Night view of downtown Boston

Last night Sergio took our friend Rodrigo to the top of The Custom House to show him downtown Boston at night.  From the top of this iconic building, one can get beautiful views of Boston harbor, Faneuil Hall Market, the North End and parts of downtown Boston. Here are a few photos that they snapped.

Faneuil Hall Market Place

An historic meeting hall off to the left of this picture and not visible is where the marketplace got its name.  The middle arcade with the dome is filled with stall after stall of food shops and the arcades above and below house retail & restaurant with the upper floors reserved for office space.  This is Boston’s version of Chicago’s Navy Pier or S.F.’s Fisherman’s Wharf.  Its where tourists come to visit and young 20-somethings get obnoxiously drunk on weekends.

Christopher Columbus Park / North End

The lower left of the picture is part of the Rose Kennedy Greenway which replaced Boston’s elevated highway. The upper left of the photo shows the North End (Boston’s Little Italy); where my grandmother grew up and my brother currently lives. The A-frame building to the right is the start of Long Wharf (where I catch the high speed ferry to Provincetown). Lastly, the blue lights are actually covering an extended arch that runs through the North End’s popular Christopher Columbus park and overlooks Boston Harbor.

Bunker Hill Monument 

North of the North End in Charlestown is the Bunker Hill Monument.  The obelisk which you can walk up was built in the 1800s to commemorate the first major conflict between British and Patriot forces which took place in 1775 and was where rebelling colonists were ordered “Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes”. A short walk from here (but not visible) is The U.S.S. Constitution (a.k.a. Old Ironsides) – the oldest commissioned ship in the world.