Living in Back Bay, Boston

Copley Square anchors Back Bay's grid, Trinity Church's Romanesque tower facing the Boston Public Library's Central Library across a plaza that fills with sunbathers and chess players once the weather turns warm. Newbury Street runs eight blocks to the north, its brownstone storefronts holding boutiques, galleries, and restaurants that draw shoppers from across the city, while the Charles River Esplanade traces the neighborhood's northern edge with a paved path for running and cycling along the water. The Boston Marathon's finish line is painted on Boylston Street a block from Copley Square, a fixture on the pavement year-round. The Orange Line's Back Bay station and the Green Line's Copley and Arlington stops put most of downtown within a short ride, and Commonwealth Avenue's tree-lined mall runs the length of the neighborhood, a shaded walk past bowfront brick buildings from one end to the other.

Newbury Street's sidewalks stay crowded with shoppers through the afternoon, and a table at a popular restaurant on a Friday evening without a reservation can mean a real wait.

Commonwealth Avenue's mall runs the length of the neighborhood as a shaded promenade, and a resident can spend most of a day on foot here — the library's reading room, a browse down Newbury, a bench along the Esplanade — before ever thinking about a car.