Art nouveau design for the gates, very delicate. It seems like they went with something heavier, stodgier.

I agree it's a very beautiful place-- a really successful collaboration over many decades between Boston Park department and Harvard.

OP, I may be missing something in your criteria but seems like many many options. Dedham, Norwood, Natick, Franklin, Walpole, Framingham, Westborough, Foxborough, Mansfield, Wrentham and others have somewhat walkable core areas, are commutable, not a far drive to Milford, decent schools and houses under $1 mil.

>new yorkers eunt domus

Hah! No, you're most welcome but will be quite the transition from nyc to exurban Massachusetts. Ashland, Franklin-- white, white, white. Worcester is plenty diverse and Framingham is more diverse than surrounding Natick, Westborough, Sudbury, etc, but may be pretty segregated where working class, gritty neighborhoods are Latino and Brazilian and the middle class / upper-middle areas all white and suburban. Unlike Queens where it's all mixed up. But lots of beautiful woods, lakes, some farms, country roads in eastern/central Mass so don't overlook that advantage.

Framingham may be the winner. You can live near the railroad station and leave an e-bike (with good bright riding lights) at the Southboro station during the work week and ride to the office in Hopkinton. At 26 you'll pick up the driving skills soon enough and then not be bound by the car-free new yorker identity.

They had a sidewalk cafe on the Plaza in the former Cornhill, near the steaming kettle, back in '74. You could sit in the sunken fountain on a nice summer evening then too. The plaza has always seemed to need more activity nodes but I haven't seen a regular restaurant with tables there since the '70s and the fountain is long gone. Anyway, the plaza got a big redesign last year with many enhancements and lots of new trees so we'll see how things go.

Ran into Kevin on Charles Street that summer, near his home. I felt a little sheepish holding an open container at the moment but it was fun to see him in the flesh.

Southwest from Boston-Sturbridge, then more or less westerly. After Westfield, northwest toward Albany.

At its broadest extent, the Wikipedia entry for "Greater Hartford" says the Hartford-East Hartford-Middletown, CT Metropolitan NECTA (New England City and Town Area) consists of 54 towns, including 25 in Hartford County, 5 in Litchfield County, 6 in Middlesex County, 2 in New London County, 12 in Tolland County, and 4 in Windham County. But even at the narrowest, I think of Greater Hartford as everything from Enfield to Meriden and from Bristol to Vernon.

I guess it’s the usual mix. There are some state beaches that are public. I believe there are town beaches too. And some private that are pretty hard to get to at least in the summertime.

I guess the point is there’s no reason to limit yourself to Massachusetts. Colorado is a big state, no need to go outside. New England states all run together. I don’t know if the skiing is better than it was 20 years ago anywhere since with climate change the winters aren’t as dependably cold as they used to be. But they do a good job of snowmaking and there’s plenty of terrain in the northern states.

Fields Corner, red line. The corner itself is not especially beautiful but there's good Vietnamese food. Walking uphill on Adams Street takes you to Ronan Park with views over rooftops and harbor. A walk from Fields Corner through Wellesley Park, Melville Ave, Tremlett Street gives you a nice tour through a beautiful residential area built up around 1900. Continue on to Washington Street-- you'll find roti and other West Indian treats along Washington by Codman Square.

Savin Hill, red line. Walk over the bridge and all around the gorgeous and cute neighborhood there with beaches, beautiful houses, hilly streets and hilltop park in the middle.

Ashmont, red line. Jamaican restaurant right there, Ashmont Grill is still open but maybe shutting down. Beautiful neighborhood on Ashmont Hill-- Ocean, Alban, Mellen, Harley Streets. Or walk through Carruth, Beaumont, etc. over to Adams Village for the Greenhills Irish bakery and more cool stuff. Or take the Mattapan trolley to Milton, check out the Baker Chocolate works area there along the Neponset River in Dorchester Lower Mills. Or stay on the trolley to Mattapan with its Jamaican, maybe Haitian treats plus the locally famous Simco's over-the-bridge. No fare on the Blue Hill ave buses back to Ruggles (thanks to Mayor Wu.)

Green line "D" Riverside cars to Newton Centre. Nice area, pretty, rather upscale many shops. Then walk along Lake Ave by Crystal Lake (where you can swim in the summer time.)

Green line Riverside to Chestnut Hill. Walk up Hammond St or Chestnut Hill Road through a super swank residential area to the Chestnut Hill Reservoir-- very scenic -- then back to town on the green line "B" streetcars along Beacon Street.

In Jamaica Plain, the pond, the 'pondside' neighborhood between Centre St and the pond, various other neighborhoods along Centre St plus all its shops and cafes, the arboretum, Dominican food near Hyde Sq or Egleston Sq, Franklin Park.

Even the shopping area is interesting as a circa 1830 urban renewal project reclaiming land from the harbor and building a handsome granite wholesale market building with flanking rows. The accomplishment is somewhat trivialized by the corporate consumer uses it’s been put to.

Many posts in this thread about driving— where you can get to, easy access, or about the traffic. Seems like the dominant experience— the kind of suburb where everybody drives everywhere and the thing you can think of to say about Tewksbury has to do with driving.

Northampton may get more railway service if MA and CT extend the Connecticut passenger rail north of Springfield, where it still terminates. There is Amtrak but infrequent. And Mass is looking at restoring passenger rail from Worcester to Springfield, Pittsfield and possibly Albany. Who knows when? Rail is on an upswing and Northampton will benefit but I suppose a bird in hand is worth many in the bush.

