145 Best Sights in Boston, Massachusetts

Brattle Street's seven houses known as "Tory Row" were once occupied by wealthy families linked by friendship, if not blood. Portions of this house may have been built as early as 1636. In 1737 it was purchased by John Vassall Sr.; four years later he sold it to his younger brother Henry and his wife Penelope. It was used as a hospital during the Revolution, and the traitor Dr. Benjamin Church was held here as a prisoner. The house was remodeled during the 19th century. It's now a private residence, but from the street you can view the Colonial home with its black-shuttered windows and multiple dormers.

Now headquarters of the History Cambridge historical society, this is one of two Tory-era homes on Brattle Street fully open to the public; it's one of the older houses in Cambridge. The Emerson family gave it to the society in 1957. Built between 1685 and 1690, the house has been remodeled at least six times, but has maintained much of the original structure. The downstairs is elegantly, although sparsely, appointed with period books, portraits, and wallpaper. An upstairs bedroom has been furnished with period antiques, some belonging to the original residents. Tours are offered by appointment only. Check the website for special events including public art installations, and to see a virtual tour of the house.

The Hynes Convention Center hosts conferences, trade shows, and conventions. It's connected to the Prudential Center, where visitors can find a branch of the Greater Boston Visitors Bureau in the center court of the mall.

The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston's seasonal outpost first opened in 2018 after renovations to a dilapidated former copper-pipe facility in East Boston's working shipyard and marina. Every summer, a single large-scale, immersive art installation makes the 15,000-square-foot space its own. A smaller gallery delves into the shipyard's history.

Believe it or not, the public is welcomed in for a visit to this architectural wonder and federal house of justice. Galleries across the courthouse feature rotating exhibitions on a variety of themes, from maritime history to the judicial system. Don't miss Ellsworth Kelly's permanent installation The Boston Panels in the courthouse's entry rotunda. It's not uncommon to see a tall ship or a charter vessel docked outside, in season. You can also book an hour-long Discovering Justice tour.

Two blocks north of Fenway Park is Kenmore Square, where you'll find shops, restaurants, and the city's emblematic sign advertising Citgo gasoline. The red, white, and blue neon sign from 1965 is so thoroughly identified with the area that historic preservationists fought, successfully, to save it. The old Kenmore Square punk clubs have given way to a block-long development of pricey stores and restaurants, as well as brick sidewalks, gaslight-style street lamps, and tree plantings. In the shadow of Fenway Park between Brookline and Ipswich is Lansdowne Street, a nightlife magnet for the trendy, who have their pick of dance clubs and pregame bars. The urban campus of Boston University begins farther west on Commonwealth Avenue, in blocks thick with dorms, shops, and restaurants.

Legends linger in this oldest of the city's cemeteries, its first proper burying ground. A handy map of famous grave sites is posted a short walk down the left path. Notable people buried here include Elizabeth Pain, the model for Hester Prynne in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter; William Dawes Jr., who rode out to warn of the British invasion the night of Paul Revere's famous ride; and John Winthrop, the first governor of Massachusetts, along with several generations of his descendants.  This is Freedom Trail stop 5.

Dedicated in 2002, the Zakim Bridge is the crown jewel of Boston's legendary Big Dig construction project. The Zakim rings in at 1,432 feet, is one of the widest cable-stayed hybrid bridges ever built, and is the first to use an asymmetrical design. At night, the illuminated bridge glows different colors.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the poet whose stirring tales of the village blacksmith, Evangeline, Hiawatha, and Paul Revere's midnight ride thrilled 19th-century America, once lived in this elegant Georgian mansion. One of several original Tory Row homes on Brattle Street, the house was built in 1759 by John Vassall Jr., and George Washington lived (and slept!) here during the Siege of Boston from July 1775 to April 1776. Longfellow first boarded here in 1837 and later received the house as a gift from his father-in-law on his marriage to Frances Appleton, who burned to death here in an accident in 1861. For 45 years Longfellow wrote his famous verses here and filled the house with the exuberant spirit of his literary circle, which included Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Charles Sumner, an abolitionist senator. Longfellow died in 1882, but his presence in the house lives on—from the Longfellow family furniture to the wallpaper to the books on the shelves (many the poet's own).

The home is preserved and run by the National Park Service; guided tours are offered Memorial Day through October. The formal garden is the perfect place to relax; the grounds are open year-round. Longfellow Park, across the street, is the place to stand to take photos of the house. The park was created to preserve the view immortalized in the poet's "To the River Charles."

