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Thats beautiful Irwin! I love Boston. Your first bite of REAL food (not that crap in Phoenix) and youll realize what youve been missing all along and wonder how you lived w/o it for so long. Trust me on that. LOL
How far is that from downtown?
I know. They have real Italian restaurants there, not the chain garbage that you get in places like Phoenix.
It's about a mile or so. Very close. I am going to walk to work downtown.
Boston is a beautiful city! My brother & I visited about 20 years ago. I couldn't believe how clean it was! And the history! The people were so friendly. Remember, I'm coming from Philly here. Heck, I couldn't believe how clean NYC was! And I was always told how dirty it was.
Old North Church in the background.
http://www.photominds.com/users/ChrisB/Boston/Old-North-Church-Boston-MA-1/Old-North-Church-Boston-MA-1-600.jpg (broken link)
No freaking way! That's the exact same photo a friend and I were in when we visited Boston! (I'm on the right). We have similar tastes in photography I suppose. I notice the Mercedes-Benz in my photo was replaced with a Cadillac in yours though---I'm supposing Boston is losing some of its "wealth." LOL!
Last edited by SteelCityRising; 05-01-2007 at 06:53 PM..
Reason: Typo
As could be expected from my never-ending photo-posting fetish, here's some of my better photos of the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area. It's a shame people are abandoning these cities like the plague in favor of tract-housing. I'll do Wilkes-Barre on its own first to not overload each reply.
WILKES-BARRE (pop. 40,000)
Take THAT, Sunbelt! You may think you have the edge on climate and quality-of-life, but we have the edge on architecture! BOO-YA!
That sure is incredible architecture in North-eastern PA there.
I had no idea it is so incredibly architecturally significant there, some of the best looking houses and old buildings I have ever seen.
So Downtown Wilkes-Barre has both a movie theatre and a Barnes and Noble?
Also is that residential condo's in downtown Wilkes-Barre in those photos or
is it a suburban lifestyle center where they are so popular?
I dont see why any one would not like Scranton/Wilkes-Barre from those incredible pictures, low cost of housing, amount of outdoorsy activities and it being just a few hours from NYC and Philly.
Wilkes-Barre, Scranton and Seattle are all looking good!
Very nice, man! I love the comment about the sun-belt. hahaha Couldnt be any more correct if you tried. They can have their ungodly hot weather and bad architecture/food/schools/culture/etc.
That sure is incredible architecture in North-eastern PA there.
I had no idea it is so incredibly architecturally significant there, some of the best looking houses and old buildings I have ever seen.
So Downtown Wilkes-Barre has both a movie theatre and a Barnes and Noble?
Also is that residential condo's in downtown Wilkes-Barre in those photos or
is it a suburban lifestyle center where they are so popular?
I dont see why any one would not like Scranton/Wilkes-Barre from those incredible pictures, low cost of housing, amount of outdoorsy activities and it being just a few hours from NYC and Philly.
Wilkes-Barre, Scranton and Seattle are all looking good!
Thanks, MattDen! Scranton/Wilkes-Barre isn't all a bunch of puppies that excrete ice cream and $20 bills like I make it out to seem though. The architecture of the cities is absolutely breathtaking, but there are a lot of social, economic, and infrastructural problems plaguing the region. For example, while we were just ranked by Money Magazine as having the fourth-hottest real estate market in the nation for real estate appreciation, we're also losing population at a significant rate. Granted it has slowed down considerably in recent years, but there still must be something enticing people out of here, right?
