Here are secrets well-kept, and for too long.
They’re just around the corner, or up a few flights, from the places we go every day. But most of us never see them.
There are cool, magical, hidden spots all over the city: beautiful gardens tucked in amid the concrete, observation decks that will change your perspective, inviting lobbies that double as museums, cozy community rooms offering respite from bustle or cold.
They’re places where you can actually pause and think. And though it might not seem like it sometimes, they’re open to us all - most of them given to the community as requirements of development deals.
Each of these places was almost deserted when I visited earlier in the summer. We’ve got a few weeks before it starts snowing.
Go claim them.
Independence Wharf
There are a couple of ways to enjoy this recently made-over building on the Fort Point Channel near the Evelyn Moakley Bridge. First, there is the observation deck on the 14th floor, which you can get to by flashing an ID at the front desk between 10 and 5 each day. There, you get sweeping views of a resurgent Fort Point Channel, and a sense of just how quickly this part of the city is being transformed.
The hotels and office buildings seem to have dropped, fully formed, on the downtown side of the channel, and the Seaport District is jumping across the water. Workers and tourists saunter on the Harborwalk, or park on the benches and grass by the channel, an inviting green the day I visited. You can bring a sandwich up here on cold days too, avoiding shivers in the enclosed viewing area.
Back at ground level on the channel side of the building, there’s a huge community room with couches, flat-screen TVs, and free Wi-Fi. Workers sometimes eat lunch in here, tourists occasionally stop in for a rest (there’s a good public bathroom open 24/7 just around the corner at the side of the building), and community groups sometimes use it for events. The visionary Boston group Street Lab, all about activating public spaces with cultural programming, held its annual amateur film festival here last year. At 470 Atlantic Ave, Boston.
Cambridge Center Roof Garden
I had heard about this place for a while, but nothing quite prepared me for the first time I stepped into a squat, homely parking garage a few seconds from the Kendall T stop and took an elevator to the top floor. Here are 30,000 square feet of beautifully maintained gardens, with benches and picnic tables tucked away so that you feel like you’re the only person up here (a lot of the time, you are).