Back Bay, the South End and the Fenway

4 guides on filled tidal flats. The Back Bay was filled from 1857 to a French plan, which is why it is the only part of Boston with a straight grid and cross streets running in alphabetical order from Arlington to Hereford. The South End was filled a decade earlier and is the largest Victorian rowhouse district in the country. West of both, the Fenway wraps around Olmsted's Back Bay Fens, and Longwood is a hospital and medical school district with about four thousand residents living inside it.

What governs a purchase here is design review rather than zoning. The Back Bay Architectural District and the South End Landmark District both regulate what the front of a building may look like, down to the windows, the doors and the ironwork, and a commission decides. That is a real constraint on renovation, and it is part of why these streets look the way they do. The other constraint is the calendar: four universities, a ballpark and the largest hospital cluster in New England set the rhythm of the Fenway and Longwood, and the rents follow the academic year more closely than the housing market. Establish the district and the review requirement for the specific address before planning any work on it.