Massachusetts Home Page

Public transportation here is good.  Better than New York, actually, but it’s not anywhere near 100% accessible yet.  It does have access at key points along the way and can get you just about anywhere you’d want to go.  The problem is that the people working it have no idea where that access is. 

Example, from the  MTBA (Boston's transit agency)  web site, I downloaded a list of accessible subway stations.  To get to Fenway Park, the closest subway line is the Green Line...Boston’s oldest subway.  Armed with that list, I go into the nearest Green Line station and ask the attendant one simple question: 

ME: See this list of accessible Green Line Stations? 

HIM: Yep 

ME: Which one is closest to Fenway Park? 

HIM: They’re all accessible. 

ME: Okay, that’s great, but of those stations listed, which one will put me closest to Fenway Park? 

HIM: They have ramps. 

ME: That’s really nice to know but that’s not what I’m asking.  What I’d like to know is which of these stations should I get off at so I will be close to Fenway Park? 

HIM: Lechmere is accessible, Columbus Circle is accessible, Boston University is accessible.  They’re all accessible. 

ME: I know, but which station should I use for Fenway Park? 

HIM: I told you, they’re all accessible 

ME: Thanks for your help... 

 That exchange was typical of any MTBA employee when I asked for information.  That all being said, armed with a good map of Boston, you can correlate the accessible stops listed on the MTBA’s incredibly not to scale map with the actual streets they serve.  Once you’ve done 
that, you’re all set. 

Next we come to our accommodation, the Susse Chalet in nearby Woburn.  This location was chosen because it was adjacent to a wheelchair accessible MBTA station, allowing us easy access to Boston without having to pay an arm and a leg for a room. 

Let me just put this the most gentle way I can, the Susse Chalet in Woburn was woefully inadequate with a surly front desk person who could care less about our comfort.  We would have been a lot happier in a Motel 6.  What was wrong?  Two bed accessible room not available as reserved, so we didn’t get an accessible room.  Ants crawling throughout the room (when I called the front desk they didn’t answer, when I went there I was asked if I could live with it!), noisy A/C, laundry room not there (it was advertised as having one).  It did meet the very basics, a place to sleep and the maid would help us out with our problems...but not the front desk! Incredibly bad choice on our part. 

Instead, we would recommend the adjacent Marriot Courtyard or the Hampton Inn a block away.  Courtyard also is adjacent to the Mishawum train station in Woburn and Hampton is within walking distance. 

On to the trip.  Our first night is spent in nearby Lowell where we went to see the Los Angeles Kings farm team, the Lowell Lock Monsters, play a minor league hockey game against crosstown rivals, the Worcester Ice Cats.  The game is played at the Paul Tsongas Arena.  This arena is just amazing in its great wheelchair access. 

First, plentiful handicapped parking within 50 feet of the front door.  Great seats at all price levels with excellent lines of sight.   We get blue line seats right in front of two food concessions with a full bar 10 feet behind us.  Nearby monitors allow us to also watch baseball league championship games.  Of course, there was great hockey action right in front of us with the Lowell team putting down the Worcester team easily. 

 The next day, we train it into Boston.  The commuter rail here is run under contract to the MTBA by Amtrak employees and is punctual, cheap, and comfortable.  20 minutes later, we arrive in Boston’s North Station which sits right below the Fleet Center, home of the Celtics and the Bruins. 

We go to the adjacent Green Line station which takes us to the Boston Common.  We find out the station is not accessible to the Green Line (transfer to the Red Line ahead of time and it is) but the driver helps carry Tim up the stairs. 

Here, at America’s oldest public park, we embark on our most arduous - but fun - adventure.  Here is where we start on the Freedom Trail, a 2.5 mile long red line painted on the sidewalk that guides you to Boston’s most historic sites and many of its neighborhoods.  Whoever came up with this idea back in the 1950's was a genius. 

It is not long before we are standing next to the graves of some of the country’s biggest historic names...Paul Revere, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and Mother Goose!  Next it’s on to the location of Ben Franklin’s school and the old corner book store where literary greats such as Longfellow and Thoreau would hang out. 

Up to Fanuel Hall where early radicals plotted against the king and the house of Revere and the Old North Church where Revere’s friend, Sexton Robert Newman hung two lanterns briefly in the steeple to notify others that British soldiers were coming across the Charles River.  Sexton Newman barely made it out of a church window before the redcoats broke down the door to arrest him. 

The trail then crosses the Charles to “Old Ironsides”, the oldest commissioned ship in the navy, the U.S.S. Constitution and ends at the monument commemorating the battle of Bunker Hill.  After this exhaustive and informative day of history, we are not ready to retrace our route on foot.  Thankfully, the rangers at the monument point us down the hill to return to the USS Constitution where we can catch a water taxi back across the bay to the New England Aquarium. 
 
From here, we cross over the “Big Dig” construction project and find a real gem of a tavern...Cheers!  Just kidding, actually we find a nice neighborhood watering hole called The Times.  Here, we watch the Pats lose to the Dolphins but have fun chatting up with some of the 
regulars there who share a pizza with us. 

After downing a few at the Times, we kill a couple of hours wandering around some nearby shops and then hop an Orange Line train back up to the North End (we transferred to the Green Line to use the North Station elevator but by the time you read this, the even closer 
Haymarket station should have its new elevators working). 

