Boston!

Tina Fey made a great wisecrack a few years ago while hosting the Golden Globes.

If memory serves, something re: how Ben Affleck shot two movies back-to-back in Boston and then made "Argo" in Iran, "because he wanted to film in a place that was a little less hostile to outsiders."

Please come to Boston for the Springtime.....

Why don't you ask your friend?

Wait till winter.

I lived there years ago. Loved the city but hated the gay scene. If you weren't originally from the area, you were persona non grata.

With all the colleges there the bars must be fun

I lived there in the 80s and the bars were plentiful and well visited. I found Boston to be too difficult to live in though. The people were rude and aggressive. I am still in touch with a lot of friends, but I much prefer living in the beautiful pacific northwest.

Nothing. There is no gay scene

She said, I think I'm going to Boston I think I'll start a new life I think I'll start it over Where no one knows my name I'll get out of California I'm tired of the weather I think I'll get a lover I'll fly 'em out to Spain

3 gay bars. The saddest smallest xenophobic reserved gay scene of any “cool” city. Boston is a mystery to me - except for the high paying jobs.

R10 sadder than baltimore? I don’t think gay people live in that city anymore.

It's a wicked pissah OP

I haven't been back since 2004, but I loved most aspects of Boston at the time. Climate, culture, entertainment, parks, schools, liberal politics, food scene, hockey. The drawbacks were a studio apartment costing at least a thousand bucks a month in pre-9/11 dollars and the worst roads/traffic/driving of any large city in America.

I recall being pretty impressed by Vapor, but my basis for comparison was gay clubs in Memphis, not the ones in LA or New York. And there used to be a gay bar in Cambridge with a pretty good vibe and male strippers, but my view of it may have been colored by meeting the best lover of my life there.

Watch out, Boston had a strangler in 1962-1964. But the band is/was good, especially its #1 single "Amanda" (1986).

Bars? The is the most stupid threat ever for July 2020.

+1 on driving in Boston.

Many roads seemed to lack any sort of lane structure and traffic lights appeared to be suggestions, rather than commands.

Plus something like 100K college students, many driving drunk, all having only a limited amount of experience with a car.

The architecture is great, the museums are excellent and the seafood is wonderful. Autumn is gorgeous.

It did seem a bit snobbish and parochial. I think the very high student population makes the permanent residents a little less interested in meeting new people.

It is very expensive.

Occasionally I'll meet an Australian who tries to tell me Melbourne is just like Boston. They always turn out never to have been to Boston, however.

Hmmm

Having been to both cities I much prefer Melbourne, R17

It does not snow there and winters in Boston truly suck.

I've had someone sit through a green light in the North End at 1 a.m. to prevent me from making a turn at an intersection.

R18, different strokes. I find Melbourne architecturally hideous, culturally shallow in comparison to Boston and surrounded by uninteresting LA-like suburbs. Boston has Cape Cod, the North Shore and the rest of New England to explore.

I HATE BOSTON. Among many other things, I once had to ask a gas station attendant directions after being lost in their maze of roads...couldn't understand a fucking thing he was saying in THAT ACCENT.

R20, I agree about Melbourne. Such a bland city. I was just there this past January. Went all over Australia. Its cities are sterile.

liberal, leafy, and loud.

I've only been once, and absolutely loved it. It's a very interesting place. I can't wait to go back. I know nothing of the gay scene, because it doesn't interest me. There are too many far more interesting things to get into in the city of Boston.

For fuck's sake this thread is repeated 3x a year.

And not much social life is open in CoronaTimes, so what the fuck is your friend loving in Boston? HMMMMM!?

THESE THREADS ARE TOTAL BULLSHIT.

Embarras de dumbass.

It’s a nice city to visit for the architecture, but the people are definitely rude and/or standoffish overall. Definitely wouldn’t want to live there.

R25 For Christ sake threads on New York Are repeated every other hour so deal with it asshole.

R13 what was the name of that gay bar in Cambridge? I think it was the same one I used to go to in the early 00s but I forget the name.

There was also a small gay club in the theater district but they played nothing but trance music, I wasnt a huge fan. Was it Buzz club? Or is that the bar where Paul Pierce got stabbed? It’s been 20 years, I don’t remember.

Boston in the summertime was so fun. The winters were miserable. So glad to have left.

Anyone been the Boston Strangler walking tour?

