Did you know that Boston has beaches?
No, I’m not talking about Cape Cod, or Rockport, or Martha’s Vineyard. I mean city beaches, accessible by public transportation. There’s one in particular on Boston’s North side, and it’s not Gloucester.
It’s called Revere Beach, and it’s crummy, and we love it.
I grew up visiting Revere because my mother is from there. The Revere-iera (as she affectionately and sarcastically calls it) seems like it should have been gentrified long ago– it has a beach AND it’s on the T– but Revere has resisted, possibly because of the history of corruption on many levels of its local government. This gives Revere a special dirty ol’ Boston feel; it would be nostalgic if it weren’t still around in all of its old-fashioned rundown splendor. Revere has three main draws: its annual sand sculpting competition, a truly awesome event that I attended two years ago; Kelly’s Roast Beef, an institution so treasured that after a tornado hit Revere this summer, whole news segments were dedicated to assuring Bostonians that Kelly’s Roast Beef was unharmed; and Bianchi’s Pizza, in my opinion the absolute best pizza in the Boston area, and the reason I shlepped all the way out to Revere alone on a breezy August day. Decades ago, there used to be an amusement park at Revere Beach; though it’s long-gone, the feeling of a carnival gone to seed still lingers on the shores.
Revere Beach is not pretty. It has a small strip of sand sandwiched between the water and the boardwalk, which is often littered with cigarette butts and seashells. The buildings are boring-looking condos painted in salmon and gray. The beach’s proximity to the airport means that planes fly overhead every ten minutes or so as they take off from Logan.
But I love Revere Beach because of its trashiness, not in spite of it. Revere Beach can have some of the most entertaining people-watching in the area: the day I strolled the boardwalk, I passed families with little kids throwing sand at each other, bleached-blonde women with scary manicures baking on the sand, and a trio of leathery white-haired men, sitting shirtless in plastic beach chairs and smoking midday cigars.
(“Probably guys I went to high school with,” says my mom. “They don’t age well in Revere.”)
The Boston accent, also not famed for its loveliness, is inescapable here, and the people hanging around Revere Beach always seem to be exceptionally loud. Between the airplanes and the seagulls and the r’s dropped like hot potatoes, it’s a cacophony of Boston that gains grace in its awfulness.
I ate my pizza on the seawall and strolled the crummy beach, photographing the buzzing airplanes and avoiding dead seagulls bobbing in the surf (“Probably choked on a tampon dispenser– love that dirty water!” says mom). Revere Beach is never going to make anybody’s list of the best beaches in the world. It wouldn’t even make a list of the best beaches in the state.
But Revere Beach is our beach, the crummy little beach we can’t help but love. The cheapest beach to get to with the most local color, it’s part of Boston’s sometimes gritty charm. I feel about Revere Beach the same way I feel about the Boston accent: it’s ugly and abrasive, but it’s OURS. It’s not going to charm you. It’s going to wear you down until you give in.
And if you go on a day when the seagulls, cigarettes, and shirtless men are too much for you… well, there’s always a slice of Bianchi’s.
To get to Revere Beach, take the blue line on the T to either the Revere Beach stop or the Wonderland stop. The Wonderland stop is closer to Bianchi’s Pizza.
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