Long Reads
A Dream Deferred
On primary day in Boston, I thought I’d outsmart the crowds. I waited until early afternoon before walking the few short blocks to my Ward […]
Could One Determined Former Tenant Bring Down Boston’s Most Infamous Landlord?
After another day of attending online graduate classes from her one-bedroom apartment in the summer of 2020, Mary Stathos rose from her desk to heat […]
Hey Boston, Shut UUUUUUUP Already!!!!!!!
There was no escaping the sound. Rapid-fire, bass-heavy Caribbean beats radiated a half-mile past the Franklin Park Playstead, galloped through the cool April air over […]
Avi Loeb Is Not Afraid of Little Green Men
I was sitting on the porch of Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb’s stately home in Lexington this summer, as cardinals flitted among his roses and hydrangeas, […]
Keeping Up with the Browns
It was a sunny September day when I pulled up to an athletic field in New Hampshire and found the man I was searching for. […]
Has Witch City Lost Its Way?
On a recent afternoon, visitor traffic was light at the Salem Witch Dungeon Museum. Outside, near several stockades, two bored-looking husbands sat on a bench, […]
Grayer, but Stronger
Recently, I looked through some photos of myself from late 2019, and I couldn’t help but notice that the Lisa in those pictures looked…a lot […]
The Battle for Franklin Park
The auditorium at Boston’s English High School was packed when Zack DeClerck strode to the microphone one April evening in 2018. Before him was a […]
Out for Blood: The Cape’s Biggest Shark Researchers Just Can’t Get Along
Walking down the dock at Long Wharf in August 2020, I was giddy with anticipation. Ulysse Nardin, the Swiss luxury watchmaker, had invited me to […]
One Survivor’s Quest to End Sexual Assault at Schools
The email brought me to a standstill. There was nothing unusual about receiving a mass mailing from Milton Academy, the swanky private school I attended […]
Can MIT’s Tim Berners-Lee Save the Web?
It’s a muggy July morning, and Tim Berners-Lee—the man who once upon a time invented the World Wide Web and now wants to reinvent it—is […]
Is Boston America’s Most Racist City? Ask a Black Bostonian for Once
As I watched the Celtics’ fourth playoff game against the Brooklyn Nets this past spring, I found myself not just praying that the Celts would […]
Don’t Nantucket My Newburyport
Steve Karp, as the story goes, was driving with his wife and children out to Great Point, Nantucket, that wild and protected tip of the […]
Will We Ever Solve the Childcare Crisis?
Every weekend, from the summer of 2018 until the start of the pandemic, Ana Lavour had a ritual, albeit not a very relaxing one. Whenever […]
Shipwrecked: A Shocking Tale of Love, Loss, and Survival in the Deep Blue Sea
Adrift in the middle of the ocean, no one can hear you scream. It was a lesson Brad Cavanagh was learning by the second. He […]