I heard there are some good schools in Boston so maybe there are some cute young men?

R30 Paradise. Soon to be a Novartis office building.

It only lasted as long as it did because they owned the building.

There is little or no gay life in Boston. It costs a lot to live here, always has, so people work hard in order to stay. The apps killed the bars: they’re more functional than hanging in one. People literally don’t seem to have the time. Or inclination.

Boston is a strange city. Very liberal but there's racism right beneath the surface. Very New England in its charm but also in its coldness. I lived there for two years (for a job) and it was the least friendly place I've ever been. The gay scene is all behind closed doors -- you have to know people to meet gays outside of the few sad gay bars that mostly cater to out-of-towners., The only people I know who broke through the coolness were the wealthy outsiders -- they bought their way into society and it worked. At its core, like all of America, Boston loves money. If you have it, you can do anything you want, meet anyone you want. Otherwise, it's a place for people to leave.

R13 and R30 ... it was Paradise. Great music, great DJs, dancers were a bit squicky but I always had fun there until 2010 or so. After that the owners went on a tirade against the bachelorette invasions and started enforcing coat checks and no high heel rules in order to keep all women out. On two different occasions with two different girlfriends of mine (platonic, I’m gay) they were told they couldn’t come in, only AFTER we all paid cover and they refused to refund it. Maybe that is the dickhead Boston vibe others are discussing here.

Buzz Bar on Stuart/Kneeland was freaky... upstairs area with a dance floor that you could feel buckle beneath as the night went on, the crowd grew, and the beats got intense. Only went there once or twice.

Unless you’re thinking of Rise, which was the druggie/after hours “Members Only” bar that was open until 4a I think.

Friends of mine that were here long before I arrived talk of pretty epic bars with themes, backrooms, dancers, whatever... that was clearly on its way out by 2002. True, there’s not a gay scene here like SF, NYC, or WeHo, but Boston is a great city to live with excitement, culture and comforts that also doesn’t make you feel the need for a gay scene. We can be gay pretty much anywhere in the city, and it’s NBD.

R35, thanks. It might have been Paradise. Did they have different theme nights? I remember going to “goth” night a few times at the bar in Cambridge.

I don’t remember theme nights at Paradise. There was another gay bar called “Campus” closer to Central Square in Cambridge. It was quite popular with the college crowd, go figure, but that’s the crowd that would appreciate themes more than Paradise-goers. I think Campus closed by 2005 or 2006.

Born and reared in Boston. Great city. I love it. When bars were a thing, it was Darts, Buddies and Chaps in Back Bay/Copley Square and Napoleon in Bay Village. Those were the days. Another era, but they’re all gone now.

Which shows, R29 and R22, that you know nothing about Melbourne.

R39, we were there. We know. Fool.

The gay scene is surprisingly small. However, you have PTown in the summer - which is an asterisk, because getting to PTown and staying there often would be rather expensive.

And the locals - they love it there and think it's the best place on Earth. Very provincial. It's weird. They seem to never leave.

Not where I want to spend my days, but it's better than 90% of the US.

It is better than most places: healthiest, among the wealthiest, the best public schools, the best colleges, a couple of the best hospitals, the best scenery, variety, history, etc. The salaries are high and the stakes are high: some of the work we do is cutting edge. I think the men are hot and have a bit of experience with that, and I was born with the accent so I’m happy here and perhaps can better understand them.

You’re right: the locals do think it’s the best place on earth and why not? It works for them. If it doesn’t work for others, sorry: we didn’t make it for you. Nowhere else was designed and built for your enjoyment either, so your hate rolls off of us. The absence of the malcontents makes it less crowded for those of us who enjoy it, so by all means if you’re unhappy don’t darken our doorstep.

The other odd thing about Boston is that the locals constantly compare the city to New York, as if New York and Boston were the two major cities in America.

R42 is a good description. It’s better than most places and you’re lucky to grow up and live there vs 90% of the US. Not a place I would choose - but I respect the choice to live there.

"I lived there for two years (for a job) and it was the least friendly place I've ever been."

I'd say the same thing for Boston in 1974-78, I went to Emerson right in the city. I will say that Boston was not the complete wreck Philly and New York was in the 1970s, but I much preferred those cities. Subways in Boston were a dine on the weekend and a quarter on the weekdays (you used coins, no tokens), and I always felt safe...but everything closed at 1AM. Though Boston and all of them have been cleaned up since then, I have no desire to ever go to Boston again. The Commons are beautiful, I'll say that.