Charming, and tucked around the corner from historic Acorn Street, Louisburg Square (don't drop the "s") was an 1840s model for a town-house development that was never built on the Hill because of space restrictions. Today, its central grassy square, enclosed by a wrought-iron fence, belongs collectively to the owners of the homes encircling it. The houses have seen their share of famous tenants, including author and critic William Dean Howells at Nos. 4 and 16, and the Alcotts at No. 10 (Louisa May not only lived here, she died here). In 1852, singer Jenny Lind was married in the parlor of No. 20. Former U.S. secretary of state John Kerry and his wife own a home here.

A 35-foot golden and green statue of the Virgin Mary standing atop a globe dominates the Pope Paul VI Pilgrim Plaza that welcomes curious visitors and religious pilgrims to this Roman Catholic shrine. From its perch in Orient Heights, the shrine also boasts some pretty spectacular views of Logan Airport and the downtown skyline. Beneath the plaza, a sprawling sanctuary offers a quiet retreat, and some holy relics are on display. Masses are offered weekly in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.

One of the largest single collections by and about an American woman is housed at this library, located on the Christian Science Plaza. The library also includes two floors of exhibits, which celebrate the power of ideas and provide context to the life and achievements of Mary Baker Eddy (1821–1910).

The library is also home to the fascinating Mapparium, a huge stained-glass globe whose 30-foot interior can be traversed on a footbridge, where you can experience a unique sound-and-light show while viewing an accurate representation of the world from 1935. The Hall of Ideas showcases quotes from the world's greatest thinkers, which travel around the room and through a virtual fountain. In the Quest Gallery, explore how Mary Baker Eddy founded a church and a college, and at the age of 87, launched the Christian Science Monitor newspaper.

The first historical society in the United States (founded in 1791) has paintings, a library, and a 12-million-piece manuscript collection from 17th-century New England to the present. Among these manuscripts are the Adams Family Papers, which comprise more than 300,000 pages from the letters and diaries of generations of the Adams family, including papers from John Adams and John Quincy Adams. Casual visitors are welcome, but if you'd like to examine the papers within the library in depth, call ahead. The Society also offers a variety of programs and special exhibits.

Founded in 1861, MIT moved to Cambridge from Copley Square in the Back Bay in 1916. Once dissed as "the factory," particularly by its Ivy League neighbor, Harvard University, MIT mints graduates that are the sharp blades on the edge of the information revolution. It's perennially in the top five of U.S. News and World Report's college rankings. It has long since fulfilled the predictions of its founder, the geologist William Barton Rogers, that it would surpass "the universities of the land in the accuracy and the extent of its teachings in all branches of positive science." Its emphasis shifted in the 1930s from practical engineering and mechanics to the outer limits of scientific fields.

Architecture is important at MIT. Although the original buildings were obviously designed by and for scientists, many represent pioneering designs of their times. Kresge Auditorium, designed by Eero Saarinen, with a curving roof and unusual thrust, rests on three, instead of four, points. The nondenominational MIT Chapel, a circular Saarinen design, is lighted primarily by a roof oculus that focuses natural light on the altar and by reflections from the water in a small surrounding moat; it's topped by an aluminum sculpture by Theodore Roszak. The serpentine Baker House, now a dormitory, was designed in 1947 by the Finnish architect Alvar Aalto in such a way as to provide every room with a view of the Charles River. Sculptures by Henry Moore and other notable artists dot the campus. The latest addition is the Green Center, punctuated by the splash of color that is Sol LeWitt's 5,500-square-foot mosaic floor.

The East Campus, which has grown around the university's original neoclassical buildings of 1916, also has outstanding modern architecture and sculpture, including the stark high-rise Green Building by I. M. Pei, housing the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences. Just outside is Alexander Calder's giant stabile (a stationary mobile) The Big Sail. Another Pei work on the East Campus is the Wiesner Building, designed in 1985, which houses the List Visual Arts Center. Architect Frank Gehry made his mark on the campus with the cockeyed, improbable Ray and Maria Stata Center, a complex of buildings on Vassar Street. The center houses computer, artificial intelligence, and information systems laboratories, and is reputedly as confusing to navigate on the inside as it is to follow on the outside. East Campus's Great Dome, which looms over neoclassical Killian Court, has often been the target of student "hacks" and has at various times supported a telephone booth with a ringing phone, a life-size statue of a cow, and a campus police cruiser. Nearby, the domed Rogers Building has earned unusual notoriety as the center of a series of hallways and tunnels dubbed "the infinite corridor." Twice each winter the sun's path lines up perfectly with the corridor's axis, and at dusk students line the third-floor hallway to watch the sun set through the westernmost window. The phenomenon is known as "MIT-henge."

