Beacon Hill and Back Bay: Someone Gimme a Nickname
It’s been bugging me for a while now. The phrases “Beacon Hill and Back Bay”, “Back Bay and Beacon Hill”, or any recombination thereof, are woefully unpoetic. I am sick of saying them.
What I really want is some sort of euphemism that covers both areas. Like saying “the bullpen” instead of saying “Timlin, Okijima, Hanson, Pappelbon, etc.” I could say “the nice parts of town”, but that’s more like saying “the center of the lineup” to refer specifically to Manny and Ortiz. Plus everyone who didn’t live in either of the neighborhoods I cover would complain.
My instincts are to say “the gaslight district”, which is completely wrong (plenty of other places have ‘em) and at any rate, the phrase is already in use by panicky Charlestown agents trying to persuade yuppies that the projects are as far away as possible. Then I thought up “unannexed Boston”, which, while true, must also include the West, North, and South Ends, along with Bay Village.
Any attempt to define the neighborhood architecturally is doomed to end in failure. Sure, a great many of the houses in the neighborhoods adhere to a certain architectural milieu, but there are plenty that do not. And even those homes that do conform, do so to very different styles: federal, Victorian bowfront, and brownstone, to name a few.
So please, Boston, pepper me with suggestions. Brick-lined Boston. Capital Gainsville. The European Auto District. Anything to keep me from having to write “Back Bay and Beacon Hill” one more time.
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