Boston's oldest residential neighbourhood and the city's Little Italy, the North End is a small wedge of land cut off from downtown by the highway (until the Big Dig buried it) and packed with red-brick walk-ups, narrow lanes, espresso bars, and family-run trattorias. Italian immigrants arrived in numbers from the 1860s, replacing earlier waves of Irish (and earlier still, the colonial elite who built mansions on Copp's Hill before moving out to Beacon Hill).
The main streets are Hanover, Salem, and Prince — all lined with restaurants and pastry shops. Mike's Pastry and Modern Pastry, opposite each other on Hanover, have generated decades of partisan argument over which cannoli is best. The St. Anthony Feast in late August fills the streets with processions, fried-dough stalls, and a cascade of confetti from the windows.
The Paul Revere House, the Old North Church, Copp's Hill Burying Ground, and the start of the walk to the USS Constitution are all here — meaning the North End is on every Freedom Trail tourist's itinerary, but the neighbourhood absorbs them without losing its character.