Fri, Nov 6
BEAT: Belew/Vai/Levin/Bozzio Performing the Music of KING CRIMSON
8:00–11:00 PM
Boch Center – Wang Theatre · Boston
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6 Boston bars more than half a century old
Boston has no shortage of bars with old stories. The harder thing is finding places that have stayed open long enough to become part of everyday neighborhood life. These six bars all opened at least 50 years ago and are still operating in Boston. A note on the wording: “continuously” is difficult to prove literally because bars have had temporary closures, including during the pandemic. I’m using it here to mean long-running establishments that have kept the same identity and location, rather than newer businesses borrowing an old name. J.J. Foley’s has been family-owned and operated since 1909. It is still at 117 East Berkeley Street in the South End, making it one of Boston’s oldest Irish bars and one of the city’s most established family businesses. The bar has a pre-Prohibition feel without turning itself into a museum. There is a dining room, sports on television, Guinness, and a crowd that includes longtime regulars alongside people discovering the place for the first time. Foley’s history is tied to the city’s political and labor history, too. In 1919, Boston police officers voted to strike at Fay Hall above the bar. You do not need to arrive looking for a history lesson. Order a drink, find a table, and the room will do the rest. Sullivan’s Tap opened on December 5, 1933, the day after Prohibition ended. It became a gathering place for people heading to the Garden, and it has kept that role as the neighborhood around TD Garden has changed. Sully’s is Boston’s oldest sports bar by its own account. It is a straightforward place with a narrow room, cold beer, and a crowd that knows exactly what it is there to do. On game days, it fills up with Bruins and Celtics fans. On other days, it is simply a good place to sit near the Garden without dealing with a polished sports-bar production. The Tam first opened sometime in the 1940s and has remained a small downtown watering hole ever since. Even the bar’s own history page does not pin down a precise opening year, which feels right for a place that has never needed to explain itself too much. The Tam is small, cheap, and direct. It is useful before a show, after work, or whenever you want a drink without a reservation, a dress code, or a menu full of explanations. The crowd changes throughout the night, but the basic character does not. The Galway House has been a Centre Street fixture since 1960. It is a family-style restaurant and Irish pub with Italian and American food, a full bar, sports on television, and a steady Jamaica Plain crowd. This is the kind of place that feels like a neighborhood business first and a destination bar second. People come in for dinner, a drink, a game, or because they have been coming here for years and see no reason to stop. Some older coverage dates the business slightly differently, so 1960 is the safest version to use. Corrib Pub has been open on Market Street since 1969. It is the sort of Irish pub that works for a quick pint, a plate of bangers and mash, live music, or a long conversation with someone who has been coming in for years. The pub is named for Lough Corrib in County Galway. Its Irish identity is straightforward rather than theatrical: Guinness, sports, music, and a neighborhood crowd. Corrib has stayed part of Brighton’s daily life while plenty of other bars have come and gone. Cask ’n Flagon opened in 1969 beside Fenway Park. It has spent more than five decades serving baseball fans, sports writers, visiting bands, and people who came for the atmosphere even when there was no game. Cask is louder and busier than the other bars on this list, particularly around Red Sox games. That is part of the point. It is a Fenway landmark, a sports bar, and a reliable place to start or end a night around Lansdowne Street. The bar’s appeal has remained simple: a drink near the ballpark, baseball on the walls, and a room that expects to get crowded. These places do not offer the same kind of night. Foley’s is a South End institution. Sullivan’s belongs to the Garden. The Tam is a downtown dive. Galway House is a Jamaica Plain neighborhood restaurant and bar. Corrib is a Brighton pub. Cask ’n Flagon is Fenway at full volume. What they share is more useful than an old date on a sign. They stayed long enough to become part of the city’s routine.
