Fenway: Fenway Park, the MFA, and Boston's Cultural Mile

The Fenway neighbourhood organizes itself around two institutions that sit less than half a mile apart and define radically different aspects of Boston's cultural identity: Fenway Park, the oldest Major League Baseball stadium in continuous operation (opened 1912, capacity 37,755, home of the Boston Red Sox), and the Museum of Fine Arts, one of the great encyclopedic art museums of North America (founded 1870, collection of over 500,000 objects). The juxtaposition captures something essential about the neighbourhood — and about Boston more broadly — the coexistence of high cultural aspiration and intense sporting passion that characterizes the city's self-understanding as a place that takes both equally seriously without finding the combination contradictory.

Fenway Park is the most visited baseball stadium in America on a per-game basis, its combination of historical significance, architectural character (the Green Monster, the 37-foot left-field wall, is the most famous feature in baseball), and the intensity of Red Sox fan culture producing an atmosphere that visitors who care nothing for baseball consistently describe as one of their most memorable American experiences. The stadium's tours (available on non-game days and before game time) provide access to areas not visible from the seats, including the press box, the warning track, and the Green Monster seating — added in 2002 to the top of the famous left-field wall. Game tickets require advance planning; the bleachers and right-field boxes represent the most affordable access to what remains one of American sport's most atmospheric venues.

The Museum of Fine Arts on Huntington Avenue houses collections that span 5,000 years of human creative production across every medium and culture: Egyptian artifacts from the museum's own excavations at Giza (conducted in partnership with Harvard in the early 20th century), the largest collection of Japanese art outside Japan, an extraordinary survey of Impressionist painting comparable to Paris's Musée d'Orsay, and a comprehensive collection of American art including the defining works of John Singer Sargent and Winslow Homer. The museum's 2010 expansion added the Linde Family Wing for Contemporary Art and restored the original Evans Wing's daylighting, improving the experience of a collection that rewards multiple visits with the patience of a truly encyclopedic institution. The Isabelle Stewart Gardner Museum, a short walk from the MFA, houses the eccentric but brilliant collection of its founder (Titian, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Degas) in a Venetian palazzo-style building whose internal courtyard with its seasonal plantings is one of the most beautiful interior spaces in America.