Another thing, in the 1970s, local Boston TV was bargain basement low budget crude, especially compared to New York. Their idea of a consumer report on the news was to deconstruct a Bic Mac and remark on it's contents. I am not exaggerating.

I like the area -- and it's a good city. But like most of New England, outsiders are not welcome. My dad's side of the family has been in Rhode Island (on the border with Mass.) since the 80s and every time I visit it feels like a completely foreign country. People are colder than the winters there. And yes the accent is fucking hideous. (My dad now has this hybrid Bronx/Masshole accent that drives me up the wall.)

I find the Boston accent on guys is totally hot...but on women, it's atrocious.

I moved to Boston right out of college and lived there for thirty years until moving back to NY to care for elderly in-laws. As a transplant, it wasn't always easy to make friends. As people have said, there is a coolness to New Englanders. However, I have to say, that once you DO make friends (and it IS possible), you won't find any more loyal. Friends I've made in Boston will be friends for the rest of ours lives.

I did a few jobs there in the double aughts. Would come in for a month or Also working with schools Coworkers insisted on staying downtown or in Chinatown and we worked primarily in Dorchester and Roxbury.

I had already done stints in NYC, so was used to people being cold and in your face. But there it seemed like more of a test. Not so in Boston. Of course, my experience was limited and I was living out of a hotel. I didn’t find it bad. But I didn’t find it exceptional.

One night at Paradise, I swore I saw Edward Albee sitting at the bar.

One of the great things about DL is you can learn about history from it.

Fascinating hearing DLEGs stories about what Boston was like 50 years ago.

R 45, we must know each other. I was at Emerson at the same time.

Is that you Mike McDonald?*

*Mike McDonald = well known local "comedian"

[quote]as if New York and Boston were the two major cities in America.

You mean that's not the case?

"dancers were a bit squicky"

R35, is that supposed to mean something to anyone other than yourself?

I used to travel to Boston quite a lot for work. Beautiful city, but dear lord there are some seriously foul tempered people there. It's one level below Philly for nasty tempered citizens.

What was the bar in the combat zone that was decorated with Christmas lights? It was great until about 8:30pm when the hustlers and the drug addicts came in.

R58 Playland. The bar that time forgot.

Spent a ton of time in Boston when I was young, especially in the 80s (the 1980s... I’m not Olivia deH), and loved it but agree that the city is not always kind to outsiders. I think it’s one of the best walking cities in the US. Great for strolling, wandering.

A few random memories...

Loved dancing at the 1270 but also roaming the different floors for other fun.

Spent a lot of time walking around the Fens. Fell in love with a guy who tended a little garden plot there.

Something weird I never understood about the T (and still don’t): You would wait, for example, at Kenmore for a train. The different lines would stop. The B, the C. But then along would come the “Not E.” Well, I never knew what to call it. It was an E with a slash through it. Always confused me.

My friends there were obsessed with this Greek restaurant called Demos (?) in Allston or Brighton.

I also recall a couple of not too exciting visits to a very short-lived sex club called Safari, I think. But Boston never seemed like a great town for sex.

[quote]Loved dancing at the 1270 but also roaming the different floors for other fun.

I loved the 12 and spent many Saturday nights there in the 80s. The bar owners were really nice people. The were being shaken down by the Boston cops and worked with internal affairs to have the cops busted. The cops got wind of it and harassed the hell out of them including death threats. In the end I think 7 cops lost their jobs and maybe some went to jail. Then they closed the bar.

Yeah R56, it means that you and your coworkers started to look a bit too saggy and unmotivated. Don’t care if you need a swift kick to your ass or another bump, but you all looked sad.

I was born in a city on Boston's North Shore. Even back then (the 60s), folks from north of Boston never ventured south and vice versa. The Cape (no one there calls it Cape Cod) was always a playground for the South Shore. The rich, of course, summered on Nantucket or Martha's Vineyard. The North Shore boasts the best beaches in my opinion and lots of historic towns and villages. Gloucester, Rockport and Essex offer all the authentic New England culture and cuisine you would want. Boston, in my family, wasn't someplace you wanted to visit unless you had to. The layout of city streets makes no sense because they are paved-over cowpaths from the Massachusetts Bay Colony's earliest days. So traffic, even back then, was a nightmare. It seemed to me there was always trash in the streets and there were neighborhoods considered unsafe to visit if you were white. Later, I was at Harvard and a ride on the Red Line into Boston cost just a quarter. Boston by then had cleaned up its act and it was a safer and saner place to walk around. Except for the so-called Red Light District. Just like the Tenderloin in San Francisco: nowhere you wanted to walk alone. I never thought it was possible, but Boston is even more gentrified today than ever, and that goes for Jamaica Plain, which in my childhood was a lower middle-class ghetto.

