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Haunted places in Boston
Boston has been accumulating dead people since 1630, so the ghost stories had time to pile up. The places are real, ghosts, possibly. Harvey D. Parker opened the hotel in 1855. The hotel has published the ghost stories. In a 1992 Boston Globe interview quoted by the hotel, bellman John Brehm said he first heard about Parker’s ghost when he started work in 1941. The story then was that Parker roamed the 10th-floor annex. Around 1950, a guest said she saw a heavyset man with a black mustache in that hall. Security went up and found nobody. Other reports from that floor are a rocking chair in a room that does not have one, and lights moving down the corridor. In a separate story, a mother and daughter in room 1012 said a man in old clothes stood at the foot of the bed and then vanished. At breakfast, his portrait was hanging in the dining room. The granite building beside Massachusetts General Hospital was the Charles Street Jail, finished in 1851. In 1973, after prisoners revolted over the conditions, a court found the jail in violation of the inmates’ constitutional rights. The last prisoners left on Memorial Day weekend in 1990. It reopened as The Liberty Hotel in 2007. The rotunda, the catwalks, and some of the cells are still there. CLINK. serves dinner in the old cells. Alibi is in the former drunk tank. Ghost tours describe footsteps and former prisoners. The hotel’s own history does not. The theater opened in 1903. The stories that get repeated are a well-dressed couple in the balcony, a little girl who supposedly takes gifts left for her, and a former mayor who died in his seat during a performance. There is no record of a Boston mayor dying at the Majestic. People who have worked in the building still describe a man in a suit in the balcony lobby, and a child’s voice in the house. The restaurant opened in 1826, in a building that was already old. During the Revolution the second floor was headquarters for Ebenezer Hancock, paymaster of the Continental Army, and soldiers were paid where people now eat. Staff have talked about flickering lights, electronics that quit, footsteps, and a man in colonial clothes bent over a desk. Tour guides say that man is Hancock. A separate story involves a chef named Henry, seen by a coworker around the time Henry died. John F. Kennedy’s booth is upstairs, with a plaque. Ghost tours add a Kennedy haunting. The restaurant’s history page mentions the booth and stops there. Photo by Robert Linsdell King’s Chapel Burying Ground opened in 1630. It is the oldest burying ground in Boston proper. It filled up, and in 1660 the town opened the Granary Burying Ground nearby. Paul Revere, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and the Boston Massacre victims are there, along with thousands of people who no longer have a stone. Both grounds are regular stops on ghost tours. Visitors report footsteps, cold spots, and someone in colonial clothes who is not leading a tour. The sightings are not verified. Fort Warren is on Georges Island in Boston Harbor. Construction ran from 1833 to 1861, and during the Civil War the fort held Confederate prisoners. The ghost story is the Lady in Black. In the version Boston Harbor Islands tells, she is Melanie Lanier, who rowed to the island to free her husband Andrew, a Confederate prisoner, and was hanged in black. Historians have not found a record of her. Edward Rowe Snow is the one who spread the tale. Georges Island is a ferry ride. Check whether the boats are running before you go.
5 best Korean BBQ restaurants in Boston
Korean BBQ in Boston can mean settling in around a grill with several cuts of beef and pork, or ordering a plate of bulgogi with a bowl of stew. Those are different meals, and choosing the right restaurant starts with knowing which one you want. These five places cover Boston, Cambridge and Medford. Naksan has staff cook the meat for you. Sura offers all-you-can-eat barbecue. Seoul gives downtown diners barbecue combinations alongside a much broader menu. Gather people who are willing to share, then work out the order together. Naksan Korean BBQ is on Commonwealth Avenue, where staff handle the cooking at your table. Its beef and pork combinations come with egg soufflé and a choice of kimchi or soybean stew. For a bigger meal, the Grand Tour adds beef tartare with caviar, several beef cuts and ice cream. Japanese A5 Wagyu is another option. This is a place to look at the combinations before adding separate dishes. Let the size of your group and the cuts you want guide the order. Naksan’s reservation policy says Friday and Saturday dinner is walk-in only, and parties larger than seven should call. Sura Korean BBQ in Medford is the all-you-can-eat choice on this list. The Boston menu currently lists a $30 regular package and a $40 premium package per person, before additional charges such as tax and drinks. Everyone in the party must choose the same package. Premium adds short-rib options and beef tongue. You select meat from the self-service area and cook it at your table. The meal also includes the appetizer and salad bar and made-to-order Korean dishes, including pancakes and steamed egg. Reservations are offered. Start with a manageable selection; you can decide what to repeat after the first round. Korean Garden in Allston offers both tabletop barbecue and dishes cooked in the kitchen. The barbecue menu lists short ribs, beef brisket, pork belly, chicken and shrimp, with a minimum of two orders for table cooking. The broader menu includes kimchi pancakes, rice cakes, soups and bibimbap, which helps when a group wants more than grilled meat. Its posted hours run later Thursday through Saturday than on the other nights. Confirm the last kitchen order if you are heading over late; the closing time alone does not tell you when a full barbecue meal can still begin. Koreana gives Cambridge diners a tabletop barbecue option on Prospect Street near Central Square. The built-in grills have ventilation above the cooking area, and the menu includes galbi, bulgogi and pork belly. Seafood scallion pancakes, cold noodles and tofu stews give you several ways to round out the meat order. Choose it for a meal where the table is sharing, rather than trying to fit barbecue into a rushed lunch. Ask the restaurant about the grill setup and ordering requirements when arranging your visit. A pancake for the table and a couple of different meat dishes make a more varied starting point than everyone choosing the same thing. Seoul Restaurant on Cambridge Street offers Korean barbecue plates alongside sushi, noodles and stews. The barbecue combinations pair choices such as beef bulgogi, pork belly or LA kalbi with soft tofu stew, cold noodles or stone-pot bibimbap. That gives you a way to order barbecue as part of a complete individual meal. It is a useful downtown option when everyone wants a different dinner. One person can choose a barbecue combination while another orders soup or sushi. Reserve through the restaurant’s website if you are planning an evening visit, and specify what kind of meal you have in mind. Before booking Korean BBQ in Boston Ask for a barbecue table if you want the grill, and confirm any minimum order before sitting down. Compare the price of a meat combination with its recommended party size, rather than assuming every listed price is per person. At an all-you-can-eat restaurant, agree on the package with everyone at the table and order quantities you expect to finish. For drinks afterward, our Boston speakeasy guide includes choices in Boston and Somerville. If part of the group would rather skip barbecue, the restaurant guide offers shared plates and other dinner options.