7 great pumpkin patches near Boston
A field and a pumpkin, or a hayride if you want the afternoon. Pick your pumpkin, take a hayride, or make a quick farm-stand stop Pumpkin season near Boston can mean very different things. At one farm, you can cut a pumpkin from the field and leave before the day gets complicated. At another, you can add apples, animals, a corn maze, cider doughnuts, and a hayride to the itinerary. The farms below are all within roughly an hour of Boston, depending on traffic. Before you leave, check the farm’s own update. Pumpkin fields can close early when the crop is picked over, and weather can change the schedule. Verrill Farm, Concord Verrill Farm is a good choice if you want an actual pumpkin patch without committing to a full-day production. The pumpkin patch opens on fall weekends in October, with sugar pumpkins, specialty varieties, and jack-o’-lantern pumpkins available. There is no advance field pass for pumpkin picking. You choose a pumpkin, pay at the wagon, and head home. The farm is at 11 Wheeler Road in Concord, about half an hour from Boston in light traffic. Verrill says pumpkin dates and hours can change with weather and crop conditions. Check the farm’s pick-your-own page before driving out. Pets are not allowed, apart from certified service animals. Connors Farm, Danvers Connors Farm is for people who want the pumpkin to come with several other activities attached. The fall program includes pumpkin and apple picking, hayrides, a corn maze, farm animals, train rides, baked goods, and cider doughnuts. The farm’s 2026 fall schedule runs through early November, with weekday, weekend, and holiday dates. It is located at 30 Valley Road in Danvers, roughly 30 to 40 minutes north of Boston without heavy traffic. Read the current details on the Connors Farm website before going. The farm warns visitors that there is no street parking, and pets are not permitted in the fields or orchard. Krochmal Farms, Tewksbury Krochmal Farms runs one of the more straightforward pumpkin outings near Boston. Its 2026 Pumpkin Festival takes place on selected weekends from September 19 through October 25, plus Monday, October 12. Hours are listed as 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The festival includes pumpkin picking, hayrides, pony rides, a corn maze, farm animals, food, free admission, and free parking. At about 20 minutes north of Boston, it is one of the easier options for a family afternoon. The schedule is limited to specific dates, so check the Krochmal Farms festival page before leaving. Tougas Family Farm, Northborough Tougas Family Farm is farther west, but it is built for a full fall day. The pumpkin patch opens during the main autumn season, and visitors can also pick apples, visit the barnyard, use the farm playground, walk through the corn maze, and stop at the Donut Hut. The farm’s 2026 information lists the pumpkin patch opening on September 12. Listed hours are generally 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., with later closing on Fridays and Saturdays. Tougas is about 45 minutes west of Boston before traffic. The farm says last entrance can be earlier when fields are picked out or weather affects operations. Check what is picking today before making the drive to 234 Ball Street in Northborough. Parlee Farms, Tyngsborough Parlee Farms has a 10-acre pumpkin crop and more than 40,000 pumpkins, so this is the place for a bigger selection and a longer visit. The farm grows small pumpkins, jack-o’-lantern varieties, and larger specialty pumpkins. Pumpkin picking is part of a broader fall visit that can include the apple orchard, animal barns, farmstand, cider doughnuts, and on-site food. Tyngsborough is about 45 minutes northwest of Boston, though the trip can take longer during peak fall weekends. Parlee directs visitors to its current farm updates for picking hours and prices. Check the pumpkin page before heading out. Belkin Family Lookout Farm, South Natick Lookout Farm is a good fit if you want pumpkin picking with organized activities around it. The South Natick farm has a Great Pumpkin Field, barnyard play area, corn maze, tractor play area, farm market, and seasonal food and drinks. The farm’s pumpkin field and barnyard can close earlier than the rest of the property, so check the day’s schedule before arriving. Admission and activity access can vary, and the farm recommends buying U-Pick admission online. Lookout Farm is at 56 Eliot Street in South Natick, about 17 miles from Boston. See the farm’s current information for hours, tickets, and field access. Cider Hill Farm, Amesbury Cider Hill is the outlier on this list. It is better for buying a pumpkin than for cutting one directly from a field. The farm’s pumpkin stand typically runs from early September through mid-October and carries pumpkins, specialty pumpkins, gourds, corn stalks, and hay bales. You can also stop at the farm store for cider doughnuts, pies, produce, and other fall goods. Amesbury is the longest drive on this list and can push past an hour from Boston in traffic. It is worth considering if you are already heading north or want to combine your pumpkin stop with a farm-store visit. Check Cider Hill’s fall information for current stock and seasonal details before driving to 45 Fern Avenue. If you want to pick a pumpkin from a field, start with Verrill, Connors, Krochmal, Tougas, Parlee, or Lookout. If you only need a pumpkin and some cider doughnuts, Cider Hill is the simpler stop. Either way, check the farm’s update before leaving. Autumn fields do not always follow the calendar.
