In a city famous for its annual marathon, Boston has an equally impressive claim to fame as one of America’s “Most Walkable Cities of 2011” based on separate rankings from Prevention Magazine and the Walk Score “walkability” index.
“Boston is widely regarded as one of the most walkable cities in the world,” an article in Run Planet noted. “Beantown’s compact design is just the beginning: the city’s famed historic sites are linked by the red brick-marked Freedom Trail running from Boston Common to the Bunker Hill Monument, miles of pedestrian and bike paths along the Charles River carry thousands of walkers, joggers, bikers and roller bladders per day between downtown Boston and Cambridge – home of Harvard and MIT – while Frederic Law Olmstead’s ‘Emerald Necklace’ of inter-connected parks provides walkers with a place for quiet tree-lined jaunts.”
In its overview of Boston, private Internet website USATourist.com highlighted several travel destinations, including the city’s historic neighborhoods known for their restaurants and shopping opportunities. “Back Bay is a virtual open-air museum of various residential architectural styles including Victorian, Italianate, and Gothic Revival,” the website explained. “Beacon Hill harkens to another era with its gas lamps, shade trees, brick sidewalks and grand townhouses built between 1800 and 1850.” Other distinctive neighborhoods in the city are Hyde Park, North End, Charlestown and the Downtown Financial District.
More than 3 million baseball fans are drawn to the Fenway-Kenmore neighborhood of Boston each year to watch the Red Sox play in Fenway Park, which is the oldest Major League Baseball stadium currently in use. Next year will mark Fenway Park’s centennial. The neighborhood also attracts more than 1 million visitors annually to The Museum of Fine Arts with its collection of more than 450,000 works of art.
In Boston’s Waterfront neighborhood, visitors will find the New England Aquarium, which attracts more than 1.3 million visitors each year, and the Children’s Museum where guests are greeted by a kitchy red-and-white 40-foot-high wooden milk bottle. Another popular Boston attraction that draws more than 1.5 million visitors annually to the Charles River is The Museum of Science, which is one of the world’s largest science centers.
Boston is also home to 56 National Historic Landmarks, including the world’s oldest floating commissioned naval vessel, the second oldest working lighthouse in the U.S., the nation’s oldest city park, and the first publically supported municipal library in the United States.
Each year, the city attracts more than 20 million visitors, the Boston Convention and Visitor’s Bureau estimated. A major destination for business travelers is the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, which offers 500,000 square feet of contiguous exhibition space, 160,000 square feet of meeting space, 86 meeting rooms and a dramatic 41,000-square-foot ballroom with an adjacent 1,200 room hotel. Located on the South Boston waterfront, the $800 million convention facility is the largest in the Northeast.
The stylish convention center required nearly 12,000 tons of exposed structural steel to be shop-primed with Tnemec Series 88HS Azeron H.S. Primer, a modified short oil alkyd. Approximately 12,000 gallons of primer were used on the steel by Canadian fabricator CanAm Steel, Quebec. The project also required more than 13,500 gallons of a bright white colored Series 115 Uni-Bond DF, a self-crosslinking hydrophobic acrylic with dry-fall characteristics. Series 115 was selected based on an evaluation of three competitive coatings, which were tested for their adhesion by a chemist who was responsible for validating the bonding characteristics of the coatings, especially on galvanized decking and bolt connections.
The International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) ranked Boston and neighboring Cambridge No. 1 among U.S. cities in hosting meetings held by international associations. It was the third consecutive year that Boston has held that ranking.