Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

With the publication of his first book in 1962 at the age of 26, Richard Saul Wurman began the singular passion of his life: that of making information understandable. A holder of both M. Arch. & B. Arch. degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, he has been awarded several grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Guggenheim Fellowship, two Graham Fellowships & two Chandler Fellowships. In 1991, Richard Saul Wurman received the Kevin Lynch Award from MIT for his creation of the ACCESS travel guides. In 1994, he was named a Fellow of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland & awarded a Doctorate of Fine Arts by the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, PA. In 1995, he received an Honorary Doctor of Letters from Art Center College of Design & was Chairman of Graphic Design & Product/Industrial Design of the1995 Presidential Design Awards.

Richard Saul Wurman continues to be a regular consultant to major corporations in matters relating to the design & understanding of information. He is married to novelist Gloria Nagy, has 4 children & lives in Newport, Rhode Island.

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With Access Boston, your visit will be an easy, enjoyable experience—the Old State House, Paul Revere House, Old North Church, and many other remarkable historical sites are at your fingertips.

BOSTON has been divided and organized into neighborhoods, so you know where you are and where you're headed.

Unique color-coded and numbered entries allow you to discover the best:

• hotels
• restaurants
• Attractions
• Shopping sights
• Parks and Outdoor Spaces

Large, easy-to-read maps with entry numbers keyed to text ensure that you will instantly find what you must not miss.

Access is your indispensable walk-around guide to Boston. Our writers, who live in and love the city, will lead you by the hand down the remarkable streets, sharing the unforgettable sights and pointing out the undiscovered gems and all the majestic landmarks that only BOSTON has to offer.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Access Boston 8e

HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Orientation

Although Boston is only the twentieth-largest city in the country, its grandeur -- basedon more than 350 years of history -- is genuinely impressive. The Freedom Trail aloneconnects 16 historical sites from colonial and Revolutionary days, including the OldState House, Paul Revere House, and the Old North Church. Such events as the BostonMassacre, the Boston Tea Party, Paul Revere's midnight ride, and Samuel Adams'simpassioned protests against taxation without representation have all left their mark onthe city and its residents.

Despite its historical ambience, Boston's student population -- about 250,000 a yearflock to the city and nearby Cambridge -- keeps the city's spirit young and in flux. Manyare tempted to stay on, and do. "It's so livable," they marvel, meaning walkable andpacked with odd pleasures -- not that the shortest distance between two points is ever astraight line here. The older parts of Boston, particularly Beacon Hill (?the Hill,? with itsBrahmin residents) and the North End, as well as Cambridge (across the Charles River),were laid out helter-skelter along cow paths, Native American trails, and the ghosts oflong-gone shorelines (from the very start, the city has stretched its limits with infusionsof landfill). Logic is useless in assailing the maze, but getting ?lost? is half the fun.

You could spend a day wandering the narrow and sometimes cobblestoned streetsof Beacon Hill and never run out of charming 18th- and 19th-century town houses withinterior lives you can only guess at. Furnish your own dream abode out of the grab bagof Charles Street antiques stores in Beacon Hill, or while away a lazy afternoonsampling the market wares in the North End -- here a nibble of fresh mozzarella, therea briny olive, and virtually everywhere a cappuccino and biscotti topped with livelyconversation. Eventually you'll gravitate, as the natives do, to the banks of the CharlesRiver, where runners, walkers, bicyclists, and skaters whip by on their invigoratingrounds.

Though the climate is trying at times (the seaborne weather can be quite capricious),it's certainly never boring. Summer's lush abandon cedes gradually to bracing autumnsand bitter-cold Februaries. But greenery and sanity reemerge in May with the magnoliasabloom along magnificent Commonwealth Avenue and the willows weeping aroundthe Public Garden lagoon.

After a day on your feet, you'll be anxious to dive into a seafood feast (one of Boston'strademarks) or perhaps a gourmet meal. As recently as 15 years ago, you might have hadtrouble coming up with more than a handful of interesting restaurants in Boston; nowthe problem is choosing among them -- a number of talented chefs have flourished in anatmosphere of camaraderie rather than competition. Literature likewise provides richrepasts. Harvard Square is said to boast the largest concentration of bookstores in thecountry, and readings often draw crowds in the hundreds.

And finally there are the Boston sports teams: the Celtics, the Bruins, and the ever maddeningRed Sox. As frustrated as they may get with the players, Red Sox fans areinevitably caught up in the romance of tiny Fenway Park, a classic dating from thegolden age of ballpark design, now threatened by modernization. But this should comeas no surprise to anyone who knows a born-and-bred Bostonian. They are a people whosavor the intimacy, the authenticity, and, above all, the history of their lovely city -- andrightly so.

Excerpted from Access Boston 8eby Richard Saul Wurman Copyright © 2007 by Richard Saul Wurman. Excerpted by permission.
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