I JUST LOVE THAT DIRTY WATAHHH, OH OH BOSTON YOU ARE MY HOME.

It's too bad about all the movie theaters that closed, like the Paris and the Nickelodeon.

In 1974-75, Columbia Pictures had a 48 hr continuous film festival of select movies from their archives. You could just walk in day or night and watch them, no admission fee. I saw in New York it was at the Baronet or one of those little movie theaters that used to be across from Bloomingdales. But I was at school in Boston and got to see several of them at a true movie palace - the Music Hall. Fantastic.

Some of these comments are hilarious, both with posters bringing us up to date on what the city was like in 1978 - because it's so relevant today - and for the sweeping generalizations and mis-identifications. For example, it's not the "Red Light District," it's the Combat Zone and it was one of the safest places in the city. There were more cops per square foot in the Zone than anywhere else in the city. It's even safer now because it's all luxury high-rises.

R63 is right: there is some kind of magical divide in Boston's North End. People from the North Shore never go south of there unless it's to the Cape; people from the South Shore think there's nothing north of there until you get to New Hampshire. Likewise out-migration by ethic groups post-WWII. Most people of Italian descent lived in the North End, West End, and East Boston then - all on the northern side of the city and for the most part, they moved to the North Shore. The Irish largely lived in South Boston and Dorchester and then the towns on Boston's South Shore became overwhelmingly Irish. The Jews lived in Roxbury and moved west to Newton and Framingham and later to western suburbs like Sharon and Randolph. We're not very imaginative in that sense - almost everyone's father or grandfather took the closest road out of town.

I live in Cambridge and have to seriously disagree about the relative friendliness of the non-natives who move here. One end of this city, the part near MIT known as Kendall Square, is a worldwide hotbed for work in biotech, pharma, nanotechnologies, autonomous driving systems and AI. In twenty years of massive gentrification my neighbors have gone from elderly Townies and working people (Polaroid, Harvard, MIT, Arthur D. Little, Raytheon) to now largely newly-minted PhDs and MDs from everywhere but Greater Boston who can afford to live here and who work in Kendall Square. A lot of 'em are probably on the spectrum; if not then they're just assholes. You're not friendly towards them because they have no idea how to live near anyone else: we shovel our snow. They have to, too, or pay someone to do it. But you can't park in our driveway because you didn't shovel yours. Not the parking space you shoveled out; the driveway. They won't do it a second time, so there's that. That's one example but there are plenty more. You don't invite people like that to the annual block party. I read here a lot about asshole redneck neighbors. My "brilliant" ones aren't necessarily an upgrade.

I met and later married a guy from Texas who moved to Boston 38 years ago. He had no problems making friends - if anything he was fighting the women off where he worked - and he's always said people here were friendlier and more sincere with none of the "Have a Blessed Day" and "Jesus Loves You" shit he got in Texas. I met him when he lived in NYC and he'd lived in San Francisco before that (as well as in Tokyo, Rome, and Madrid) so he certainly had some basis for comparison. It helps anywhere to have someone to show you the ropes and here, tell you how to pronounce "Tremont" and "Copley" correctly, but it points up that there are two sides to every story - some of you sound like Meghan Markle: "Nobody asked how I felt" or "No one reached out to me when I came to Boston" as if someone should. Get over yourselves.

Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

Oh, I thought you were kidding.

I will say that, as a Boston-area resident, there's no place I'd rather live during this shit-show, thanks to the liberal mindset and the top-quality hospitals.

R67 can I buy you a drink at Bukowski’s?

Inman or the Pru.... name the time and place!

^^^^^

Bring your husband too!

😈

Meet me at the Cantab Lounge.

I thought they announced the Cantab closed.... but in double checking to call BS, I see it’s just up for sale instead.

Ok then, when?

