The 61 New Best Things About Boston

4. Robin Young, 57, public radio doyenne

Photo by Yeheshua Johnson

We could gush about the effortless charm with which she entertains listeners on the WBUR-produced Here and Now, or her three-decade career as one of Boston's savviest and most likable journalists. But to get a sense of Robin Young's spirit, you only need consider the wooden bench that sits on her living room floor—which she just happens to have taken from the locker room at the Garden years ago when she was a cub reporter with Channel 38. It is a uniquely wonderful sort of woman who makes off down Causeway Street with a stolen piece of history on her back.

Though her program has become popular nationwide, Young never has to look far from home to find captivating subjects, calling on everyone from author Atul Gawande (5) to musician Lori McKenna (6) to historian Doris Kearns Goodwin (7). "I see all of Boston as a potential guest," she says. "As the host of a national show, at times I feel we need to book someone in Cleveland so they won't feel left out."

There's plenty about Boston to keep Young intrigued away from the microphone, too, particularly the city's greenery. She enjoys the lilacs in the Arboretum (8), the magnolias on Commonwealth Avenue (9), and the leafless trees reflected off the Charles during the winter (10). "It's hypnotic," she says, "but it makes my heart jump a little at the same time." —G.G.


We Love This Town Because…
… 11. French superchef Guy Martin has chosen the Regent hotel for his first U.S. restaurant, explaining his decision thus in the New York Times: "There's more to America than just New York." … 12. Whitey Bulger sightings are the new Elvis sightings. … 13. Donnie Wahlberg and the New Kids apparently are getting the band back together. … 14. Bobby Brown is on the market again. … 15. As we were just vividly reminded, the classic New England winter has not, in fact, gone extinct. … 16. Despite the big crackdown, a lawn chair will still safeguard your hard-won parking spot.

17. The Hatred of Sports Fans Around the Nation

Photo by Christopher Churchill

A year or so after the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004, my wife and I visited her family in California. Though an entire baseball season had passed since the Sox became a national feel-good story—Sisyphus at last bringing his boulder to rest—the goodwill generated by that team's historic accomplishment had yet to fade. When I asked my wife's nephew who his favorite player was, I was stunned when he said Big Papi. David Ortiz, I reminded him, had played a prominent role in the thrashing of his beloved Angels in the playoffs that year. "I know," he replied, "but I just like him. He always seems to come through."

This past Christmas, with all New England basking in still another World Series victory, my wife and I returned to California. When I congratulated her nephew on the success of his favorite player during this latest championship run, he screwed up his face in disgust. "I don't like Ortiz, and I hate the Red Sox," he said. "Actually, I hate all the Boston teams."

It is difficult to convey the degree of pleasure I derived from that exchange.
Everyone hates us now, of course. The staggering achievements of the Sox and the Patriots, who between them have won five titles in the past six years, combined with the renewed glory of the Celtics, have had a curious effect on the rest of the country. Fans elsewhere seem incapable anymore of distinguishing one of our teams from the next—our professional baseball, football, and basketball franchises have morphed into a single, monolithic, dream-crushing, championship-swallowing monstrosity that simply must be stopped. "I hate the Red Sox," a sports fan from New York told the Washington Post in a story about the Super Bowl. "I hate all sports teams from Boston. They can go to hell."

Oh, to bottle for the toasting of future championships this kind of uncontrollable rage, this teeth-grinding disgust, to roll it into leaves for the stuffing of endless victory cigars! For we in Boston understand such irrational hatred. It comes with knowing you're outclassed, and we choked on it for decades. The feeling of insecurity, of powerlessness, is such that you actually begin to believe things that are objectively not true. As when, say, you somehow find yourself in control of the Yankees after years as a breeder of horses, and, for whatever reason, decide to tell a national magazine something like this:

"Red Sox Nation? What a bunch of shit that is. That was a creation of the Red Sox and ESPN, which is filled with Red Sox fans."

For the record, the top-drawing road team in baseball last year—as good a measure as there is of a club's national appeal—was your World Champion Boston Red Sox.

After the 2004 title, with people across the country unable to resist the story of the lovable losers who finally became champions, the Red Sox briefly became America's team. But a nation's pity will not restore a city's pride. Notes of congratulation from friends back then did nothing to heal the memory of a Red Sox game I'd attended the year before at Tropicana Field, home of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. As I walked to my car after that game, wearing my B-emblazoned cap, a passing truck honked in solidarity. When I looked up and waved, though, it turned out to be a group of Yankees fans, jeering and hollering from their open windows, "Boston sucks!" What could I say? What reply, in the face of 86 years of futility, was there to this humiliation?

Five years later, in the middle of a run of success so unfathomable it has reduced the owner of the Yankees to incoherent ravings, we are all redeemed. —J.W.

18. The New Indie Rock Concerts at the MFA

The hottest rock venue in town, the one with the most in-demand and memorable shows? Try the 380-seat Remis Auditorium at the Museum of Fine Arts. Since 2002, the Remis has played host to bands like Mountain Goats, Vampire Weekend, Taken by Trees, and Xiu Xiu. During an unforgettable gig last year by indie darlings Spoon, one intoxicated young woman crawled atop the stage at the august institution and turned it into her own personal catwalk, strutting and shaking what she had to shake. Not the kind of performance art you'd expect from the museum, but it was undoubtedly a crowd-pleaser, all the same. —Paul Kix

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