Explore Boston

Faneuil Hall is a red-brick market and meeting hall in downtown Boston, opened in 1742 and enlarged by Charles Bulfinch in 1806. Known as the Cradle of Liberty for the speeches and protests held there before the American Revolution, it has shops on the ground floor, a National Park Service visitor center and the Great Hall upstairs, where rangers give talks.

The Old State House is a brick building of 1713 on State Street, the oldest surviving public building in Boston and the seat of the colonial government. The Boston Massacre of 1770 took place in front of it, and the Declaration of Independence was read from its balcony in 1776. Today it is a history museum run by Revolutionary Spaces, on the Freedom Trail.

Quincy Market is a granite market hall beside Faneuil Hall in downtown Boston, designed by Alexander Parris and opened in 1826, with a domed central rotunda and a portico at each end. Restored in the 1970s as part of Faneuil Hall Marketplace, its long central hall is lined with food stalls, flanked by the North and South Market buildings with shops.

The Old South Meeting House is a brick Puritan meeting house of 1729 on Washington Street. On 16 December 1773 some 5,000 people met here before the Boston Tea Party. Saved from demolition in the 1870s in one of the first preservation campaigns in the United States, it is now a museum and meeting space run by Revolutionary Spaces, on the Freedom Trail.

The Paul Revere House is a timber house built around 1680 on North Square in Boston's North End, home of the silversmith and patriot Paul Revere from 1770 to 1800. Later used as a tenement with shops, it was restored and opened as a museum in 1908, and shows furnished period rooms that include pieces owned by the Revere family.

The Massachusetts State House is the seat of the state legislature and the governor's offices, built on Beacon Hill to a design by Charles Bulfinch and completed in 1798. Its dome, sheathed in copper by Paul Revere in 1802, is now covered in gold leaf. Docents lead tours of the marble halls and chambers inside, and the facade faces Boston Common.

The New England Aquarium is a public aquarium on Central Wharf on the Boston waterfront, opened in 1969 in a concrete building designed by Peter Chermayeff of Cambridge Seven Associates. At its centre is the Giant Ocean Tank, a cylindrical coral reef tank of 760,000 litres, surrounded by penguins, sea turtles, seals and sea lions.

Old North Church, officially Christ Church, is an Episcopal church built in 1723 on Salem Street in Boston's North End, the oldest standing church in the city. On 18 April 1775 two lanterns were hung in its steeple to warn of British troop movements, the signal linked to Paul Revere's ride. Visitors see the box pews, the crypt and, on guided tours, the bell chamber.

The Freedom Trail is a 4 km walking route through central Boston, marked by a line of red brick in the pavement, that links 16 sites from the American Revolution and early United States history. Laid out in 1951 on an idea of journalist William Schofield, it runs from Boston Common past the Old State House and Paul Revere House to the Bunker Hill Monument in Charlestown.

Boston Common is a public park of 20 hectares in downtown Boston, set aside in 1634 and the oldest city park in the United States. Once used for grazing cattle and militia drills, it now has lawns, ballfields, the Frog Pond with winter skating, the Central Burying Ground and the city's visitor center, where the Freedom Trail begins.

The Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum is a museum on the Congress Street Bridge over Fort Point Channel about the protest of 16 December 1773, when colonists threw East India Company tea into Boston Harbor. Guided visits lead through a meeting house and aboard the replica ships Beaver and Eleanor, and the museum shows the Robinson Tea Chest from that night.

The Boston Public Garden is a park beside Boston Common, laid out from 1837 as the first public botanical garden in the United States. Paths wind among flowerbeds, statues and old trees around a lagoon crossed by a small suspension bridge, where pedal-powered Swan Boats have been run by the Paget family for over a century.

USS Constitution is a three-masted wooden frigate of the US Navy, launched in Boston in 1797 and still in commission, crewed by Navy sailors. It earned the name Old Ironsides in the War of 1812. The ship is berthed at the Charlestown Navy Yard, where visitors can go aboard, and the USS Constitution Museum beside it covers its history.

The Museum of Science is a science museum built on the Charles River Dam between Boston and Cambridge, at Science Park since 1951. It grew out of the Boston Society of Natural History, founded in 1830. Its halls hold hundreds of hands-on exhibits, and it houses the Charles Hayden Planetarium, the Mugar Omni Theater and a theater with a large Van de Graaff generator.

The Institute of Contemporary Art is a museum of contemporary art on the Boston Harbor waterfront in the Seaport District. Founded in 1936 as the Boston Museum of Modern Art, it moved in 2006 into a building by Diller Scofidio + Renfro whose upper galleries cantilever over the Harborwalk. It shows changing exhibitions, its own collection and performances.

The Bunker Hill Monument is a 67-metre granite obelisk on Breed's Hill in Charlestown, marking the Battle of Bunker Hill of 17 June 1775. Designed by Solomon Willard, it was begun in 1825 and completed in 1842. A spiral stair of 294 steps leads to the top, and the Bunker Hill Museum across the street covers the battle; the site is part of Boston National Historical Park.

Trinity Church is an Episcopal church on Copley Square, designed by Henry Hobson Richardson and built from 1872 to 1877. Its massive central tower and round arches gave the name to the Richardsonian Romanesque style. The interior is covered in murals by John La Farge and has stained glass by La Farge and by Edward Burne-Jones with William Morris.

The McKim Building of the Boston Public Library on Copley Square was designed by McKim, Mead & White and opened in 1895 as the library's central building. The granite palazzo surrounds an arcaded courtyard and holds Bates Hall, a barrel-vaulted reading room, and murals by Puvis de Chavannes, Edwin Austin Abbey and John Singer Sargent.

Fenway Park is a baseball stadium near Kenmore Square in Boston, home of the Boston Red Sox since it opened in 1912 and the oldest ballpark in Major League Baseball still in use. Its tall left-field wall is known as the Green Monster. Visitors come for games in season and for hourly guided tours of the stands and field all year.

The Museum of Fine Arts Boston is an art museum in the Fenway area, founded in 1870 in Copley Square and housed since 1909 in a granite building by Guy Lowell on Huntington Avenue. Its collection of more than 450,000 works ranges from ancient Egyptian and Japanese art to European paintings and American art in the Art of the Americas wing.