South Boston is one of Boston's most dynamic neighborhoods, known for its city beaches, its convenient access to downtown, and for hosting one of the largest St. Patrick Day parades in the country. South Boston is also home to the
Boston Convention Center, the new
Institute of Contemporary Art, and has been the long-time world headquarters of
The Gillette Company.
In recent years, there has been siginificant investment and redevelopment throughout South Boston, and high priced condos are beginning to dot the landscape of the South Boston Waterfront, otherwise called the
Seaport District. Due to its proximity to Boston's downtown, this area is becoming one of Boston's hot new neighborhoods for dining, museums, and entertainment.
Explore and Discover South Boston:
South Boston was formerly known as "Dorchester Neck", and is better known today as "Southie," a largely working-class Irish Catholic neighborhood of Boston. South Boston is located between
Dorchester and the
Fort Point Channel neighborhoods of Boston and is served by the
MBTA Red Line as well as the
Silver Line.
Southie has been immortalized in many a Hollywood film such as
Good Will Hunting, where Matt Damon lived on fictional Q Street,
Gone Baby Gone and
Southie among others. It has also been the theme of many famous books such as
All Souls by Michael Patrick MacDonald, about his life growing up in the infamous Southie projects.
The area of
Dorchester Heights, surrounded by Thomas Park off of G Street, was the considered one of the key sites driving out the British from Boston during the revolutionary war.
Dorchester Heights was and is remembered in American history for an action in the American Revolutionary War known as the Fortification of Dorchester Heights. After the battles of Lexington and Concord, Revolutionary sentiment within New England reached a new high, and thousands of militiamen from the Northern colonies converged on Boston, pushing the British back within the city limits. In June of 1775 British soldiers under General Howe attacked and seized Bunker Hill, but in the process sustained many losses. Following this encounter, the Continental Congress in Philadelphia gave George Washington the title of Commander in Chief and sent him to oversee the efforts outside of Boston.
The stalemate in Boston lasted for months, only breaking when Colonel Henry Knox returned from Fort Ticonderoga in New York, having lead a team of sleds from the fort across hundreds of miles with tens of thousands of pounds of artillery to Boston. This added artillery gave Washington and his military council the firepower they needed to make a drastic move. Over the night of March 4, 1776, as 800 American soldiers stood guard along the river of Dorchester shores, 1200 American soldiers took
Dorchester Heights uninhibited. They began working through the night to build structures suitable to defend against the British Army. A large portion of the artillery, pulled by oxen, was moved and installed without notice by the British command at
Dorchester Heights, a point of strategic importance due to its elevation and commanding view of all of Boston and Boston Harbor.
In response, Howe planned on mounting a counter offensive against the fortified positions on the Heights, but bad weather forced him to rethink his plan. In the end he fell back from the city, and the British Navy evacuated both the British army stationed there and many Loyalists. Today this day iscelebrated throughout Boston as Evacuation Day (which happens to also be March 17).
