, find an empty spot—no mean feat, so come early—and you'll feel right at home. An impressive stone bust of the late maestro Arthur Fiedler watches over the walkers, joggers, picnickers, and sunbathers who fill the Esplanade's paths on pleasant days. Here, too, is the turn-of-the-20th-century Union Boat Club Boathouse, headquarters for the country's oldest private rowing club. You can also access the park by crossing the Frances Appleton Pedestrian Bridge linking the Beacon Hill neighborhood to the Esplanade.

Tiny, but well worth the 15 minutes you'll spend here if you're already in the neighborhood, this operating theater is open to the public because of its historical significance. In fact, it served as Mass General Hospital's first operating room, in use from 1821 to 1867, and it was here where the world witnessed the first public demonstration of surgical anesthesia, in 1846. Today, the room contains two 19th-century operating chairs complete with red velvet to mask patients' blood, early surgical tools, a teaching skeleton, and, interestingly, an authentic Egyptian mummy.

This 1872 structure, at the corner of Clarendon Street and Commonwealth Avenue, was architect Henry Hobson Richardson's first foray into Romanesque Revival. It was originally erected for the Brattle Square Unitarian Society, but Richardson ran over budget and the church went bankrupt and dissolved. In 1882, the building was bought by the Baptists. The figures on each side of its 176-foot soaring tower were sculpted by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, the sculptor who designed the Statue of Liberty. The friezes represent four points at which God enters an individual's life: baptism, communion, marriage, and death. The tower is undergoing a huge restoration project to help it weather the years to come. Call ahead on a weekday and you may be given an informal tour.

The world headquarters and mother church of the Christian Science faith mixes the traditional with the modern—marrying Bernini to Le Corbusier by combining an old-world basilica with a sleek office complex designed by I. M. Pei & Partners and Araldo Cossutta, Associated Architects. Mary Baker Eddy's original granite First Church of Christ, Scientist (1894) has since been enveloped by a domed Renaissance Revival basilica, added to the site in 1906, and both church buildings are now surrounded by the offices of the Christian Science Publishing Society, where the Christian Science Monitor is produced, and by Cossutta's complex of church-administration structures completed in 1973. You can hear all 13,000-plus pipes of the church's famed Aeolian-Skinner organ during Sunday services.

The outer reflection pool, small fountains, and surrounding area (together with the church and the Mary Baker Eddy Library, the area is known as the Christian Science Plaza) received a major face-lift recently to include more walkways and sitting areas. Church tours are held Friday and Saturday at 11 am, 1 pm, and 3 pm, and on Sunday at 1 pm and 3 pm.