Boston Nesties
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
New to the Boston Area
Hi Everyone!
My name is Erica and I currently live in Cincinnati, Ohio but will be moving to the Boston area in July/August with my husband and my 7 month old son. We are having a hard time figuring out where we are going to live. I will be working downtown at Tufts Medical Center and my husband will kind of be all over the place. We found a few townhomes in South Quincy that we really like and we found an apartment complex in Melrose that we really like as well. I would love to hear pro's and con's of each area and how kid friendly the areas are since we are coming from not knowing the areas at all. Thanks in advance!!!
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Re: New to the Boston Area
I can't tell from your post whether you're trying to buy, but I definitely recommend renting until you can get a feel for the areas you like. Personally, I'm not a big fan of the south shore, but that's just a personal preference. I hate commuting on I-93 in either direction, but from Quincy you can hop on the red line on the T and I guess South Station would be your closest stop to work (probably a 10ish minute walk), unless you wanted to transfer over to the orange line and get off at the Tufts Medical Center stop, but that's not really worth it. Lots of families in Quincy, but I don't really know that much about the area.
Melrose is a decent town, lots of families there as well. I guess you'd want to go to one of the orange line stops in Malden (Oak Grove or Malden Center) and take the T straight to Tufts Medical. You can also go to the T website and see if there are buses or something that might be quicker.
I think if I were you and could find something affordable, I'd opt for the South End area of Boston. You could hop on the Back Bay stop of the orange line from there. Or try for the Cambridge/Somerville end of the red line (just avoid Central Square).
Feel free to ask more questions, and welcome to the board!
Rock mentioned the South End. I have lived in the neighborhood for about 8 years now and love it. (We rented a great apt. for about 2 years, and then finally bought a condo.) It has a real "neighborhood feel" and there are a lot of families in the area now as well. Great parks, easy to get around. You will get more space for your money in Malden/Melrose. Then again, from where I live, Tufts Medical Center is a 15 min. walk, or you could hop on the Silver Line Bus.
Cambridge/Somerville is also a great recommendation.
Welcome! : )
I don't know anything about Melrose, but I lived in Quincy for 4 years (the Wollaston section). I know parts of it are nice, but we didn't live in those parts, heh. The commute to downtown isn't terrible - my husband took the redline to South Station, and when the train behaved it was about 20 minutes or so. Any further than that, and it sucks - I commuted Wollaston to Harvard, and most days, I wanted to kill someone by the time I got to work/home.
And yep, 93 is almost always a parking lot - middle of the night, Sunday afternoon, whatever. We always left a half an hour earlier than we needed to, just to be sure we had enough time.
Before Quincy, I'd always lived west of the city, (Newton and Watertown, primarily, and now Belmont), and I much prefer it. And I completely agree with everyone else - rent for at least a year to figure out what you want. You may also want to check out places in Jamaica Plain - it's right on the Orange line, and I know there are some really nice sections. Or even Charlestown.
Good luck, and welcome!