The Boston Public Library is a municipal public library system in Boston, Massachusetts, founded in 1848. The Boston Public Library is also the Library for the Commonwealth of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts; all adult residents of the commonwealth are entitled to borrowing and research privileges, and the library receives state funding. The Boston Public Library contains approximately 24 million items, making it the third-largest public library in the United States behind the federal Library of Congress and the New York Public Library, which is also privately endowed. In fiscal year 2014, the library held more than 10,000 programs, all free to the public, and lent 3.7 million materials.
The Boston Common is a public park in downtown Boston, Massachusetts. It is the oldest city park in the United States. Boston Common consists of 50 acres (20 ha) of land bounded by Tremont Street, Park Street, Beacon Street, Charles Street, and Boylston Street.
Mount Auburn Cemetery is the first rural, or garden, cemetery in the United States, located on the line between Cambridge and Watertown in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, 4 miles (6.4 km) west of Boston. It is the burial site of many prominent Boston Brahmins, as well as being a National Historic Landmark.
The Freedom Trail is a 2.5-mile-long (4.0 km) path through Boston, Massachusetts, that passes by 16 locations significant to the history of the United States. Marked largely with brick, it winds from Boston Common in downtown Boston through the North End to the Bunker Hill Monument in Charlestown. Stops along the trail include simple explanatory ground markers, graveyards, notable churches and buildings, and a historic naval frigate. While most of the sites are free or suggest donations, the Old South Meeting House, the Old State House, and the Paul Revere House charge admission. The Freedom Trail is overseen by the City of Boston's Freedom Trail Commission and is supported in part by grants from various nonprofits and foundations, private philanthropy, and Boston National Historical Park.
James Thomas Fields was an American publisher, editor, and poet. His business, Ticknor and Fields, was a notable publishing house in 19th century Boston.
The Old State House is a historic building in Boston, Massachusetts. Built in 1713, it was the seat of the Massachusetts General Court until 1798. It is located at the intersection of Washington and State streets, and is one of the oldest public buildings in the United States.
William Davis Ticknor I was an American publisher in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, and a founder of the publishing house Ticknor and Fields.
The Liberty Tree (1646–1775) was a famous elm tree that stood in Boston, Massachusetts, near Boston Common, in the years before the American Revolution. In 1765, colonists in Boston staged the first act of defiance against the British government at the tree. The tree became a rallying point for the growing resistance to the rule of Britain over the American colonies, and the ground surrounding it became known as Liberty Hall. The Liberty Tree was felled in August 1775 by Loyalists led by Nathaniel Coffin Jr. or by Job Williams.
Nathaniel Jeremiah Bradlee was a Boston architect and a partner in the firm of Bradlee, Winslow & Wetherell.
Boston's Old City Hall was home to its city council from 1865 to 1969. It was one of the first buildings in the French Second Empire style to be built in the United States. After the building's completion, the Second Empire style was used extensively elsewhere in Boston and for many public buildings in the United States, such as the Old Executive Office Building in Washington, D.C., as well as other city halls in Providence, Baltimore and Philadelphia. The building's architects were Gridley James Fox Bryant and Arthur Gilman.
First Parish Dorchester is a Unitarian Universalist church in Dorchester, Massachusetts. The congregation was founded by English Puritans who initially saw themselves as reformers rather than separatists, but increasingly intolerable conditions in England and at the urging of Reverend John White of Dorchester, Dorset, they emigrated to New England. On March 20, 1630 as they set sail from Plymouth, England on the Mary and John, the congregation wrote its founding church covenant. Nearly all of the 140 ship passengers originated in the West Country counties of Somerset, Dorset and Devon. In late May, the ship landed first at what became called Hull, Massachusetts, and then in June at a place called "Mattapan" by the indigenous people including the Massachusett and Wampanoag. The Puritans named their new home "Dorchester Plantation."
School Street is a short but significant street in the center of Boston, Massachusetts. It is so named for being the site of the first public school in the United States. The school operated at various addresses on the street from 1704 to 1844.
The Stabler-Leadbeater Apothecary Shop/Museum is a historic apothecary's shop in Alexandria, Virginia, that has been preserved as a museum. During its working life, it was owned by generations of a Quaker family. Eventually, a dramatic decline in sales during the Great Depression forced the shop to close its doors. Almost immediately, in 1939, it was reopened as a museum. Today, most of the artifacts inside the shop are authentic and date to its closing. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982, and designated a National Historic Landmark in 2021.
The West Street District is a historic district on West Street in Boston, Massachusetts, one of the city's "ladder districts" that runs between Tremont Street and Washington Street in the Downtown Crossing commercial/retail area. The district includes four buildings located near the corner of Tremont and West Streets, all built in the early 20th century. The two buildings at 148-150 Tremont Street were once occupied by Chandler and Company, an exclusive department store. Number 148 is a Renaissance Revival structure built as an office building in 1912, and number 150 was built in 1903 to house the Oliver Ditson Company, a music publisher. The Fabyan building at 26-30 West Street was designed by Coolidge, Shepley, Bulfinch & Abbott, and built in 1926. The Schraffts Building at 16-24 West Street was built in 1922, and housed a flagship candy store and restaurant for more than fifty years.
Ticknor and Fields was an American publishing company based in Boston, Massachusetts. Founded as a bookstore in 1832, the business would publish many 19th century American authors including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry James, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Henry David Thoreau, and Mark Twain. It also became an early publisher of The Atlantic Monthly and North American Review.
Oliver Ditson was an American businessman and founder of Oliver Ditson and Company, one of the major music publishing houses of the late 19th century.
The Barbary Coast Trail is a marked trail that connects a series of historic sites and several local history museums in San Francisco, California. Approximately 180 bronze medallions and arrows embedded in the sidewalk mark the 3.8-mile (6.1 km) trail.
Milk Street is a street in the financial district of Boston, Massachusetts, which was one of Boston's earliest highways. The name "Milk Street" was most likely given to the street in 1708 due to a milk market at the location, although Grace Croft's 1952 work "History and Genealogy of Milk Family" instead proposes that Milk Street may have been named for John Milk, an early shipwright in Boston. The land was originally conveyed to his father, also John Milk, in October 1666.
McMillan Hall is a building on the campus of Washington & Jefferson College in Washington, Pennsylvania, United States. Built in 1793, it is the only surviving building from Washington Academy. It is the eighth-oldest academic building in the United States that is still in use for its original academic purpose and is the oldest surviving college building west of the Allegheny Mountains.
