N o r t h E n d
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“Frank’s House (aka ‘Monica’s Mercato’),” photo by Kurt Swanson.
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With the completion of the Big Dig and the depression of the Central Artery, the North End is once again visually connected to the rest of downtown Boston—and far more accessible by foot to Bostonians and tourists eager to walk its narrow streets lined with famous Italian restaurants and cafes. Many also are drawn here to visit two of America’s most significant historic sites—Old North Church, which played a central and symbolic role in the American Revolution, and the Paul Revere House, which is visited by some 250,000 people from around the world every year. Another historic site is the Copp’s Hill Burying Ground, one of America’s oldest cemeteries, with graves dating back as far as the 17th century.
People have lived continuously in the North End since the 1630s, making it Boston’s oldest residential community. After serving as home base to Irish and Eastern European Jewish immigrants in the 18th and 19th centuries, the North End became the center of the Italian immigrant community of Boston in the early 20th century. As more and more Italian immigrants moved into this neighborhood’s rows of brick tenements, escaping poor conditions at home, the North End’s population soared from 23,000 to 40,000, a density matched, in that era, only by Calcutta’s.
Today the North End’s residents are a mix of Italian Americans and young professionals, who are attracted by its close-knit community, a feeling of safety and instant access to the rest of downtown Boston. It is Boston’s smallest neighborhood, with only some 10,000 residents and densely packed. Median household income is high at close to $70,000 per year. The tiny neighborhood is packed with restaurants, virtually all of them Italian, and the local residents carefully maintain their deeply-rooted ties to Italian culture.
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