X-Nico

77 unusual facts about Boston


A Day Without Me

After DJ Carter Alan of WBCN in Boston heard "A Day Without Me" in a record store, he became a U2 fan and included the song in his playlist.

American Opera Company

It also toured, playing in April, May and June 1886 in, among other cities, Boston, Indianapolis, Philadelphia and St. Louis.

Anna Seidel

After a brief marriage to the Bostonian scholar Holmes Welch, with whom she co-edited Facets of Taoism (1979), Seidel devoted her life completely to her scholarship and to the Hobogirin Institute.

Artists for Humanity

In September 2004, Artists For Humanity completed its 100% renewable energy EpiCenter, a 23,500 square foot center designed and developed to house expanded programming and gallery in Boston's Fort Point artist district.

Beaver Bank, Nova Scotia

The community of Beaver Bank dates back to 1776 when Loyalists from Boston John Henry Barnstead (1764–1861) and his mother, Mary Brown Parcel Barnstead, arrived there.

Bertha Reynolds

Reynolds' father died while she was a young child, and she moved with her mother to Boston to work as a teacher.

Black Sluice

The Black Sluice is the name given to the structure that controls the flow of the South Forty-Foot Drain into The Haven, at Boston, Lincolnshire, England.

Boston Friary

Boston Friary refers to any one of four friaries that existed in Boston, Lincolnshire, England.

Boston Priory

Boston Priory was a priory in Boston, Lincolnshire, England.

Boston railway station

To the north along the old Lincoln to Boston and Horncastle route, about 2 miles north of the town is the old Hall Hills sleeper depot.

Boston Sports Megaplex

The proposed sites for this hybrid convention center-stadium were Summer Street in South Boston or at the so-called Crosstown site along Melnea Cass Boulevard in Roxbury, adjacent to Boston's South End.

Boston Standard

Boston Standard (previously Lincolnshire Standard is a weekly newspaper based in the town of Boston, Lincolnshire, the Boston Target (another weekly newspaper) is its main component.

Boston, New York

Boston – A hamlet in the south part of the town on Boston State Road, NY-391.

Bostonian

A Bostonian is a resident of Boston or Greater Boston, Massachusetts, United States.

Caribou Coffee

Caribou Coffee founder, John Puckett, was working as a management consultant for Boston-based firm Bain & Company, helping develop ideas and strategies for other companies, when he decided he wanted to become an entrepreneur.

Celtic Ash

On the advice of Irish-born trainer Tom Barry, Celtic Ash was purchased by Boston, Massachusetts banker Joseph E. O'Connell, who imported him to the United States to race for his Green Dunes Farm.

Charles Adcock

Charles Norman Adcock (21 February 1923–9 December 1998) was an English association football striker born in Boston, Lincolnshire.

Charles Green Shaw

Shaw’s work is part of most major collections of American Art, including the Whitney Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Guggenheim, the Smithsonian Institution, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the Corcoran Gallery.

Charles Zeuner

His oratorio “The Feast of Tabernacles,” which was published in 1832, was premiered by the Boston Academy of Music in 1837 at the Odeon.

Conger Metcalf

Metcalf graduated from Coe in 1936, then attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Constant Ferdinand Burille

Constant Ferdinand Burille (born 30 August 1866 – died October 1914, Boston) was an American chess master.

Corinne Dixon Taylor

They first moved to Boston, but returned to Washington, D.C. soon after and moved into Frederick Douglass' old house, where Corinne's father-in-law was the caretaker.

Currensee

The company is currently led by CEO Dave Lemont, and is headquartered in Boston's North End neighborhood.

Curt DiCamillo

He is a specialist on the British country house and has taught classes on British culture, art, and architecture at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Damian O'Flynn

Damian O'Flynn (January 29, 1907 – August 8, 1982) was an Irish-American actor of film and television originally from Boston, Massachusetts.

David F. D'Alessandro

D’Alessandro became a restaurateur in 2006 with the purchase of Ristorante Toscano in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of Boston.

Duilio Spagnolo

The first indication that the latter was not going to come came on March 25, 1947, when he made his American debut, against a top ranked heavyweight, Lee Savold, who proceeded to give Spagnolo his first knockout loss, in round eight at Boston's famed Boston Garden.

Ed O.G.

Born in Roxbury—a working class, predominantly black neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts.

Ednah Dow Littlehale Cheney

Ednah Dow Littlehale Cheney (June 27, 1824 – November 19, 1904) was a writer, reformer, and philanthropist, born on Beacon Hill, Boston to Sargent Smith Littledale and Ednah Parker (Dow).

