Holy Hullabaloos, The Blog

Reason to Live in the Leather District #161: the SL4

When we were first looking to buy a loft in the Leather District back in 2002, we went to an open house where the real estate agent explained that the neighborhood is located so conveniently to all sorts of transportation options and outlets that it was "stupid."  Apart from the stupidity of saying "stupid" (a good friend of mine used to say that it's impossible not to sound stupid when you say "stupid," and I think he's right about that), the agent had a point.  The LD is within easy walking distance of the red line at South Station and both the green line (Park Street) and the orange line (Downtown Crossing), not to mention the commuter rail and Amtrak, which are both at South Station.  Onramps to 93S, 93N, and the Mass Pike are basically in the neighborhood as well, and the airport is a 15 minute drive at the most.

For a while, there weren't any good public transportation options to the South End (it's walkable, and about a 5-10 minute drive, but the subway doesn't go there), but now even that's changed.  A few years back, the Silver Line started up,  and that goes right down Washington Street in the South End.  Up until a month ago, though, you had to walk either to Chinatown or the Medical Center or the Common to get the so-called SL5.  All these stops are pretty close, a 10 minute walk at the most, but now, with the advent of the SL4, which stops right on Essex Street directly in front of South Station, there is essentially a direct South End-LD T route.  You can use a basic T pass to ride the Silver Line; it's a totally comfortable bus; and as a bonus, there are always some bizarre characters to share your ride with.

Why You Should Live in the Leather District, Reason #32

As I think I've mentioned before, my family and I live in Boston's so-called "Leather District," a tiny but great little neighborhood nestled between South Station on the East; Chinatown on the West; and the Financial District on the North.  Sometimes when people learn that I live here, they say, "what do you do for grocery shopping?" and then they tend to dance around and sing triumphantly as they celebrate how they live in some crappy ass suburb like Newton. 

The fact is that although it's a pain to bring groceries up from a car to an apartment because there's no driveway, getting groceries in the LD is no harder than getting them anywhere else.  If you want to do one of those giant Stop and Shop grocery trips, which we do once or maybe twice a month, you just drive 10 minutes to South Bay (where there's also a Target and Home Depot).  Big deal.  There's also several Chinatown markets which have incredibly cheap produce and which are very fun to shop in.  Sagarino's on South Street is maybe the best neighborhood convenience store/wine shop I've ever been to.  We go in there for bread and wine and soda and beer probably ten times a week.  If you need gourmet food, Savenor's is two stops away on the Red Line, which is in South Station, a five minute walk at the most.

And then there's James Hook, the 80 year-old lobster company that ships tons of lobsters all over the country and which has a terrific retail shop where you can pick your lobsters out of giant tubs or choose from all sorts of reasonably priced, incredibly fresh, and insanely delicious fish from the seafood case (they also have crabs and lobster rolls and clam chowder and lobster pies and stuffed clams and everything else seafoody you'd ever want).  We've started going there on Saturday mornings to get whatever looks good.  It's maybe a ten minute walk from South Station.  This weekend we got a pound of striped bass for thirteen dollars and cooked it with wine and lemon juice and garlic and ate it with a bottle of wine.  And we didn't have to get into a car for one single second or see a single soccer mom. Yay, Leather District.

I Love the Leather District

I live in Boston's historic Leather District, which is a tiny neighborhood of old loft buildings that takes up about three square blocks between South Station on the East and Chinatown on the West.  It's a great place to live, for all sorts of reasons that I'll detail in a later post sometime, but one thing that's not terribly terrific about it is how loud it gets at about 2 am on Saturday night (Sunday morning).  This is when the bars and clubs empty and the drunk people start swearing, screaming, and occasionally puking really loudly everywhere in the neighborhood.  It's actually not so bad.  It certainly has its benefits.  Occasionally, it's quite entertaining.  And only once has it resulted in an actual murder on our street.  Moreover, since my son has lived here his entire life (of four-and-a-half years), he has had no choice but to become an incredibly sound sleeper.  A couple of weeks ago, the fire alarm went off in our building at 2:30 a.m.  I can't explain how loud it was, but trust me, it was frickin' loud.  My son slept right through it.  At first I was surprised, but then I realized that since it wasn't much louder than an average weekend night in the Leather District, of course he could sleep through it (by the way, it was clear that there was no actual emergency, so please don't go calling social services on me for not getting him out of the building; thanks). 

Anyway, here's a writeup from the Boston Police Department's website about some hilarious happenings from the neighborhood this past weekend.