Also, we're currently experiencing what is known as the "Brain Drain." We have many, many excellent universities in the region (Marywood, Scranton, King's, Wilkes, Misericordia, Penn State, Baptist Bible, Keystone, etc.), yet our population of 18-24-year-olds continues to decline at one of the fastest rates in the nation, especially those who have four-year degrees. College-educated young people don't want to stay in an area where economic opportunity seems to amount to truck driving, distribution centers, retail/hospitality, or call centers. They want major high-tech start-ups, financial services firms, etc. that will pay them enough money to cover their student loans and permit them to live a comfortable lifestyle. Considering the median household incomes in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre are much lower than both the state and national averages, there isn't much here to those with high college debt to pay off. I'm a realist as well---in order to survive in a city with a rising cost-of-living (due to the onset of an influx of NJ/NY transplants), I'll likely have to commute 2 hours each way to North Jersey or Manhattan for work in the future, potentially on the new commuter rail coming to Scranton. If anything, I hope Wall Street West (the location of satellite offices of major financial firms from NYC to NEPA to permit smooth operations in the likely event of another terrorist attack) takes hold and truly thrives here by the time I graduate from King's. Downtown Scranton just landed its first Wall Street West firm (Seccas), and I'm hopeful more will be on its heels.
The biggest hurdle of all facing the region are the residents themselves with their nasty, victimized, "woe is me" attitudes and personalities. When people move to our area, they might be met with a response from lifelong natives like "Why would you come here?!" The people of our region don't realize just how many assets it has and LOVE to bash it at every corner. Yes, we have our fair share of problems, but Scranton, in my opinion, bucks the trend in many respects. For example, for a city of 70,000+, we have not had a murder in two years. Our public schools are above-average, even for an inner-city. The downtown is undergoing a major cultural renaissance, fueled by a mix of Hispanics, lifelong residents, and new transplants from NYC/NJ seeking to "cash in." It's just a shame that I'm one of a select few college students who isn't going to be high-tailing out of here with my Ph.D. like a bat out of hell! The "Brain Drain" has created an intellectual and social hole for the 18-24 crowd around here (part of the reason why I'm having difficulty in finding a mate), and that needs to be reversed in order for the region to prosper and grow.
I'll be the first to admit I'm an Idealist by nature. I'll look at a condemned home on Scranton's worst block and think to myself "a little elbow grease could have this baby shining proudly again in no time!" Nevertheless, I think Northeastern Pennsylvania is on the edge of a growth spurt, especially as the "secret" gets out to more people from NYC/NJ/Philly that we're not a bad area in which to raise a family in after all. We may have been voted runner-up for "Armpit of America" in the 1990s, but Philadelphia Magazine recently dubbed Scranton a "hip" city thanks to its new film office and its affilliation with "The Office." People who have lived here their whole lives and do nothing but slam the city into the ground need to spend some time in overpriced, congested, materialistic, higher-stressed areas of North Jersey to truly appreciate what they do have in terms of quality-of-life.
Wow! The more I see SF, the more I fall in love with the city. Funny thing though, my friend used to live in Jersey City, NJ & she rented a house that looked like the house in the 2nd & 3rd pics, but the landlord didn't keep it as nice. The whole neighborhood was full of houses like that. Imagine if those homes were kept up like these SF homes - we'd have a SF on the East Coast.
LOL... that would be cool! I've heard before that NJ has homes resembling San Francisco's, so maybe it's a cold water thing?
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That's the exact same photo a friend and I were in when we visited Boston! (I'm on the right). We have similar tastes in photography I suppose. 
Scranton/Wilkes-Barre
I'll do Wilkes-Barre on its own first to not overload each reply. 
You may think you have the edge on climate and quality-of-life, but we have the edge on architecture! 
BOO-YA!
Scranton/Wilkes-Barre isn't all a bunch of puppies that excrete ice cream and $20 bills like I make it out to seem though. The architecture of the cities is absolutely breathtaking, but there are a lot of social, economic, and infrastructural problems plaguing the region. For example, while we were just ranked by Money Magazine as having the fourth-hottest real estate market in the nation for real estate appreciation, we're also losing population at a significant rate. Granted it has slowed down considerably in recent years, but there still must be something enticing people out of here, right? 
The "Brain Drain" has created an intellectual and social hole for the 18-24 crowd around here (part of the reason why I'm having difficulty in finding a mate), and that needs to be reversed in order for the region to prosper and grow.
