The Fort Point Channel captures Southie’s highly enigmatic character: the many channel bridges define South Boston as both separate from and inevitably joined with the downtown. Here you see the city’s most extensive nineteenth century warehouse district, revived in recent decades by a community of residents, artists, designers, institutions, start-ups, and restaurateurs.

In 1850, this was a muddied tidal estuary. The Fort Point district came to life -- through the construction of wharves and piers and railroad sidings on landfills -- during the booming ship-to-rail mercantile economy of the late nineteenth century. Largely due to the city’s slow growth during much of the twentieth century, the district’s relatively low density and well-proportioned buildings survived.