Attendees at this year’s AAR/SBL meeting can take in the city’s historic sites, visit cultural and spiritual landmarks, and grab a bite to eat at award-winning restaurants.

The Classics

The 2.5-mile Freedom Trail, marked with iconic red bricks from Boston Common to the Bunker Hill Monument, is a time-tested road through many of the city’s most famous historic sites, such as the Old North Church. It’s the longest-standing church building in Boston, where lantern lights in the belfry tower signaled to Paul Revere that the British were preparing to invade in 1775, launching his famous ride to sound the alarm. Spin off from the trail and head to the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum in Boston Harbor to tour a full-scale replica of an 18th-century sailing vessel.

The Black Heritage Trail offers a 1.5-mile exploration of Boston’s Black history, including Underground Railroad sites and the African Meeting House church, the nation’s oldest Black church. The Malcolm X–Ella Collins House, in the Roxbury neighborhood where Malcolm X lived with his half-sister for four years in the 1940s, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2021.

Take an autumnal stroll through the Boston Public Garden, where you might pose for a selfie for your kids with the whimsical parade of bronze duck statues, based on Robert McCloskey’s 1941 picture book Make Way for Ducklings. Sitcom fans can snap a photo—or duck in for beer—at Cheers, a few steps away on Beacon Street.

Religion Landmarks

Explore the life and times of Mary Baker Eddy (1821–1910), the founder of the Church of Christ, Scientist (or Christian Science), at the Mary Baker Eddy Library. This is also the location of the Mapparium, a three-story, walk-through stained-glass globe. Constructed in 1935, it illuminates all the nations of the world and illustrates the worldwide reach of the denomination’s newspaper, The Christian Science Monitor.

Other inspirational sites include the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston’s headquarters, the Gothic revival–style Cathedral of the Holy Cross, which underwent a $26 million renovation in 2019 and is open to visitors wishing to view its 150-year-old pipe organ and stained-glass windows. The largest mosque in New England, the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center, is on Malcolm X Boulevard in Nubian Square, the cultural and commercial section of Roxbury.

Delicious Detours

Head to the Map Room Lounge in Copley Square, inside the Boston Public Library’s iconic central location, to sip tea or bespoke cocktails in the cozy tearoom. And the Boston Sail Loft has been serving seafood and clam chowder with a view of Boston Harbor since 1984.

James Beard Award–winning pastry chef Joanne Chang is widely known for her 10 Flour Bakery + Cafe locations around Boston, including one nearly adjacent to the convention center. She and her husband, Christopher Myers, also have an upscale contemporary restaurant, Myers + Chang, serving a variety of Asian flavors for dinner and a dim sum brunch on weekends.

Holly Lebowitz Rossi is a freelance writer and coauthor of The Yoga Effect: A Proven Program for Depression and Anxiety.

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