Jay

I spent a few days here in 1995, and had a great time. I’d love to go back. Some notes and photos from my trip are at http://www.aq.org/~js/js-monterrey.html.

I lived here for about five years, from 1999 to 2005. (I listed it as “Not worth visiting” because although it’s a perfectly nice place to live, it’s not an exciting vacation destination. There’s a very nice colonial-era graveyard near my house, though.)

Quincy (pronounced KWIN-zee), Massachusetts, referred to as the “City of Presidents”, is the birthplace of early US presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams. Downtown Quincy is the site of Adams National Historical Park (http://www.nps.gov/adam/), an urban federal park, so there’s a park service information center downtown with tourist information. Easily accessible to downtown Boston (and Cambridge and Somerville) on the Red Line of the MBTA (http://www.mbta.com/), it still has a very distinctive flavour and feel. Into the 19th and early 20th centuries, it was an important shipbuilding center.

(I’m about to move there, and looking forward to it.)

Jamaica Plain is a neighbourhood to the southwest of downtown Boston. It has lots of green space: Jamaica Pond (where you can rent rowboats in the summer, and people often walk their dogs or jog), the Arnold Arboretum (http://www.arboretum.harvard.edu/), and Franklin Park and the Franklin Park Zoo. It has a very racially and culturally mixed population, and a strong sense of neighbourhood identity, with lots of local festivals and events.

Centre Street is the main drag, and Washington Street and the Jamaicaway are important arteries.