Eliezer Poupko

One of Rabbi Poupko's sons-in-law was the renowned Rabbi Mordechai Savitzky, Chief Rabbi of Boston and author of twenty-two works on the Talmud.

Ellen Cheney Johnson

Two years later, she met and married Jesse Johnson from Unity, New Hampshire, and moved to Boston.

Everybody Wants to Be Italian

Jake Bianski is the owner of a fish market in the North End of Boston, Massachusetts.

Footlight Club

Based in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston, the club currently owns and resides in historic Eliot Hall, which its members purchased in 1889 to provide a home for performances and save the building from demolition.

Forsyth Street

On the east side of the block from East Broadway to Canal Street, a number of so-called “Chinatown buses” (operated by different companies) start their routes to cities across the East Coast of the United States, including Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C..

Francis Davis Millet

Millet was among the founders of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and was influential in the early days of the American Federation of Arts.

Glendale Secondary School

The band has travelled to various locations to perform, including, but not limited to: Walt Disney World, Florida (8 times), Disneyland (4 times), New Orleans (3 times), New York City, Washington D.C., Boston, Atlanta, San Diego, Bermuda, Japan, Virginia Beach, and Williamsburg, VA Chicago/Cleveland .

Hogansville, Georgia

In 1905 the mill was bought by Consolidated Duck of Delaware, who sold it to Lockwood-Green of Boston in 1913.

Hubway

There are 65 stations in the Boston neighborhoods of Allston-Brighton, Fenway-Kenmore, Back Bay, South End, Beacon Hill, West End, North End, and the Financial District.

Is This My World?

Is This My World? was the debut album by Boston hardcore punk band Jerry's Kids.

Isabella Glyn

She also gave recitals at Boston, U.S.A in 1870; and, she gave Shakespearian readings at Steinway hall and at St. James in 1878 and 1879.

Jane Langton

She studied at the Boston Museum School from 1958 to 1959.

John Cheffers

Receiving his Masters of Education in 1970, and his Doctorate of Education in 1973, both from Temple University in Philadelphia, John moved north to Boston where he worked for Boston University.

John F. Collins

Collins' administration focused on downtown redevelopment: Collins brought the urban planner Edward J. Logue to Boston to lead the Boston Redevelopment Authority and Collins' administration supervised the construction of the Prudential Center complex and of Government Center.

Josephus Flavius Cook

Josephus Flavius Cook (1838–1901), commonly known as Joseph Cook, was an American philosophical lecturer, a descendant of Pilgrims who started his ascent to fame by way of Monday noon prayer meetings in Tremont Temple in Boston that for more than twenty years were among the city's greatest attractions.

Katherine Sherwood Bonner McDowell

On September 3, 1873, when her daughter was not yet two years old, Bonner left her in the care of her mother-in-law and took a train to Boston, arriving with very little money and no acquaintances, save a literary correspondent by the name of Nahrum Capen.

Kibi no Makibi

A late 12th century narrative handscroll in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston depicting Kibi's journey to China is one of the earliest of all Japanese narrative pictorial handscrolls (e-maki) known to be extant.

Lechmere Square

The area is now best known for the CambridgeSide Galleria, one of the few full-fledged interior shopping malls within the city limits of Boston and Cambridge, which is on the site of the original Lechmere store (and, when built, incorporated a newly built Lechmere Sales store as one of its anchor tenants).

Licá

On 10 September 2013, shortly after having moved to Porto, Licá made his debut for the Portuguese national team, playing the last six minutes of a 1–3 friendly loss with Brazil in Boston, United States.

Louisville and Nashville Railroad Lebanon Branch

KRM runs excursion trains from New Haven to Boston and owns the tracks to New Hope (a bridge in need of repair prevents using the tracks east of New Haven, though a fundraising campaign is underway to raise the money to repair the bridge—the tracks are otherwise maintained).

Mary Antin

Born to Israel and Esther Weltman Antin, a Jewish family in Polotsk, Belarus, at that time part of Russia, she immigrated to the Boston area with her mother and siblings in 1894, moving from Chelsea to Ward 8 in Boston's South End, a notorious slum, as the venue of her father's store changed.

Mary Cummings

Boston had already incorporated several formerly adjacent towns such as Roxbury, Dorchester, Brighton and Hyde Park.

Matsutarō Shōriki

The position of Chair of the Department of Asia, Oceania, and Africa at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston is also named after Shōriki.

