Adventures in East Boston

I’m from the Boston area. I grew up north of the city, I went to college in a nearby city, and I lived in the Somerville and Boston proper for three and a half years after I graduated.

In that time, I never went to East Boston.

Is there a good excuse? I didn’t explore other neighborhoods extensively– sure, I visited everywhere around Camberville (or is it Somerbridge?) on my bike, and I had friends who drew me to Allston, Brighton, Coolidge Corner, and sometimes Jamaica Plan. I worked in Downtown Boston and had family in Revere. But East Boston was just never on my radar. Anytime I got on the Blue Line, it was usually for an excursion to that crummy beach we can’t help but love.

Then again, maybe it wasn’t so strange. East Boston’s reputation is that it’s one of the dwindling number of less-gentrified neighborhoods in Boston (because, despite the mafia movies you’ve seen, Southie is pretty trendy). It’s also where Logan Airport is, making the flyover frequency even more intense than that of Revere Beach. The call of East Boston’s famous Santarpio’s pizza was a lure, but I’d been raised on a strict Regina’s-Bianchi’s-Haymarket Pizza diet, and never tasted the glory of an East Boston slice.

This neighborhood oversight was initially made right back in September, when a friend and I went to explore Harborfest, the summertime weekly art event on East Boston’s pier. I immediately kicked myself for previously skipping the area: with its giant shipping warehouses full of artist studios, this seemed like a place I would have dug during my Boston life.

When I returned to Boston in June with my sister, we spent a day exploring this East Boston that we were so ignorant of.

First– it’s easy to get to. Boston is small. Instead of taking the Blue Line to Wonderland (yes, that’s really the terminal station) to reach Revere Beach, you get off at Maverick Square in East Boston, only two stops away from State Street, Boston’s city center. From Maverick Square, we walked down shaded streets to leafy green parks, and onward to the harborside pier.

The area was quieter on this summer day than it was during last year’s Harborfest. The studios were still tucked into the shipping warehouses but seemed empty and quiet. A few people lingered at KO Pies drinking midday beers; otherwise, Hillary and I had the pier to ourselves. We wandered down to the end, watching the boats bobbing gently and taking in the view of the city across the water. There’s a distinct salty harbor smell that is so purely Boston to me– it’s the first thing I notice when I leave the airport, every time– and that was the scent of this East Boston day.

Afterwards, we headed back towards Maverick Square to right another oversight: it was time to eat some Santarpio’s pizza. (We took a different route this time, along a well-manicured bike path that skirts by some new condos. East Boston is changing.)

“We’ll each eat a slice, right?”

“Yeah, we’ll each eat a slice.”

Nobly we tried to set pizza boundaries for ourselves. We entered the pizza place—booths, dark wood, and wall decorations that haven’t been changed for decades; very Dirty Ol’ Boston. Of course upon sitting down, we immediately ordered a whole pizza and devoured the entire thing. I don’t even have pictures to share because we ate it so quickly.

The verdict: well, I still prefer Regina’s (North End) and Bianchi’s (Revere), but this was still damn good pizza.

We were so engrossed in the pizza that we nearly didn’t notice a group of (very East Boston) men get up and start to walk past us on their way out of Santarpio’s. A big Boston guy stopped at the end of our table and leaned over. Hillary and I looked at each other and then at the man, a bit confused about what he was doing there.

“Sorry if it looked like we were staring at you…” he said gruffly in his big Boston accent.

“…’cause we were.”

“Bone Appateet,” his buddy said, as their crew left the restaurant.

We couldn’t stop laughing. This had to be the most stereotypical East Boston-y thing that happened to us that day.

Is East Boston worth a visit? I say yes– for the pizza, for the parks, for the chance to see a neighborhood slowly lurching towards gentrification. Boston isn’t a big city, but we have so many wonderful distinct neighborhoods. East Boston is one of them. Who knew!