 In the North End, Boston’s Little Italy, we follow our nose and settle on a small eatery just off Hanover St., at 14 Parmenter St., Pagliuca’s.  This little gem of a restaurant (two steps up at the door, ask for help) invites us into the kitchen to see what’s being prepared.  One of the chefs is cooking an absolutely mouth-watering veal dish.  I ask him what it is and he tells me.  I no longer need to see the menu, I immediately order the Veal Saltimboca and have one of the most satisfying meals of my life. 

The service here is impeccable and the Italian hospitality makes us feel warm & welcome. 

The next day, we take a rental car down to Plymouth (MTBA also serves Plymouth via commuter rail).  The edge of hurricane Irene is pelting the shore with high winds.  The sand stings our faces so very quickly we take a peek at Plymouth Rock and a replica of the Mayflower before taking refuge back in the car. We didn’t see much here but would have had a chance to see much more had the weather cooperated. 

Instead, we bail out and head over to Minuteman National Park in Lexington.  It is here we stand on a spindly looking wooden bridge whose dismantling by British soldiers in 1775 sparked the first firefight of the Revolutionary War.  As a history buff, standing in a spot like this 
literally gives me goose bumps. 

The previous night, we watched as a couple of blown calls by the umpires in the League Championship series sparked a near riot in Fenway Park.  That will be our destination tomorrow. 

Day three, we pass up the bagels and croissants at the miserable Susse Chalet and instead have bad donuts, bagels, and coffee at the Dunkin Donuts stall at North Station.  Today is Tim’s day, his long wait to touch the Green Monster will end.   I look on the subway map and to not see anything that looks like an accessible subway station near Fenway.  It is at this point I ask for help and have the exchange outlined above. 

I give up and pick an accessible station at random from the web site list hoping it will be near Fenway.  It deposits us about 10 blocks away. 

We get to Fenway and take a slow lap around this ancient and compact stadium.  Tim pauses outside the left field wall so I can get his picture touching the Green Monster.Coming around to right field, we see the network trucks packing up their gear...the Red Sox lost the 
pennant to the Yankees the night before...and eventually make our way around to the team entrance where an older gentleman in a red windbreaker guards the way. 

He greets us, asks where were from, and if we have a camera.  We tell him we do, and after a quick furtive glance in each direction, he waves us in.  Tim is now in ecstasy for he is now standing a few feet behind home plate gazing out on the field where Williams, Ruth, and 
Yastremski have played.  As workers are picking up last night’s refuse, we go to the dugouts and snap pictures of the monster before we leave. 

Al Forester, the gent who let us in, is also the guy who drove Ted Williams out onto the field for this year’s all-star game.  He informs us that old Fenway will be demolished soon and be replaced by a new stadium across the street.  I haven’t heard that this is a done deal and secretly hope that some way can be found to spare the old, small park for it’s truly a great place in America’s and baseball’s history. 

Being lunch time, Al tips us to a restaurant on the corner for lunch.  This is the Boston Beer Works and, with a couple of glasses of brews with names like Pedro’s Pale Ale and Yankees Suck Ale, we lunch on pausage, pirogis, pizza, and pretzels.  Al’s right, it’s a great place for lunch and very reasonable too.

 About ½ mile walk past the Fens later, we come up to the Prudential Building.  At the top, 52 stories up, is a all around view of Boston.  Cost is $4 for adults and makes a good place to rest up in the middle of the day with great views and decent bathrooms.  Here we find out 
something that would have made our lives much easier had we know.  It turns out that the much newer and far more accessible Orange Line pretty much parallels the older and harder to access Green Line. 

Looking on  MBTA's handout map, it seems the lines are very far apart, but in reality they’re just a couple of blocks away from each other most of the time.  That 10 block walk to Fenway could have been cut in half!  Again, that’s why it pays to have a really good street map to double check against the poor MTBA subway map. 

After seeing Boston’s poor excuse for a Chinatown, we decide to eat Italian again in the North End.  Tonight, it’s Piccola Venizia right on Hanover Street.  And again, we have a delectable Italian feast.  After dinner, we head across the way to Michael’s Bakery for some sweet and mouth watering deserts. 

We get  one more unexpected treat before leaving town that night.  Wearily, we walk towards the entrance to North Station...which is directly under the Fleet Center Arena.  Soon, what appears to be a luggage cart train, like at the airport, approaches with a blonde man shooing everybody out of the way. 

We soon see why.  The “luggage carts” are in fact cages, each holding from one to 4 fully grown bengal tigers.  Now, this is a sight you don’t see everyday in downtown Boston.  They pause before heading into an enclosure with many trailers bearing the logo of the Barnum & Bailey, Ringling Bros. Circus.  Someone explains to us that they just finished their act at the Fleet Center and are being put away for the night.  I debate taking a picture, but decide not to as I don’t know how a tiger would react to a flash going off in its eyes. 

NOTES: 

The MTBA maintains a web site with good information about accessibility on its trains.  The maps are not to scale but do show what stations are accessible.  Once we learned to cross- reference the locations against a real map, the information proved to be very reliable.  MTBA personnel on the other hand had very little useful information to give us when asked about system accessibility.  MTBA fare in town is $.85 for subways, bus, and ferry tokens.  www.mbta.com  

If affordable, the best place to stay is in town.  More affordable lodgings are available a short train ride away in outlying suburbs.  Check the MTBA maps to make sure a train station near 
your accommodations is accessible.  the Mishawum station in Woburn is accessible and is adjacent to a Courtyard by Marriot, a Susse Chalet, and a Hampton Inn. 

You can find out more about events at the intimate and highly accessible Paul Tsongas Arena in Lowell (with accessible rail transit) by visiting their web site.   www.paultsongasarena.com