Mel Sharples

Mel has always had three waitresses working at the diner - his longest-employed waitress was rambunctious Florence Jean Castleberry, better known as Flo; Vera Louise Gorman-Novak, was a shy, nervous woman from Boston; and Alice Hyatt who was born in New Jersey.

Mitsunari Kanai

He was also highly respected for his metalworking skills and deep historical knowledge of the Japanese sword, the katana, serving at times as a specialist advisor to the East Asian Collection at the nearby Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Mount McElroy

It was discovered by the Ronne Antarctic Research Expedition, 1947–48, led by Finn Ronne, who named the mountain for T.R. McElroy of Boston, who contributed the radio and communication instruments for the expedition.

Nathaniel Carver

This story apparently convinced his fellow countrymen, and indeed, when Nelson died in 1805, a letter from Boston arrived in England, which repeated Carver's version of events.

National Board of Legal Specialty Certification

Shortly thereafter, the NBTA became fully self-supporting and set up offices on Tremont Street one block from Government Center.

National Photographic Association of the United States

Conferences occurred annually, beginning in June 1869, with the "National Photographic Association Exposition and Convention" held in Boston.

New England Foundation for the Arts

The New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA), headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, is one of six not-for-profit regional arts organizations funded by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and by private foundations, corporations and individuals.

Pennsylvania Railroad World War II Memorial

In November 2010, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston put Walker's one-third-scale plaster model, which had sat in storage for years, on permanent exhibit in the new Art of the Americas Wing.

Perpetual Motion Roadshow

The first Roadshow was in April 2003, featuring New York spoken-word artist Corey Frost, Boston fiction writer Charlie-girl Anders and Toronto comic artist Marc Ngui.

Ronald Logue

Logue serves on the board of directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, the Metropolitan Boston Housing Partnership, a nonprofit, low-income housing organization, the United Way of Massachusetts Bay, and The Institute of Contemporary Art.

Shore Line Trolley Museum

The Shore Line Museum also owns two other trolley buses, ex-Philadelphia 210, identical to No. 205 (and acquired at the same time) and being used only as a source of parts, and ex-Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (Boston-area) 4037, a 1976 Flyer E800 which the museum acquired in 2009 and which is also able to operate on the line.

Stasia Czernicki

Czernicki was the first woman bowler regularly seen on the long-running TV show Candlepin Bowling, broadcast on Boston's WHDH-TV (later WCVB-TV), Channel 5.

Stuart Robson

He appeared in many theatrical productions from the 1860s to the early 1900s in New York City, Boston, and London.

Supernatural abilities in Scientology doctrine

In 1957, Hubbard claimed that he was contacted by physicists from a scientific congress in Boston: "They wanted to know if I had any proof I could offer that thought created matter".

Tara Deshpande

Since her marriage to an American citizen and moved to Boston in 2001, she has been living in the Boston area where she currently runs a catering agency.

The Supermen

A live version recorded at the Boston Music Hall on 1 October 1972 was released with the Sound and Vision box set in 1989.

Thornton Burgess

Graduating from Sandwich High School in 1891, Burgess briefly attended a business college in Boston from 1892 to 1893, living in Somerville, Massachusetts, at that time.

Tim Killick

Tim Killick (born Boston, Lincolnshire, UK, 1958) is an English television and theatre actor.

Typhlops meszoelyi

Meszoely of the Center for Vertebrate Studies at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts.

VienneMilano

On November 11, 2011 VienneMilano held a fashion show and keynote by Giuseppe Pastorelli, the Italian General Consul for New England, to celebrate the brand's launch and first collection at the InterContinental Boston.

Washougal, Washington

Shortly after Capt. Robert Gray, a Boston fur trader, entered the mouth of the Columbia River in May 1792, the famed British explorer George Vancouver traveled to the region to verify Gray's discovery.

What We Saw from the Cheap Seats

The second was an international show that opened with three sold-out shows in New York City, Boston, and Philadelphia.

Will Pappenheimer

The son of Harvard physiology professor John Pappenheimer (1915-2007) he received his under graduate degree from his father's alma mater of Harvard University and then did his graduate studies at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where he received his MFA.

Winslow Sargeant

Sargeant's parents immigrated to the U.S. from Barbados and he grew up in Dorchester, Massachusetts, "one of Boston's mostly minority neighborhoods".

Zabdiel Boylston

Zabdiel Boylston, FRS (1679 in Brookline, Massachusetts – March 2, 1766) was a physician in the Boston area.


Addington Palace

Mr Trecothick had been raised in Boston, Massachusetts, and became a merchant there; he then moved to London still trading as a merchant, and later became Lord Mayor and then an MP.