MIT maintains a welcome center located at 292 Main Street in Kendall Square, where you can pick up campus maps, grab some water, and charge your phone weekdays 9 to 6.

On July 4, 1795, the surviving fathers of the Revolution were on hand to enshrine the ideals of their new Commonwealth in a graceful seat of government designed by Charles Bulfinch. Governor Samuel Adams and Paul Revere laid the cornerstone; Revere would later roll the copper sheathing for the dome.

Bulfinch's neoclassical design is poised between Georgian and Federal; its finest features are the delicate Corinthian columns of the portico, the graceful pediment and window arches, and the vast yet visually weightless golden dome (gilded in 1874 and again in 1997). During World War II, the dome was painted gray so that it would not reflect moonlight during blackouts and thereby offer a target to anticipated Axis bombers. It's capped with a pinecone, a symbol of the importance of pinewood, which was integral to the construction of Boston's early houses and churches; it also serves as a reminder of the state's early connection to Maine, once part of Massachusetts.

Inside the building are Doric Hall, with its statuary and portraits; the Hall of Flags, where an exhibit shows the battle flags from all the wars in which Massachusetts regiments have participated; the Great Hall, an open space used for state functions that houses 351 flags from the cities and towns of Massachusetts; the governor's office; and the chambers of the House and Senate. The Great Hall contains a giant, modernistic clock designed by New York artist R. M. Fischer. Its installation in 1986 at a cost of $100,000 was roundly slammed as a symbol of legislative extravagance. There's also a wealth of statuary, including figures of Horace Mann, Daniel Webster, and a youthful-looking President John F. Kennedy in full stride. Just outside Doric Hall is Hear Us, a series of six bronze busts honoring the contributions of women to public life in Massachusetts. But perhaps the best-known piece of artwork in the building is the carved wooden Sacred Cod, mounted in the Old State House in 1784 as a symbol of the Commonwealth's maritime wealth. It was moved, with much fanfare, to Bulfinch's structure in 1798. By 1895, when it was hung in the new House chambers, the representatives had begun to consider the Cod their unofficial mascot—so much so that when Harvard Lampoon wags "codnapped" it in 1933, the House refused to meet in session until the fish was returned, three days later. Free guided tours are available; call for reservations. This is Freedom Trail stop 2.

Founded by Albert and Vera List, pioneer collectors of modern art, this MIT center has three galleries showcasing exhibitions of cutting-edge art and mixed media. Works from the center's collection of contemporary art, such as Thomas Hart Benton's painting Fluid Catalytic Crackers and Harry Bertoia's altarpiece for the MIT Chapel, are on view here and around campus. The center's website includes a map indicating the locations of more than 20 of these public works of art.

A place where art, science, and technology meet, the MIT Museum boasts the world's largest collection of holograms, though young kids may prefer the moving gestural sculptures of Arthur Ganson. The robot room shows off inventions of MIT's renowned robotics lab and an extensive exhibit on artificial intelligence. Allow an hour or two for a visit and check the schedule for special programs and demonstrations by MIT researchers and inventors.

Although this small museum is only a few years old, the items it houses are not. Call ahead and schedule a private or small group tour for a peek at American currency that dates back as far as the colonial era; exhibits include money made in Boston, the United States, and other parts of the world. Informative and personalized tours are led by a coin and currency expert.

A cemetery might not strike you as a first choice for a visit, but this one is an absolute pleasure, filled with artwork and gorgeous landscaping. Opened in 1831, it was the country's first garden cemetery, and its bucolic landscape boasts peaceful ponds, statues (including a giant sphinx), breathtaking mausoleums, and a panorama of Boston and Cambridge from Washington Tower. More than 90,000 people have been buried here—among them Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Mary Baker Eddy, Winslow Homer, Amy Lowell, Isabella Stewart Gardner, and architect Charles Bulfinch. The grave of engineer Buckminster Fuller bears an engraved geodesic dome.

In spring, local nature lovers and bird-watchers come out of the woodwork to see the warbler migrations, the glorious blossoms, and blooming trees, while later in the year nature shows off its autumnal range of glorious color. Brochures, maps, and audio tours are at the entrance, and the cemetery is a five-minute drive from the heart of Harvard Square.

Mt. Vernon Street runs from the flat of the Hill, past Louisburg Square, and all the way up to the Massachusetts State House. Along with Chestnut Street, it has some of Beacon Hill's most distinguished addresses, but Mt. Vernon is the grander of the two, with houses set back farther and rising taller. Henry James once wrote that Mt. Vernon Street was "the only respectable street in America," and he must have known, as he lived with his brother William at No. 131 in the 1860s. James was just one of many literary luminaries who resided here, including Julia Ward Howe, who composed "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" and lived at No. 32, and the poet Robert Frost, who lived at No. 88.

