I try to get a front seat in the bus because it is better for my travel sickness. We hopped on our allocated bus and there was one seat available at the front next to a female passenger. When I asked if I could sit in the empty seat by the window, she said she would prefer it if I didn't. She was clearly not going to be much fun to sit next to for a couple of hours touring around Boston, so we got off and were the first to board the next bus. We sat in the front seat and had the best driver and tour guide so the weird woman did us a favour!
There are lots of historic buildings in Boston. The oldest is Paul Revere's house built in 1680 before he was born. He was the revolutionary who rode his horse through the night in 1775 to alert the militia the British were coming. There's a famous but historically inaccurate poem called "Paul Revere's Ride". He was also the first person in America to roll copper into sheets. He was a silversmith and industrialist when he was not pestering the British.
Most of the old warehouses and large buildings in Boston have been repurposed as offices or apartments. In some streets the building facades cannot be altered due to their historic significance.
In the 1960s several public buildings were built in the brutalist style of architecture, mostly from formed concrete. The name comes from the French bréton brut meaning raw concrete. However, even some of these chunky concrete buildings are being remodeled into apartments.
One of the very clever things Boston did was remove about 2 miles of the raised highway Interstate 93 that passed through the city, and put it underground. In its place the Rose Kennedy Greenway was built, all at huge cost with delays, allegations of substandard work, leaks and legal disputes. The 10 year anniversary of the Greenway was being celebrated today and thousands of people were out enjoying the sunshine.
The city also had to build ventilation shafts to ensure the air quality below the city was not dangerously polluted.
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