Aldgate

In 1773 Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral by Phillis Wheatley, the first book by an African American was published in Aldgate after her owners could not find a publisher in Boston, Massachusetts.

Amazing Crowns

During the quartet's heyday, they won Boston's WBCN Rumble, were nominated for seven Kahlua Boston Music Awards, toured extensively with the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, The Cramps, The Reverend Horton Heat and others, signed with Velvel Records and released a 1998 album entitled The Amazing Royal Crowns.

Amy Boesky

Formerly from the Detroit area, Amy has studied and worked in various locations, including Oxford, England; Washington, D.C., and the Boston area, where she has lived since 1992.

Atom Technologies

location = Boston House, 3rd Floor, Suren Road, Chakala, Andheri (East), Mumbai, India

Ben Revere

On April 15, 2013, the day of the Boston Marathon bombings, Revere inscribed "Pray for Boston" onto a piece of masking tape and taped it to his glove, which he left sitting out while he stretched.

Benjamin Pierce Cheney

Cheney joined Nathaniel White and William Walker in 1842 to organize an express line between Boston and Montreal.

Blackford County Courthouse

Among other expenses included in the total were $2,000 paid to the E. Howard Clock Company of Boston, $7,000 for furniture paid to the H. Ohmer and Sons Company, and $6,158 for architecture.

Blackstone River

The river is named after William Blackstone (original spelling William Blaxton) who arrived in Weymouth, Massachusetts in 1623, and became the first settler of present day Boston in 1625.

British Rail railbuses

Following export around 1981 it was used on an experimental extension of MBTA (Boston) commuter service to Concord, New Hampshire.

Chuck Schilling

After playing for Boston's Triple-A Minneapolis Millers farm team in 1960, Schilling broke into the major leagues in 1961, the same year as his friend and fellow Long Islander, eventual Hall of Famer Carl Yastrzemski.

Clara Bloodgood

" She next appeared with Arnold Daly in "How He Lied to Her Husband," and a production of "The Gentleman from India," in Boston. In 1905 at the Hudson Theatre in New York she played Violet Robinson in George Bernard Shaw’s "Man and Superman," with Robert Loraine.

David Pauley

He posted a 2–3 with a 2.39 ERA in 10 starts for the Sea Dogs before making his major league debut on May 31 starting for Boston in place of the injured David Wells.

Deborah Meier

In 1996 Meier moved to Boston where she became the founding principal of a small K-8 pilot school, Mission Hill School, within the Boston Public Schools system.

Duncan Haldane

His awards include Fellow of the Royal Society of London; Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (Boston); Fellow of the American Physical Society; Fellow of the Institute of Physics (UK); Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; winner of the Oliver E. Buckley Prize of the American Physical Society (1993); Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellow (1984–88); Lorentz Chair (2008), and Dirac Medal (2012).

Frank Selee

After he left Boston, he went on to manage in Chicago where built the basis for the Cubs' later success by signing and utilizing the talents of Frank Chance, Joe Tinker, and Johnny Evers.

George Gipe

George Gipe (February 3, 1933 in Boston, Massachusetts – September 6, 1986 in Glendale, California) was an American magazine writer, author and screenwriter.

Gordon Edes

Edes is famous in Boston for his club house confrontation with former Red Sox outfielder Carl Everett.

Hancock

John Hancock Tower, a building in Boston, Massachusetts, owned by the insurance firm

History of Maine

The Portland Company built early railway locomotives and the Portland Terminal Company handled joint switching operations for the Maine Central Railroad and Boston and Maine Railroad.

History of modern banana plantations in the Americas

He then joined with Boston based Andrew Preston to form the Boston Fruit Company, the first company to engage in all aspects of the banana industry.

Il pesceballo

One evening George Martin Lane was trying to make his way to Cambridge, MA, from Boston.

Indecent exposure in the United States

In 1907, Annette Kellerman, an Australian swimmer, was arrested on a Boston beach for public indecency for wearing her trademark one-piece swimsuit.

Jacqueline Liebergott

She is also involved with the Friends of the Public Garden and Boston Common, Downtown Crossing Association.

John Coburn House

In 1851 he was arrested, tried, and acquitted for the court-house rescue of Shadrach Minkins, a freedom seeker who was caught in Boston by federal slave catchers empowered by the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.

Johnny Kelley

In 1993, a statue of Kelley to commemorate him was erected near the City Hall of Newton, Massachusetts, on the Boston Marathon course, one hill and about one mile prior to the foot of Heartbreak Hill.