The Museum of African American History was established in 1964 to recognize Boston's African American community, from slavery through the abolitionist movement. The Abiel Smith School, the first public school in the nation built specifically for Black children, now serves as the museum's main building, filled with exhibits. Just around the corner, the African Meeting House was built in 1806 entirely by Black labor; in 1832, William Lloyd Garrison formed the New England Anti-Slavery Society here, and in 2011 the building completed a $9.5-million restoration.

Are you related to Miles Standish or Priscilla Alden? The answer may lie here. If your ancestors were pedigreed New Englanders—or if you're just interested in genealogical research of any kind—you can trace your family tree with the help of the society's collections. The society dates from 1845, and is the oldest genealogical organization in the country.

Eight-block-long Newbury Street has been compared to New York's 5th Avenue, and certainly this is the city's poshest shopping area, with branches of Chanel, Tiffany & Co., Valentino, Max Mara, Longchamp, and other top names in fashion. But here the pricey boutiques are more intimate than grand, and people live above the trendy restaurants and ubiquitous hair salons, giving the place a neighborhood feel. Toward the Massachusetts Avenue end, cafés proliferate and the stores get funkier, ending with Newbury Comics and Urban Outfitters.

The only Mt. Vernon Street home open to the public, the Nichols House was built in 1804 and is attributed to Charles Bulfinch. It became the lifelong home of Rose Standish Nichols (1872–1960), Beacon Hill eccentric, philanthropist, peace advocate, and one of the first female landscape designers. Nichols inherited the Victorian furnishings, but she added a number of Colonial-style pieces to the mix, and the result is a delightful mélange of styles. To see the house, you must take a guided tour.

Built in 1865, Old City Hall is a historic site and served as the municipal seat of government for 38 of Boston's mayors, including famous ones like John "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald, James Curley, and Kevin White. In its courtyard, find Richard S. Greenough's bronze statue of Benjamin Franklin and a mural marking the original site of the Boston Latin School. Today, Old City Hall is an office building. While you can't really venture too far inside the building, do go up and check out the murals around its entrance.

Through these doors, between 1845 and 1865, passed some of the century's literary lights: Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow—even Charles Dickens paid a visit. Many of their works were published here by James T. "Jamie" Fields, who in 1830 had founded the influential firm Ticknor and Fields. In the 19th century, the graceful, gambrel-roof, early-Georgian structure—built in 1718 on land once owned by religious rebel Anne Hutchinson—also housed the city's leading bookstore. There's a plaque on the wall to read more about its history, but today, somewhat sadly, the building is home to a fast-food joint. This is Freedom Trail stop 7.

Members of Old South Meeting House, of Tea Party fame, decamped to this new site in 1873, a move not without controversy. In an Italian Gothic style inspired by the art critic John Ruskin and with an interior decorated with Venetian mosaics and stained-glass windows, the "new" structure could hardly be more different from the plain meetinghouse they vacated. The sanctuary is free and open to the public seven days a week.

The stately Federal-style manor on Cambridge Street was designed by Charles Bulfinch for former Boston mayor and lawyer Harrison Gray Otis. Today, the National Historic Landmark serves as the headquarters for the heritage organization Historic New England, and visitors can stop in for guided tours that offer insight into wealthy domestic life during the early 1800s.

If this Congregationalist church at the corner of Tremont and Park Streets could sing, you'd hear Samuel Smith's iconic hymn "America," which was first sung here in 1831. But that's only one fun fact about this historic site. It was designed by Peter Banner and erected in 1810. The Handel & Haydn Society was founded here in 1815. William Lloyd Garrison began his long public campaign for the abolition of slavery here in 1829. Just outside the church is Brimstone Corner, and whether the name refers to the fervent thunder of the church's preachers, the gunpowder that was once stored in the church's crypt, or the burning sulfur that preachers once scattered on the pavement to attract potential churchgoers, we'll never know—historians simply can't agree. This Freedom Trail site is not open for tours, only services. This is Freedom Trail stop 3.

One of the first four stops on the first subway in America, Park Street Station opened for service in 1897, against the warnings of those convinced it would make buildings along Tremont Street collapse. The copper-roof kiosks are National Historic Landmarks—outside them cluster vendors, street musicians, and partisans of causes and beliefs ranging from Irish nationalism to Krishna Consciousness. The station is the heart of Boston's subway system; "inbound" trains are always traveling toward Park Street.