Downtown, Financial District, and the Waterfront

Many large U.S. cities have a downtown area filled with commerce, business, and the arts, and this capital city is no different. Boston's "downtown" area is actually made up of a few smaller neighborhoods, one of which is actually called Downtown. In this chapter, we cover the collective downtown, which is made up of Downtown, the Waterfront, the Financial District, the Theater District, the Leather District, and Chinatown.

This area has a generous share of attractions, including numerous sights along the Freedom Trail, the New England Aquarium, the Rose Kennedy Greenway, and access to the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area.

As the oldest and original settled area, it boasts a concentrated maze of streets laid out with little logic. They are, after all, only village lanes and cow paths that happen to be lined with modern, 40-story office buildings. That's not to say the past has been erased; Downtown is one of the city's most historic 'hoods.