Jon Sciambi

As Sciambi attended Boston College, he began his sportscasting experience on WZBC, the school's 1000-watt FM radio station broadcasting to the Greater Boston area.

Joseph F. O'Connell

While at Boston College, O'Connell and Joseph Drum helped create the first Boston College football team.

Leopold Lichtenberg

After spending three years more in Europe, Lichtenberg gave another series of concerts in America, after which he settled for some time in Boston, Massachusetts, as a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Life Safety Code

After a disastrous series of fires between 1942 and 1946, including the Cocoanut Grove Nightclub fire in Boston, which claimed the lives of 492 people and the Winecoff Hotel in Atlanta which claimed 119 lives, the Building Exits Code began to be utilized as potential legal legislation.

Lloyd Sexton, Jr.

In 1933 he had a show of flower paintings at the Vose Galleries in Boston, followed by exhibitions at the Honolulu Museum of Art and at Gump's in San Francisco.

Mechanics Arts High School

John D. O'Bryant School of Mathematics & Science in Boston, Massachusetts, originally named "Mechanic Arts High School"

National Register of Historic Places listings in northern Boston, Massachusetts

Two historic districts overlap into both northern and southern Boston: milestones that make up the 1767 Milestones are found in both areas, and the Olmsted Park System extends through much of the city.

Navid

Naveed Nour, an international artist and photographer based in Boston, Massachusetts

Now I Can Die in Peace

Booklist starred its review and said Simmons' tone was a "refreshing, funny take on Boston's reversal of fortune."

Painesdale, Michigan

Painesdale was built by the Champion Mining Company between 1899 and 1917, and named after the Boston businessman William A. Paine, who was associated with many mines as well as the Paine Webber brokerage.

Perry Jackson

Jackson, a teammate of Arnie Shockley's from Southwestern Oklahoma State University, used Archie's invitation to try-out for Boston.

Richard Gridley

He directed the construction of the fortifications on Dorchester Heights which forced the British to evacuate Boston in March 1776.

Robert Ayres Barnet

It was performed by the "Boston Cadets, who always present Barnet's pieces before they are staged professionally. The new piece is ... a fairy Mother Goose burlesque. The music is by A.B. Sloane. ... Augustus Pitou, Klaw & Erlanger, E.E. Rice, and other prominent gentlemen" attended.

Rose Pitonof

Her record stood for several years and her unprecedented success in the Boston Light Swim was noted in a 1912 Chicago Tribune article titled, "Is There Anything Women Can't Do?"

Sara Moulton

She began working in restaurants immediately, first in Boston, Massachusetts, and then in New York City, taking off time only for a postgraduate apprenticeship with Master Chef Maurice Cazalis of the Henri IV Restaurant in Chartres, France, in 1979.

Suffolk County Jail

Charles Street Jail, also known as the Suffolk County Jail, an 1851 era church in Boston

The Daily News Transcript

By 1980, the Transcript -- then called the Daily Transcript -- was the flagship of a five-paper chain, Transcript Newspapers Inc., that included the News-Tribune of Waltham and three weekly newspapers in West Roxbury-Roslindale (neighborhoods of Boston), Newton and Needham (suburbs west of Boston).

The Fools

In 1979, the band released "Psycho Chicken", a parody of The Talking Heads' "Psycho Killer", and it was an immediate hit on Boston radio stations.

The Holdup

Some notable locations are: The Roxy - Los Angeles, CA; Slims -San Francisco, CA; The Catalyst -Santa Cruz, CA; BB King’s Blues Club - New York, NY; House of Blues - Boston, MA; House of Blues - Anaheim, CA; Shoreline Amphitheater - Mountain View, CA; The Bellyup - San Diego, CA; and Great American Music Hall - San Francisco, CA.

W.N. Flynt Granite Co.

Many public buildings in Monson and the surrounding communities were constructed of Flynt granite, but the quarry also shipped granite for buildings in Boston, New York, Chicago, and even as far as Kansas and Iowa.

Water biscuit

In 1801, Josiah Bent began a baking operation in Milton, Massachusetts, selling "water crackers" or biscuits made of flour and water that would not deteriorate during long sea voyages from the port of Boston.

WGBH

WGBH-TV, a public television station based in Boston, Massachusetts

William Nelson Page

Page often worked as a manager for absentee owners, such as the British geological expert, Dr. David T. Ansted, and the New York City mayor, Abram S. Hewitt of the Cooper-Hewitt organization and other New York and Boston financiers, or as the “front man” in projects involving a silent partner, such as Henry H. Rogers.