I don’t quite get the idea in people’s minds of decamping to suburbs because of Covid. You’re healthier living in the city where you walk everywhere and therefore more likely to fend off the infection with only mild symptoms. In 2020 when everything was shut ok. By now I’d think people who left would be more than ready to return. Anyway, good to see the reference to suburban branches from 70 - 90 years ago; there’s nothing really new about this or about suburban badmouthing of the city.

Scanning through the arguments and flip remarks and everything else I don’t see the correct answer which is that most interstate highways were built with federal money, like 90% federal funding, very easy for the states to build those projects with that kind of support. But the turnpikes and thruways and similar toll roads in the Northeast were built before the interstate program was begun. The states needed to float bonds to raise the cash to build the roads and then pay the bonds back over the years, which is what always happens with capital projects; they’re always funded by bond issues and the state or city has to pay the bonds back over time. So the Mass Turnpike, New York State Thruway, Ohio Turnpike, Pennsylvania Turnpike, New Jersey turnpike, Connecticut Turnpike, Maine turnpike – all built prior to the interstate program and financed with bonds and most of them, Connecticut excepted, still collect tolls.

Fun fact: The interstate highway program design standards prohibit service areas on the interstates. But the toll roads built by the states including the mass pike, naturally thought service areas were a nice amenity and they all have service areas. I’m not sure why the interstates built under the federal program don’t have them but they mostly all don’t.

I-95, 91, 495, 93 were built with federal interstate trust fund money so no tolls. Mass also built Route 128, 3 and 24 without the interstate funding and without tolls either. I’ve got nothing to explain that one.

Greater Boston has MWRA water but some local sources too. Cambridge, for example, has its own water supply, so does Winchester and I think Lynn too. MWRA water is probably similar to NYC water: both systems have well kept upcountry reservoirs where the water is clean enough to avoid expensive filtration systems. I've heard only four big municipal water supply systems in the US have been able to meet federal drinking water standards without filtration systems and two of them are MWRA and New York City. When Massachusetts created the Quabbin it acquired plenty of land around the reservoir, now forested watershed land that keeps all sorts of typical contaminants like lawn fertilizer runoff from entering the water. NY's reservoirs don't have as much watershed land and the DEP has had conflicts with farms and towns in the Catskills (where the reservoirs are) over runoff, also sewage treatment systems that discharge effluent into streams that feed the reservoirs. So NY water may be a little less pure but still good enough. Philadelphia, by contrast, takes its water out of the Delaware river, downstream of Trenton, Easton, etc. Yuck.

Yeah, I think the Parker House - Spenser connection is tenuous but Spenser visits all the Boston scenes and landmarks as they were in the 80s and the Parker House is certainly a landmark. Thank you for not adding the generic ‘Omni’ (corporate owner) to the name! Spenser may have liked the Ritz bar, very popular in the 70s, 80s. Hotel is reopened as the Newbury and likely has a nice bar.

Lexington, Lincoln, Weston, Concord, Carlisle, Bedford are all very expensive, mainly single-family house communities. Nice to visit— lots of open space, beautiful country roads—but no need to live in any of those. Burlington, just across Rte 3 from Bedford, is much less rarified and has apartments. Similarly, Wilmington, Billerica and Woburn. Waltham, south of Lex, has apartments too and a bigger, more walkable center than any of those other towns. Closer to/in Boston you pay for the access and walkability which you don’t need for the job, but might be worth it for other reasons.

I like three deckers and particularly the Roxbury type (gable roof, no stacked porches in front, many on Mission Hill). Here's a cream puff specimen on Walnut Street in Brookline.

Well, if you’re old enough to remember the Kennedy assassination you’re old enough to remember life before area codes. Maybe dead maybe not. If you’re old enough to remember no dial, only ‘Number, please?’ you’re probably already dead. 😕

I remember a video shown in school introducing the whole idea of numbers and area codes. Until then, letters and numbers, like JE4-0867 (Holyoke) or CE5-1235 (Wellesley) or LA7-1928 (Newton). Old enough to remember party lines too- your ring is two longs and a short, someone else’s was too shorts and a long, et c. Pick up to make a call, someone already talking, you hang up and wait. In Holyoke back in the day you could dial only the last 5 digits for local call.

Do we really think driving habits are noticeably different from state to state? Maybe driving in the south versus the midwest versus the pacific coast but how can there be any real difference between Mass-Conn-Rhode Island? All three crowded urban states, lots of traffic, old winding roads... More likely real differences between rural-suburban-urban than between Mass and R. I.-- so worse in Pawtucket and Providence, better in Middleborough and Attleboro, and much worse in Boston, and great out in Deerfield, Sheffield, and all those other quiet rural areas.

Maybe a joke post since everyone knows the term "Masshole" applies to Massachusetts drivers and Boston area drivers in particular. No epithet for Rhode Island drivers because there's no vulgar but catchy pun available for Rhode Island.

FWIW, the 57 bus route is the former A green line Watertown route, but faster than the street cars were.

I should hope so. Christmas till January 6th.

Newton, the Garden City, has been a wealthy place since suburbs were a new concept. u/ZaphodG has explained everything else.

>Being that close to Boston is overrated...you pay a premium for anything east of 495, but no real extra benefits. Even to be in W Mass/Pioneer Valley area is only 90-120 to Boston, 60 minutes to Worcester, 30-45 to Springfield, 75 to Hartford, and 3 hours to New York.

I rate walkability highly and the frequency and density of desirable walkable places is much higher in and around Boston than in central or western Mass. Living where you can walk to things and minimize car use is hard to overrate. Around Boston you're in a major metro area with dynamic economy and corresponding affluence and increasing cultural diversity. Some people like that. Proximity to the ocean is also hard to overrate.