Get to know Boston
4 Boston-area gangster hangouts with brutal backstories
The Winter Hill Gang once conducted business in a Somerville garage that now welcomes a church congregation. On Prince Street, Mafia associates talked inside an apartment while the FBI recorded them. In South Boston, a couple opened a liquor store and soon found themselves being told to hand it over by men threatening to kill them. Boston mob headquarters were a first-floor apartment on Prince Street, a liquor store on Old Colony Avenue whose owners kept saying no, and two garages, one later filmed by state police and one now used as a church. The North End headquarters with microphones in the walls 98 Prince Street, North End Gennaro Angiulo and his associates used a first-floor apartment at 98 Prince Street as a Mafia headquarters. From January 19 to May 3, 1981, the FBI recorded the conversations through hidden microphones, and a concealed camera outside photographed people coming and going so the voices on the tapes had faces. Those recordings became evidence in federal court. An FBI supervisory special agent later told the Senate that one slice of the Angiulo family's numbers business was bringing in $30,000 a day. For nearly a year before those tapes, the FBI could not get video of the address. People nearby reported suspected investigators to the Angiulos, often with a license plate, and they were usually right. Across 103 days of pictures, someone brought the brothers a new car or a new face on nearly every day. Agents hid a camera in a vehicle and changed that vehicle every evening. They were not spotted. The liquor store Whitey Bulger refused to take no for 295 Old Colony Avenue, South Boston Stephen Rakes and Julie Rakes opened Stippo's Liquor Mart in 1983. Julie later used the name Julie Rakes Dammers. In January 1984, James "Whitey" Bulger, Stephen Flemmi, and Kevin Weeks let themselves into the family's South Boston home. Bulger said they had been paid to kill Rakes and had decided to buy the store instead. Rakes said it was not for sale. Bulger said he would be their partner. Rakes refused that, too. They were back that evening. They sat at the kitchen table, showed a gun and a switchblade, and threatened to kill him. Flemmi picked up the couple's one-year-old daughter, stroked her hair, and said it would be a shame for her not to see her father again. Bulger handed Rakes a paper bag with roughly $65,000 and promised $25,000 more, which he later refused to pay. Flemmi said the store had new owners. The First Circuit's account of the extortion lays out that visit. The Rakeses held out for weeks, left for Florida, and came back still trying to keep the business. Julie's uncle, Boston police detective Joseph Lundbohm, asked FBI agent John Connolly for help. Connolly told Bulger. Bulger then told Rakes to make Lundbohm back off, and the family signed the title over. The store was at 295 Old Colony Avenue. Public records show Kevin Weeks bought the property. In May 1986 the building was sold to Weeks, Bulger, and another person, and South Boston Liquor Mart, Inc. was set up to do business there. The shop was also known as Columbia Wine and Spirits and by its original name, Stippo's Liquor Mart. A federal forfeiture appeal is where the address and the 1986 company are traced. The garage where the afternoon visitors weren't coming for repairs Lancaster Street, near the former Boston Garden Mechanics had the Lancaster Street Garage in the morning. Most days around 1:30 p.m., Bulger and Flemmi arrived, Bulger in a black 1979 Chevy that he pulled into a bay, and the visitors came for them rather than for a repair. Dick Lehr and Gerard O'Neill describe that routine in Black Mass. George Kaufman, who had operated Marshall Motors in Somerville as a front for Howie Winter, ran this garage for the two of them. They had moved the meetings downtown, a short walk from 98 Prince Street and a couple of blocks from Boston Garden. Massachusetts State Police filmed Bulger there in 1980. The Justice Department still has the footage. The Winter Hill headquarters that became a church 12 Marshall Street, Somerville Marshall Motors, at 12 Marshall Street in Somerville, was the garage they left behind. Kaufman ran it as a front for Howie Winter, and the back room is where Winter, John Martorano, and Bulger met. The Boston Globe described the place as the Winter Hill Gang's office for gambling and loansharking. James Sousa was killed there in October 1974, after other gangsters worried he would talk to police about a botched plan to rip off a dentist with a fake gold sale. A mobster, remembering the room years later, said, "There was blood everywhere." A church bought the building in 2008. In May 2026 the Globe found it open as Greater Works Church of God Somerville. Reporter Danny McDonald went to a Sunday service and found purple seats, screens welcoming worshippers, and a mural of people being baptized in a river. Rev. Collin Green led the prayers. After the service he brought up Howie Winter on his own. "It's changed," he said. "It's not that way. God is in the building."
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.