Get to know Boston
Order a milkshake in Boston and you might be missing the ice cream
Order a milkshake in Boston at a shop that still keeps the old distinction and you can get exactly what you asked for: milk and flavoring, beaten until it foams. No ice cream. The thicker drink, the one visitors usually mean, is a frappe. Not every counter still bothers. Plenty of menus now use milkshake the way the rest of the country does. The shops that list both drinks are not offering two sizes of the same thing. Those are the last places where a milkshake in Boston and a frappe are different orders. What goes into a milkshake in Boston The traditional local milkshake is milk plus a flavoring, often chocolate syrup, shaken or blended until air gets into it. A frappe adds ice cream. Yankee’s account of the two drinks is useful on a point people skip: the milkshake is not a glass of chocolate milk. Stirring syrup into milk mixes the ingredients. Blending them is what makes it a fountain order. If a menu lists both, look at the prices before treating the cheaper one as a deal. You may be comparing a milk drink with one that has scoops in it. Say “frap” The regional drink is one syllable, rhyming with map. The American Heritage Dictionary records that pronunciation and treats the noun as regional usage, mapping it to Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts. Shops in Boston still put it on the board. That entry is a different word from “frappé,” two syllables, which the same dictionary defines as a frozen fruit dessert or a drink poured over shaved ice. The spelling overlap is how visitors end up performing French at a Jamaica Plain counter. A shop owner paid for the lesson Vincent Petryk, who later opened JP Licks, learned the difference as a newcomer from Philadelphia. Boston.com reported that he ordered a milkshake at Bailey’s in the 1970s, saw that it cost half as much as the frappe, and then asked where the ice cream was. Bailey’s is gone. The mix-up is not. The same report found “frappe” in late-nineteenth-century Boston Globe pages attached to chilled and partly frozen drinks, including alcoholic ones, long before it settled on the ice-cream version. Recipes a few years later included cafe frappes and pineapple frappes, sometimes with a scoop of ice cream already in the mix. Boston University food scholars told the paper that regional names for ordinary foods were common before national food media flattened the vocabulary. Megan Elias, who directs BU’s gastronomy program, pointed to a 1920s overlap: Prohibition pushed people toward new places to sit, and electric equipment made ice cream cheaper to produce in volume. Soda fountains did well in that gap. The scholars also said the exact reason this particular word stuck here is not established. There is no inventor to toast and no afternoon when Boston renamed the milkshake. The term showed up in more than one drink, attached itself to the ice-cream one, and stayed. The word is still on the menu JP Licks still lists a regular frappe, an extra-thick frappe, and an espresso frappe, separate from smoothies, frozen coffee, ice-cream sodas, and floats. Extra-thick is a texture, not a citizenship test. In 2023, Mark Parrish, president of Crescent Ridge Dairy in Sharon, told Boston.com his shop still served the ice-cream-free milkshake next to the frappe and asked customers which they wanted. He also said tourists, students, and younger customers increasingly ask for a milkshake. Other counters have given up and will put ice cream in whatever you called it. Rhode Island complicates the map again. In parts of that state, and into southeastern Massachusetts, the ice-cream drink is a cabinet. Same general idea. Different word. This is the same class of local vocabulary as why Bostonians say “wicked.” Get the word wrong and you can still have a conversation. Get this one wrong and you may drink a glass of flavored milk. If the menu says milkshake and you want ice cream in it, ask. You do not need to win the regional argument first.
What the colors of the Zakim Bridge lights mean
Green on the Zakim does not automatically mean the Celtics. Purple does not have one permanent meaning either. The Zakim Bridge lights change for holidays, memorials, and awareness campaigns, and the same color can stand for several unrelated things in a single year. MassDOT publishes a dated lighting calendar. Match the night to the entry, check that the Zakim is one of the bridges listed, and you have a better answer than guessing from the color alone. That last part matters. The state schedules several bridges on the same page. An entry for the Longfellow or the Braga is not automatically an entry for the Zakim. Where to check the Zakim Bridge lights The MassDOT bridge lighting schedule lists the occasion, color, date, and participating bridges. Use the current year, especially if the photo you are looking at has been reposted without a date. The 2026 calendar is a useful demonstration of why a universal color key would fail. Green has already been used for St. Patrick’s Day, Boston Legacy Football Club, and Living Donation Week. Blue has appeared for World Parkinson’s Day and for the twenty-fifth anniversary of September 11. Those are not competing theories. They are different nights. A blue bridge photographed in April cannot explain a blue bridge photographed in September. Two September nights this year make the point. On September 11 the Zakim was blue. On September 13 it was green, and that night the Zakim was the only bridge on the list. Same week. Different colors. Different reasons. Multi-color displays can be easier to tell apart, though the date still matters. The schedule names combinations as well as single colors. Read the full line before attaching a meaning to a picture, particularly when the occasion is a memorial or a health campaign. Who gets to decide MassDOT’s bridge lighting policy, dated November 14, 2023, says special displays express the agency’s official views. The bridges are not a public billboard and not an open platform for anyone’s message. A change needs approval from the department’s Office of the General Counsel and the transportation secretary’s concurrence. The policy covers state and federal holidays, other national observances, and public commemorations and celebrations at the national, state, or local level. The calendar can still move after that approval. A screenshot is useful evidence of an earlier plan. The live page is the better place to check what is scheduled now. The Zakim is one of several state bridges with programmable lights. The policy also names the Longfellow, Fore River, Kenneth F. Burns, and Braga bridges. Matching colors across the state can be one coordinated observance, not a coincidence. Why blue looks familiar Blue is also the bridge’s ordinary night look. Color Kinetics, which worked with MassDOT on the LED system, describes the design as blue-lit towers with the cables picked out in white. The company cites architect Miguel Rosales, who wanted a formal entrance to Boston. The LED system was unveiled in December 2012. It replaced older metal halide lights that had been on the bridge since it opened in 2002 and had grown dim. The new fixtures can hold the familiar blue or shift for a listed occasion. The lighting is not a new coat of paint. It is a programmed change. Blue by itself is therefore not enough to identify a tribute. Check whether a special blue display was on the calendar for that night before assigning it a meaning. Read the date before the symbolism For an old photograph, establish the date before looking up the color. For a night you have not seen yet, check the calendar again close to the date. If the page has no matching entry for the Zakim, leave the occasion unconfirmed rather than borrowing one from another month or another bridge. The fastest route to the answer is the least dramatic: date, bridge name, calendar line. Boston has other lights with a code, including the weather beacon on the old Hancock. This one usually comes with a schedule.