Learn
Connect with the people, places and stories surrounding Boston’s newest urban park. For a fun way to discover more download our scavenger hunts.
Freedom Trail
Pick up the Freedom Trail in The North End Parks. The trail is a 2.5 mile red-brick walking trail that leads you to 16 significant historic sites. Along the way, you’ll discover museums, churches, meeting houses, burying grounds, parks, a ship, and historic markers that tell the story of the American Revolution.
Leaning Rail Timeline
Along the southern boundary of the North End Parks near Hanover Street you’ll find a bronze rail depicting the diverse and colorful history of the North End through a timeline of quotations. This extension of the “leaning rail” -- a great place to rest and take in the beauty of the park -- captures the lives of ordinary, and extraordinary, people, from the Native People who lived and travelled across the region before the 1600s, to the waves of English, Irish, Eastern European and Italian immigrants.
Mill Pond
In the northern section of the North End Parks, a narrow granite line crosses the pathways and grass at the northern edge. This line marks the site of one of the retaining walls of old Mill Pond, a man-made pond created in the 1700s to harness the power of the tides and operate a grist mill. The pond was filled in to create more land for building in the mid-1800s as is illustrated in the Interpretive Map of the City.
Interpretive Map of the City
In the North End park, engraved in the pavement at the southwestern corner at Hanover Street, is a map that combines colonial and modern-day Boston. The map outlines Boston in 1775 and 2005 and shows how much of the land area was created by filling in the Harbor and the Charles River.
Interpretive Engravings
Installed along the edge of the Rings Fountain sitting area, these engravings illustrate the evolution of the fishing industry in New England.
Rowes Wharf Plaza
In the Wharf District Parks plaza along High Street you will find a series of 11 engraved pavers with quotes from individuals who immigrated to Boston from the 1800s to 2003. A wonderful “learning opportunity” for students of all ages, the quotes include reflections from a former Maryland slave and immigrants from Russia, Lebanon, Puerto Rico and Vietnam. All provide snapshots of their experiences in Boston.
Katherine Nanny Naylor Site
A marker indicates the site of an archeological excavation which revealed a portrait of Puritan life in Boston in 1660.
