Today I got out of work at 3:00 and went to Boston's Allston neighborhood, which is in the western portion of the city. Although it appears far from the city center on a map, the neighborhood is well connected with transit [both bus and T (trolley) lines] and is full of restaurants and nightlife. It's also extremely urban and very walkable. In addition to Allston's status as a mecca for college students and young professionals, it is a magnet for immigrant families from Asia and Latin America. It is a lively neighborhood, and although it has a fair share of urban grit, it is generally safe and has a good housing stock. Allston is no Back Bay or Beacon Hill, but it is a fun neighborhood in which one can take advantage of the urban experience without spending an arm and a leg (2 bedroom apartments here are "only" $1400-1600 instead of $2500-3000 like in many other parts of the city!)
Allston was one of my first experiences in the city, staying there in some college flat for three days. Its seemed a gentrified area of the working class with drunks and psychotic social liberals. Sounds like the perfect neighbourhood for me if I were living in that town.
Cool, another side of Boston yay. I see a bit of LA and San Francisco in these photos. Especially some of the commercial streets reminds me of parts of LA.
By the description (city's western edge a few miles outside of downtown, attracts college students and young professionals who live side by side with old school blue collar families, much cheaper than downtown, loads of nightlife, urban/walkable, etc.) it seems so and if these neighborhoods have many features in common, layout and architecture are certainly not one of them.
Cool, another side of Boston yay. I see a bit of LA and San Francisco in these photos. Especially some of the commercial streets reminds me of parts of LA.
It's so funny you mention that. Especially when I had first moved there for college, roaming around the city, it somehow reminded me of Californian cities I had been too. On the surface it does sound crazy, but there's something there that I'm still trying to define. For me it was mostly a connection to San Diego (I haven't been to San Fran yet...argh!).
Allston was one of my first experiences in the city, staying there in some college flat for three days. Its seemed a gentrified area of the working class with drunks and psychotic social liberals. Sounds like the perfect neighbourhood for me if I were living in that town.
I would not consider Allston to be gentrified. If anything, many local residents would say that it's gone downhill. It's still fairly safe, but never went through a period of extremely high crime and abandonment of buildings. The South End, Kenmore Square, (eastern) South Boston, and parts of Jamaica Plain have gone through gentrification, but I would really be hesitant to say that Allston has gone through the same. Lots of people seem to assume (not accusing you MeltyMan, just making an observation) that when lots of working class immigrants and young Americans live in the same area, it is because the young people are "gentrifying" the area. In Allston's case, the young people have always been there due to all the colleges in the area and it's the immigrants who arrived in the last 20 years. I'm glad this has happened now because getting Thai/Chinese/Brazilian/Mexican/Lebanese/Italian/Korean food for cheap from morning to late at night is one thing that makes the neighborhood great!
My brother is looking to move to Allston from Newton (Auburndale, if anyone knows Newton) specifically because of the food options and the quicker commute to Back Bay Station (the lucky f'er works in the John Hancock).
^^ Haha well given that he works in the Hancock building and probably has a good job, he'd probably want a fairly nice apartment... Let him know that I can provide the names of a few nice full-service buildings around here if he wants. None of them (minus the Clocktower building in the middle of the thread) appeared in my tour because upscale doesn't really fit the character of Allston, but nonetheless, there are some really nice places to live around here.
These pics look a lot like the east side of Cleveland, as well. I've been up and down the East Coast many times, but have never crossed paths with Boston, I do need to get there sometime. However, I think I'll fly, I hear the drivers are completely insane.
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