TRAVEL ESSAY / Boston's North End Still Enchants
THE BIG DIG, Boston's mammoth construction of an eight-lane
underground expressway, made getting to the North End a little trickier. But
on a recent visit I found that the sights, sounds and, most important, the
smells of Boston's old Italian neighborhood were almost the same as they were
when I first became enchanted with it 25 years ago.
Almost. Once the home of wealthy sea captains and Revolutionary patriots
that gradually became home to the Irish (Rose Kennedy was born there), the
Jewish and now the Italian, the North End, under the pressures of
gentrification, once again is undergoing a metamorphosis. But at least it's not
of the Starbucks-on-every-corner variety.
The corporate uniformity that has taken over almost every other part of the
greater Boston area, including Harvard Square, hasn't penetrated the North
End, a peninsula bordered by the Charles River and the Inner Harbor. Sure,
there's a Dunkin' Donuts on Salem Street and a McDonald's on Union but there's
also Polcari's, a coffee and spice shop, on Salem; Bova's, a 24-hour bakery, at
Salem and Prince streets; Caffe Victoria on Hanover Street (where you can sip
the best cappuccino this side of the Atlantic until 1 a.m.), and Mike's Pastry,
also on Hanover (where you can buy ridiculously fat cannolis to go).
As a student in the 1970s, I first visited the North End because of its
rich ties to history. I dutifully visited the Paul Revere House, the oldest
wooden dwelling in the city, and the Old North Church where Revere had lanterns
hung to warn John Hancock and Sam Adams in Lexington that the British were
coming (two, of course, since they were coming "by sea" - that is, across the
Charles River).
I stood on cobblestoned Union Street, the oldest street in Boston; quaffed
a beer at the end of that street in Ye Olde Union Oyster House, a bar that has
been operating on the spot since 1826, and imagined the days before the
Revolution when the Massachusetts Spy, an underground newspaper, was published
there.
But, I'll admit, revolutionary thoughts were not the ultimate reason I kept
going back to the North End. Like most visitors to Boston, food, not history,
was the real draw of this miniature Italy for me.
On Fridays I would shop at Haymarket, the open-air market at the edge of
the neighborhood where Italian vendors would sell fresh meat, fruit and the
plumpest tomatoes imaginable. At Al Capone's Meat Market, I stood in line to
buy Capone's delectably spicy veal roll. (Capone, who swore he was not related
to the gangster, would make us sign a form, releasing him from responsibility
should we die after eating the veal roll - a joke regulars loved and newcomers
nervously puzzled over.)
On Saturday nights I would try yet another dish of steaming pasta at the
latest Italian bistro touted by the Boston Globe. Giro's on Hanover Street was
a favorite. And on Sunday afternoons I would go to the Caffe dello Sport, also
on Hanover, for an Italian espresso that you could cut with a knife and I would
watch the locals, arms flailing, relive the latest soccer match between Milano
and Turino.
Returning this summer, I wondered with great trepidation how much Italian
spirit remained.
Although the market was going strong, I noticed most of the vendors no
longer were Italian and that the tomatoes were not quite as plump. Al Capone
was long gone. As I headed up Hanover, still the main business street, I
searched in vain for Giro's.
But a signpost on Hanover pointing to Firenze, Capri, Amalfi, Roma and
Milano told me I was headed in the right direction. Sure enough, nearby was
Caffe dello Sport, where locals, no doubt, still were debating that soccer
match. Then I spotted a merchant, perched on a lawn chair, selling T-shirts
("Kiss Me, I'm Italian") and listening to Frank Sinatra, belting out "My Way,"
and I knew Mama's North End had not completely disappeared.
I even was lucky enough to catch one of North End's famous street
festivals: Hearing the oom-pah-pah of a marching band, I suddenly saw a group
of young men, carrying aloft the statue of the Madonna della Cava, smothered
with strips of dollar bills, turn onto Hanover Street.
A brochure printed in red, white and green, the colors of the Italian flag,
offered at a tourist booth on the pathway into the North End through the Big
Dig construction site, listed the 13 festivals that were held this year from
June to September. But next year, according to the Boston Globe, only six are
scheduled.
Membership to the societies that put them on are dwindling. The fate of the
festivals may be, in fact, a sign that I returned to the North End just in
time: before what we used to call the red sauce circuit - the old-fashioned
pastry shops, bakeries, grocery stories, salumerias, ugly ceramic shops and
restaurants - are replaced by upscale versions.
I'm glad I got back there in time before the place turned completely from
southern Italian homey into northern Italian chic.