A dirty Dunkin Donuts every half mile, Dominic the Donkey on every radio station every Christmas season, the same stories about the Blizzard of ‘78 every year, sports and sports rivalries dominating conversation, and “the best healthcare in the country” - total myth. I know someone who had a tooth pulled within the last year - dentist pulled the wrong tooth. That’s just one example. This may not describe the gay scene, but you have to live through all this shit to find it, all presented in that hideous accent they’re so proud of. And of course, it’s the rest of the world that doesn’t know how to speak (or drive) correctly. The denial is multi-layered. I would mention the rudeness and parochialism, but other posters covered it well.

Is it easy to meet people and make friends in Boston? I found the people in cape cod and Martha’s Vineyard to be very friendly?

So, R75:

Somehow you managed to miss the written opinions of the Rs 1, 5, 7, 12, 17, 19, 21, 28, 34, 42, 45, 47, 57, 60 and 74?

Were you just being snarky with your question, or are you seriously this big a dumbass?

R74 Is hysterical. 🤣 He knows someone who had a wrong tooth pulled by a quack dentist thus Boston’s world renown healthcare system, and its hospitals, universities, biomed, pharma, testing facilities and most importantly its guaranteeing of quality universal healthcare MA did it 1st in the nation - like we do everything for you goons. You’re welcome for your revolution, your public education, your abolition, your suffragists, your gay marriage. And soon you’ll thank us for supporting our institutions that will save your lives with a vaccine. Harvard, Tufts, Boston University, Mass General, Brigham & Women’s, Beth Israel Deaconess are all conducting or participating in research studies. That’s an undeniable gold star panel.

Hate Boston all you want but focus on our hideous accents not our healthcare. I got laid off recently. I applied for Tufts Healthcare rather than buy overpriced COBRA from my ex-employer. Tufts was good so I bought it. Guess how much it costs me because my state provides subsidies to ensure we all have a healthcare plan? $126 a month. My COBRA plan was $560 a month. So tell me more about my state’s terrible healthcare based on your friend’s dentist‘s lack of tooth pulling acumen.

R78 here. Lol at me posting before coffee at 7am. I deleted an entire phrase by mistake in the second sentence - but the point is fairly clear if not grammatically correct. Yes, I’m a wicked stoopid losah from Bawston who cahn’t type.

Also is it a sign of age if my typing on my iPhone has become atrocious? It takes me like a half hour to write a text without typos. And even then no guarantees. 😂

Don't get me started on the Bruins.... 🤢

R80 Bobby Orr! Phil Esposito! Gil Gilbert! Yeeeaaahhhhh!!!!!

Go fuck ya self, ya fuckin' yuppie. What ah ya queeh?

From R77's article:

Don’t think New England’s blue-state bubble is some safe zone, either. In October, Trump became the first sitting president to address the Values Voter Summit of the Family Research Council, designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). Attendee bags were stuffed with promotions for a book titled The Health Hazards of Homosexuality, produced by Waltham-based MassResistance, another SPLC-denoted hate group. According to a Boston Globe survey earlier this year, Boston Police stats show that LGBT people are the most frequently reported targets of hate crimes and bias incidents in the city—more than Muslims, Jews, Latinos, and Asians combined. “People have a false sense of security and widespread acceptance,” says Kristen Porter, grand marshal at June’s Boston Pride Parade. “Since Trump took office, I think more people have experienced the potential fragility of our equality.”

R82 Conversely, couId part of the reason that's true be because of Massachusetts' liberality: gays and lesbians aren't afraid to report them or label them as hate crimes and many - maybe not all - local Massachusetts PD's take it seriously?

R83, If that’s the case, it kind of implies that Muslims, Jews, Latinos, and Asians are more afraid to report hate crimes than gays and lesbians are.

R82 Relax, hun. Brian Camenker from Mass Alliance is the original troll of the libs in Massachusetts before trolls even existed back in 1995 when he started stirring shit.

He grew up in working class Waltham so he's trash, of course. He then moved to the more erudite, very liberal, and better class Jewish Newton. They would have absolutely nothing to do with him, obviously, so his hatred of others become entrenched. He always had a "it's not me. It's them" defensive philosophy. His early racist, anti-Semitic and sexist attacks didn't click so it became all about kicking the fags.

His Oh-so-powerful organization drew in a measly $140,000in last ANNUAL reporting. Lol! 🤣