Features

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YOU’RE IN BOSTON during the fall of 1900. The city is bustling. Immigrants from Eastern Europe, Italy, and the West Indies crowd the...

WHEN IT COMES to my looks, I’ve learned to manage my expectations. I’ve got a great personality, or so I keep telling myself. After a...

IF YOU FREQUENT BACK BAY, Beacon Hill or the South End, there’s a good chance you’ve encountered me and my dog, Satchel. His large,...

A PAIR OF MODERN, canary-colored chairs outside Blink, a boutique optometrist practice on Newbury Street led by Dr. Stacy Coen, OD, signal to strollers-by that something fun and artsy is happening inside. And it is—Blink offers the city’s most distinctive collection of eyeglass frames, sourced from artisans around the world, with options so appealing that shopping for the right pair of glasses here feels a bit like picking out the perfect engagement ring. On any given day, Co

ARCHITECT MIGUEL ROSALES likes to give his absolute, undivided attention to the task at hand. Nattily dressed, perfectly composed and seated in the center of an elegant blue sofa in his Beacon Hill brownstone, the country’s most popular bridge designer pauses before responding to questions, weighing each word, to construct precise sentences that span his life story.   Rosales is the inspired mind behind the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge, which connects the Nort

ONCE HOME TO motley crews of whaling men and their families, Nantucket is New England’s own island paradise, a paragon of coastal beauty and a perfect antidote for these anxious times. There are no bad angles on Nantucket. Every view is a postcard: cobblestone streets lined with pastel-hued hydrangeas, cedar-shingled homes with rose-dotted trellises and lush pivet gardens, pristine dunes topped by lavender-and-gold sunsets. Visitors fly in on private jets, supersize yachts d

25 YEARS AGO , Joanne Chang walked the streets of Boston and Cambridge scouting neighborhoods and dreaming of opening a bakery. Now, she serves sweet sticky buns and flavorful breads from 10 different locations of Flour Bakery + Cafe, dishes out piping hot Chinese small plates at Myers + Chang, and has published five cookbooks.  Chang never anticipated this kind of expansion and celebrity when she opened the first Flour Bakery in the South End. “I lived upstairs and baked dow

BOSTON’S FRENCH LIBRARY has the easy elegance of an accomplished femme d’un certain age. A symbol of the enduring friendship between America and France, the library—now in its 80th year— has evolved rather quietly from a wartime gesture into an extraordinary organization that boasts the largest private collection of French books and media anywhere outside of France. It’s an impressive place, but not an intimidating one, thanks to a friendly staff that’s keen to spread France’

THIRTY YEARS AGO, Keith Lockhart took on the mantle of the Boston Pops from world-famous conductors John Williams and Arthur Fiedler. Lockhart was 35, and he was terrified. A small-town Poughkeepsie, New York, native, Lockhart had previously served as the associate conductor of both the Cincinnati Symphony and Cincinnati Pops. But when he became the Julian and Eunice Cohen Boston Pops Conductor in 1995, his star catapulted. Suddenly, Lockhart was a huge celebrity being photog

READY TO UNLOCK the best season of New England? June offers the perfect blend of pleasant weather, and the reemergence of seasonal businesses. Here are five unique day trips within two hours of Boston. They all promise an unforgettable adventure to one of our region’s lesser-talked-about destinations. Each location is good for all types of day-trippers: couples, families, best friends and groups. Your packing inspiration includes a refillable bottle of water, car snacks, sun

BOSTON'S BEAUTIFUL PARKS and urban green spaces are a second home to Liza Meyer, the newest president of Friends of the Public Garden. She’s taken countless strolls through the Pinebank Promontory on Jamaica Pond, admired the ever-changing decorations on the Make Way for Ducklings statues in the Boston Public Garden and cheered her children on at sports games hosted on public fields. Now Meyer will devote her love of the outdoors to the three parks under Friends of the Public

SEVERAL YEARS AGO, my wife and I decided we were ready to create our dream home. As a professional architect with nearly 30 years of experience restoring and renovating historic homes, I wanted a place with genuine historic character. I also wanted to learn as much as I could about its origin and evolution. We searched for a property in Back Bay that would allow us to mix modern architecture and interiors into a historic structure, with the goal of restoring the exterior and

RYAN WOODS, president and CEO of American Ancestors, knows who he is. More than most people, in fact. As a lifelong history lover, he’s delved into his own ancestry and learned many stories about his lineage.   As the director of a nonprofit genealogy organization, he’s made it his mission to bring that same level of familial connectivity to everyone who walks through the door.   The organization’s latest initiative is the opening of the Family Heritage Experience, an interac